Daz Studio File and Folder Structure
Paintbox
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in The Commons
This discussion was created from comments split from: Daz Studio 5 development update.
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I do hope they take their sweet time into creating a better product package model / library system while they are breaking things. The way the folders work and product file placements, and it's metadata is just ... old.
+1
Old isn't terribly helpful in figuring out what you want to see changed, or how.
That's a fair observation.
I'll start the Studio 5 feature wishlist with
(and I feel like I'm derailing this thread posting this maybe a separate thread would be in order?)
Complete standardization of product classification system optimized specifically for Daz Studio.
Products failing to comply with the standard should be rejected by the QA team until such time they are compliant.
First...Remove and ban the use of vanity folders.
(example for clothing)
$item=Same Product Name Used in store sales page
My Library/People/Compatible Figure base/Clothes/$item/$item specific materials presets
A products' name needs to be consistent from the sales page all the way to the end users Content Library and Smart Content library.Some appear to have been named using a random word generator for each directory.Which makes locating your items difficult at best.
Some items are in vanity folders, some aren't.Some have names that have no correlation to the name of the product inside.
A screen shot of my current G8F clothing directory shows the absolute mess we are working with.
Please note the left column.
At least one vendor of recent products didn't even land their clothing products into the clothing directory for the intended character base.Simply placed a vanity folder in the G8F directory.
@IceCrMn I think your ideas are commendable for items moving forward. I've spent a fair amount of time organizing my content so that I can quickly find it. I would welcome improvements there. Renaming of all existing products seems unlikely, and it's probably not enforceable for content that comes from other sites.
3rd party stuff has been and most likely will always be problematic.
Maybe a specific directory structure called "3rd party content" (or something similar) would be a good place for it?
Unless the third party content is a set of materials for a DAZ product... then you want it with the DAZ product.
And that, and other considerations, is why I install by hand and put things in a place that makes sense to me.
Except for a small subset of products that need to be in a specific folder structure; I have separate runtimes for those.
Also, basic spellchecking.
Right now I have an "Enviornment" folder, a "Peoples" folder, and a "Vehicels" folder in my install directory.
At one time this was considered vogue so one could differentiate oneself from the "others".
Prefixing the folder name with an exclamation mark also moved it up the sort list to the top.
More exclamation marks moved it higher.
Turned into an arms race of sorts for a short period of time.
Those are just silly mistakes that should not pass any QC. Those could even be spotted with a simple program that wouldn't require but an hour or two to code including the coffee breaks.
Well, theer is some disagreement on the desirability of folders named for the vendor ("vanity" folders) but in any event that really isn't a DS feature, certainly not one that would be affected by the move from 4 to 5.
Correct, but I'm willing to sacrifice vendor folders on the alter of usability any day.
I can usually find what I'm looking for by the name I purchased it under faster than vendor name.
Maybe the vendors that want to use that naming convention can simply prefix their name to the product name?
Would cause issues if they were to ever sell it Daz.
Unless, of course, there was a "delete and sanitize the Content/Smart Library of the old product first, then install the new updated/renamed product second" type of feature in DS5.
Please keep in mind that this is just feature wishlisting.
I most certainly want Daz to implement the new QT change over first, and features changes after it's been stabilized.
+ 1 million...
An example; You are browsing through you G8F characters for which you see the thumbnails all at the same time, you load the figure that's named "Miss Pretty". Once you have loaded her, you want to see what kind of materials and make up options she has and you don't find a folder named "...\Miss Pretty\", but you should somehow remember that the product was made by "Bad Boy" and therefore the material options are stored in "...\Bad Boy\Miss Pretty\"
If the creator wants to identify her/himself by prefixing the folders, those same prefixes should then be used also when naming the character, otherwise it will again be a struggle to find the corresponding folder.
For the most part you can do that on your own. All you need to do is create the folder and subfolders file structure and open all the files in a text editor that has a search and replace option and point it to the new directory. Most editors you can open every file at once and search and replace them all at once without having to go through every single file one by one. Daz makes us name in a certain way to avoid conflicts amongst all other products in the store. Believe me, I've had to rename stuff before within one of our packs for using the same name as I did in another pack and made it all confusing for the end user. The text editor is a life saver for PA's. Once you know how and what to edit you can alter files and not have to do specific things within DS. All you would have to do it test it to be sure you created the file correctly. Or you can just create custom categories which is what I tend to do usually. My 150+ packs I've made have all been edited to fall a certain way in my directory. I tend to put all and only 3rd party content in the Poser runtime structure that I created. I unzip to an empty folder on my desktop and then move all the files to the appropriate folder structure. It would be nice to have something that could do similar I must admit.
If DAZ 3D had a formal folder, library, and metadata structures that were documented in writing that data could actually be used by a script to check if the new products comply. It's not difficult. The metadata and the folder names should have a lot of overlap for the higher level genre classifications.
I would like the ability via a global check box to have morphs unloaded but still listed in the Shaping Tab such that I could then check the morph sets I want to load on a case by case (product by product) basis. Likewise, when unchecked, DAZ Studio loads morphs as it loads them now in DS. Such a system work better with proper metadata.
Yes, PAs should have vanity folder but only one per metadata classified genre as there are countless "casual" and other types of generic clothing and other things. How many Santa Clauses do we have? Christmas Trees? Pumpkin products? And heavy forbid swords and graveyard products?
What's reasonable is we can't expect DAZ 3D to go rename files and folders and move them around now, after the fact, for 70K and more products, for some new organization scheme. This has to be done with CMS and metadata embedded in (all) the product files.
I think using a JSON package (like YAML for websites) would solve a LOT of problems when it comes to file management. Problems like naming or categories or lost+found files The JSON could be checked by both the server, the local database app and the program and if it is compliant to DAZ standard.
You could even have different file / folder structures by upgrading the JSON spec.
The way UltraScenery already works with JSON files is a good example of this.
And it would completely remove the current freedom to have your own folder structure - smart content really isn't, and I like to put things so that they're in a logical place for my workflow
In addition to the folder structure, the same problems with placement of stuff not following the established "standard" can also be seen in Parameters with the morph dials...
If there were a written standard, I think people would try to follow it. If there were a script to check and correct, that might be even better.
Consensus so far seems to be that a standard first needs to be established then implemented in a meaningful way with a system to check for compliance.
Not sure what you mean by "store issue".
As a customer all I see in the store is the sale page for a product.
I want a better way of cataloging and indexing them in DS5 where I'll be using them.
.a very big +1.
...same here, I have done it for a while but it does take a lot of effort and time. It would be nice top see such changes moving forward.though.
...I already do that with freebies
As far as the vanity folder goes. Daz requires that you not use them on Daz Originals. I've made over 100 Daz Originals and with no vanity folder I can't even find my own stuff cause it's all grouped with similar items that have the same name. PA's are free to put them in their brokered product and a larger percentage of people want them because it keeps the item in tact with the rest of the pack. You can still do searches to find say a cup and if the prop is called cup it will show up but it will also potentially give you another couple dozen. Vanity folders do have a useful role. One is people like having PA's and there packs all in one place grouped together so you know if your looking for a certain pack or prop that you know was from a particular vendor you can easily access them and find it. If there is no vanity folder you will have to look through possible dozens of props and go into it to see if that's the right one your looking for and god forbid you forget what it looks like, then your really up a creek cause you don't know if any of what your looking at is from that vendor. This is why you may notice that some props will have either the name of the pack or initials in the title of that prop such as ART_Desk. That will let people know it came from ART-Collab or ART-Collaborations. We use ART on all of are packs, and all of our presets. I noticed though that on some of the packs it was removed so they must've changed something along the line. I personally could go either way. Whatever the customers want but we have tried in the past and got reamed so bad by people for not having the vanity folder we put it back.
I think it makes a difference what products you make. I can see you guys having vanity folders. And I want, for example, Stonemason's stuff all together, But people who make characters or clothing, not so much.
The store front is where you buy the items that have the contents of the product. DAZ Studio just displays the folders as they are in the product. An overhaul of naming conventions to give better standards to folder structures has nothing to do with the version of DAZ Studio, and checking to ensure that new products are adhering to the folder structure also doesn't have anything to do with the DAZ Studio software itself. Unless what you are asking for is DAZ Studio to restrict itself to DAZ3D only content and use DAZ Connect exclusively to ensure no content that isn't in the store database is ever displayed. Which would still require the store database to follow set naming conventions in the first place.
I think Daz3D basically considers PAs to be just other Daz users who're sharing their presets/custom scenes. So if they have sloppy organization on their personal file systems, that's on them (from Daz's point of view).
Yes, you are correct.Something like I suggested could be implemented in any version of Studio.
...but since DS is getting a makeover anyway, why not ask for things that will make life better for everyone?
Of course everyone wants to be able to use 3rd party content, especially if they themselves are the 3rd party that made it.So yes, we need to be able to continue to use 3rd party content.
I had to decide a little while back which install method I would rely on.I chose DIM because it can handle plugins and betas, so I haven't used Connect for a long time.
I like to have characters and hair grouped by vendor as different people have different approaches, which don't always harmonise if used together.