giving up
sambucus
Posts: 42
I think I've reached the end with studio. It just doesn't work for me. I've tried uninstalling 4.9 through DIM and reinstalling. Before I had the starter packs for g3 but could not get the figures to load. Now I don't even get the starter icons come up. I really wanted the genesis figures because of the great content available for them but I just can't get them to load. Smart content sometimes shows all my items, sometimes just a few. Content pane shows nothing. I can't work it out so I suppose it's back to poser.
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If the Content Library pane is empty that sounds as if the paths are incorrect, if it's files that are missing - please post a screenshot of the Content Library pane
Also you can use DS without the smart content, just go to the regular content tab.
Personally I dont't like at all the smart content and category and DIM and PostgreSQL and DAZ Connect thingies. I feel them too much cumbersome and error prone. So I just don't use them and I'm perfectly fine with the regular content tab and manual install.
I never use smart content, it works fine for me.
I never use smart content either. It does sound like you are having issues with how its installing. I would check for nested files as well.
I never use Smart Content, I find things so much better with the reg.content tab. Do not use connect, I do not have any use for it. Only use DIM if O I want to install a DS public beta build. Do not give up, we all started at one point. It just needs some time to get used to it.
Hmmm I sometimes feel like giving up on DS as my current computer has issues. I am trying to do one last attempt to see if I can get it to work.
hopefully your problems are easier to solve than mine.
I always use Smart Content. I hate the regular Content Library, because it never shows any content because it never has icons/images associated with the files. And it's just one more place to look.
I like Smart Content but is there a keyboard shortcut to clear all selections so that all smart content will get listed with out going through all the trouble of clearing all selections with the mouse via the scene tab?
Untick the "Filter by context" box at the bottom
thanks
The Content Library pane always shows all user facing files that are installed and mapped properly.
Yeah, but that doesn't tell the entire story...
It references one or more folders on your hard drive. Those folders may or may not contain what I call "non-DAZ stuff", along with DAZ stuff. Because it's your content library. And content can mean stuff like OBJ files, texture images, documentation, HDR's, and so on. But those things, even though they exist, do not show up as icons in the Content Library view. Nothing shows up. Like they're not even there. Not even a default icon shows up. Nothing.
So, if your designated Content Library is SOLELY comprised of specific content stuff, with the correct format icon images, then it will show up. Otherwise, it's a bunch of nothing.
But why would you want to see "OBJ files, texture images, documentation, HDR's, and so on" in your Content Library - those are backend files, not user facing. Smart Content doesn't show them either. I'd be frustrated if my Content Library was cluttered up with them. I admit the HDRI's would be handy but I know I have a folder of them and can select the one I want to load outside DS. I could load them and save them as an asset and then catagorise them so I can see them if I wanted.
I don't care about "backend" or "user facing". If the Content Library shows a folder, you click on it, and it shows nothing, why is that good?
If there's an OBJ, it would be great if I could see it, click on it, and import it right from the Content Library view. If I'm doing surfaces, and I click on some images in the Content Library view, it would be great if I could see them and load them to that surface.
If it shows nothing, it is very misleading and confusing.
@ebergerly
I agree with 3Ddreamer. Geometry and textures are backend files. If the asset is meant for Poser or DS it will have images in the regular content tab. If the asset is not meant for Poser or DS then of course you will have to fit it.
Why are you guys so focused on "user facing" and "backend". I don't get it. An OBJ is used every day in D|S. What do you mean it's "not meant for Poser or D|S"? Same with texture images. And HDR's.
It seems you guys are saying you need many main Content folders? So one content folder for D|S and Poser stuff, then another for stuff that isn't "user facing" whatever that means? Geez, we already have Smart Content, and Content Library, and now we need another place to look for non-D|S stuff?
And that makes sense to you?
OBJ wil appear under Other Import Formats - but you shouldn't be seeing the OBJ files used by Poser format content. I can see that you might have reason to want to access them (and there's File>Import for that) but by design DS shows, for Poser and DS, only the user-facing files - the files that load the content with rigging, textures, morphs and so on - not the backend or asset files that are assembled by the user-facing files.
I like that the Content Library shows all the directories but I would like if it showed txt, doc pdf, avi, mp4 and other other files as then I could organize tutorial folders & user documentation and use within DAZ Studio although I admit it is not a tragedy to use the OS file manager / explorer to access those files either.
I can do that easily enough in Total Commander. In the Content Library it would just be in the way of the content I want to actually use.
It is possible to create a content library thumbnail that will open another document, although it will be a slow process to create them manually, so probably only usefull for a small number or if you have some way to automatically generate a bunch of them. For example, I have a file "readme Tofusan Replicator for DAZ Studio, doc00.jpg.dsa" in a mapped content folder which shows up as a content thumbnail. The file contains the following text, and when double-clicked, opens the referenced .jpg file using my default graphics editor:
// open file at hardcoded location
App.showURL("file:///C:/sean/3D graphics/objects/Tofusan Replicator for DAZ Studio/readme doc00.jpg");
Thanks
Other Formats will show wavefront object files and you can add 91x91 .png thumbnail by giving the .png the same name as the.obj
Hi, ebergerly. Please forgive ay technical misinformation I might present. What follows is my understanding as a hobbyist brand-new to DAZ a few years ago, pieced together in a way that makes sense to me as a back-end-ignorant user. I hope I don't muddle everything. But I totally empathize with you.
I started experimenting with DAZ when it was still using the Poser file structure, although I didn't know that at the time. I'd never tried Poser either, and I still don't use it. I could never find anything either, plus I was collecting all sorts of files that were incompatible with D/S and/or designed for obsolete figures - I didn't know any better and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find or use most of it. After a long learning curve, here's what I've come up with.
I do only manual installs now, because I've tailored my "My DAZ 3D Library" folder to suit the way I think. The basic D/S file structure is fine as far as it goes: My DAZ 3D Library/Animals (/Environments) (/People) (/Props) (/Vehicles) etc...
But after that, the vendors creating the content organze their files by vendor. Which makes perfect sense if you're a vendor. But if I just bought a Wonder Woman costume for V4 (for example), why do I have to remember that it was created by some one-off vendor I've never heard of and whose name I'll never remember? When I go looking for it, I want it labeled "Wonder Woman" not "PilotSomebodyOrOther." So now I reorganize everything as I acquire it - after biting the bullet and reorganizing my entire library. I also delete extraneous layers of folders. It goes, for example, "My DAZ 3D Library/People/Victoria 4/Clothing/Wonder Woman PilotSomebodyOrOther cr2" in case I need to know the vendor for some reason. (Under that, I change "Materials/Iray" and "Materials/3DL" just to "/Iray" and "/3DL." I personally hate complex directories.) Also, because I added the "cr2" (or "obj" or "pp2") to the folder name, I know it's there AND I know it won't show up in my content pane just exactly as you describe. But I have Windows Explorer open too, and that allows me to see thumbnails. (You'll have to do something comparable on a Mac.) It's not perfect, but I rarely need to do that anymore since most of what I have now is .duf format, which is the DAZ standard. (".duf," if you're not sure, stands for DAZ Scene Object Notation - or DSON - User Files. Commonly known as, if I'm not mistaken again, "user-facing files." I don't know what that term means; I just know that's what it is.)
Regarding your Object files (.obj), I know what you mean. Many DSON User Files use Object files - but not all of them unless I'm mistaken again. Those are stored in the My DAZ 3D Library/Runtime/data directory. When 3Ddreamer asked you, "But why would you want to see 'OBJ files, texture images, documentation, HDR's, and so on' in your Content Library? Those are backend files, not user facing," (s)he was referring to these components of DSON User Files, not to stand-alone Object files from non-DAZ sources. I know why you want to see them.
And I don't use Smart Content either; I suspect that's another Poser hold-over from before DAZ and Poser parted ways. (I could be corrected on that if I'm wrong...) I had just figured out how to make the Content pane make sense; I wasn't about to learn a whole 'nother system that was just as unreliable in D/S. I had too much else to learn from the ground up.
I know that's not what you wanted to hear, because I suspect you're not ready to give up on Poser and the two file structures are less and less compatible as time goes on, it seems to me. I wonder if someone who uses both platforms could talk more about it? I know only D/S.
I hope that helps you and Sambucus a little bit...
DSON .duf files do not use Wavefront object files, they use a .dsf file stored in a product sub-folder of the "data" folder. The "data" folder is not and should not be inside the "Runtime" as that is for Poser formats and DSON format is a DAZ Studio format. Smart (not! its tagged) Content is a DAZ invention.
Yup - I realized my mistake about the Data directory after I totally lost the thread! I've been looking for this for three hours (finding other interesting things to read along the way) so I could come back and edit that before anyone noticed. Ha! :)
Thanks john_a,
Actually I only have about 3 types of content...recent DAZ store stuff (using DIM), a few Renderosity items, and a lot of OBJ and related stuff made in Blender.
The DAZ store stuff works fine. Automatically installs, shows up in Smart Content, no complaints. Well, aside from the 12 places you have to look (Materials...no, Shaders...no Shader Sets...and so on...). And sometimes materials show up with Figures, and Props are in Accessories, and on and on...
The Renderosity stuff is a pain cuz you have to copy the Data, Geometries, Runtime, Textures directories over on top of your other content folders, and as you mention they show up under the artist who made them, which means you spend 20 minutes clicking thru all these folders looking for the stuff you want.
And the Blender stuff (textures, OBJ's, etc.) are just off in some other folders where I have to import them manually. I have no Poser stuff, so all of that is a non-issue.
It would be great if all of that stuff showed up in ONE location, with a clear and standard file/folder structure. But the way it is now, the Content Library is virtually useless to me. Unless I suppose I have to categorize some Renderosity stuff so it appears in Smart Content. But otherwise it's just a bunch of empty folders that aren't really empty.
What part of "Other Formats" are you not getting? This is the Content Library pane (not stupid Smart Content pane) heading for folders/libraries with wavefront object files.
I get it. Believe me. But the problem is that it is far less functional than the standard Windows file explorer. Yeah, it shows empty icons for OBJ files, but nothing for image files or document files or HDR's or any other form of content.
So why add another location when I can jump between Smart Content and File Explorer? What value does Content Library provide?
@ebergerly
The "value" the regular content adds, is it's simple and you have complete control over it. When you are in production you don't want to get stuck for "smart" content issues.
Personally I only use the regular content tab and manual install. I also keep my assets organized my way in a backup disk and I only install in the content library the assets I need for the current project. When I switch the project I simply switch the content library.
This way of working is good for production. It keeps things secure, light and simple.