Unintended Consquences
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Says the same for the other two products exactly as the one above... but different download options. I prefer the download now & install later as needed instead of the "Install Now" as my only option... it's not consistent.
I am struggling with this as well. My issue isn't so much that I have to use connect or that things are encrypted (although I really am not that happy about that and will probably never use connect). My biggest question right now is if I download 4.9 what is that going to do to the content library structure that I have spent hours upon hours setting up to my satisfaction? Am I going to have to start at the beginning and redo all of that or will it carry it over? I don't use smart content and probably never will, I like my neat and orderly specific to my workflow content library. But I have zero desire to manually input the 1000's of items in my runtime (many of them freebies) again.
You keep saying runtime which for all intents and purposes is a Poser organization system and has very little to do with Studio other than as a place to stick textures. Unless your really referring to your studio content set up then your poser files should be exactly where they were.
Something like 3 products are like that currently. And those are a special intro to prove that the world does not explode when you use those files.
No they all have the same download options, from 4.9. You're looking at the offline files, but you still have to connect through DAZ Connect on that machine onece.
Actually there are many many items for Daz in the poser side of things especially for the earlier generations. A lot of it is textures for hair or clothing. the actual hair is in Daz, the materials are in the poser side of things etc. And I apologize if I wasn't clear I am still fairly new and still don't always understand exactly where and how everything works, I want to know that the content library that I created to my specifications that work for my workflow will still be there without having to recreate the whole thing whether its Daz specific or if its in the Poser side of things. I honestly want to try this but I don't use smart content and I spent days getting my content organized to where I can find everything I need immediately. I have a day job and a family and I just don't have time to spend a half hour trying to find things that have been installed by DIM. I can get past the encrypted stuff and the if I only have to connect once then I don't care much about the connect thing. But the content library is a deal breaker because I have thousands of items both purchased and free that are scattered all over the place in no real discernable order.
Did you use the Studio "categories" functionality to organize your stuff into categories within the content management system, or did you organize your stuff by moving folders around in the underlying file system? If it's the former, you should be o.k., though I did experience problems with my categories/categorizations when I tried out the 4.9 beta, and I've seen a couple of people post about similar problems today when using the 4.9 release version.
I'm going to back up my content management metadata and copy it someplace safe before I try upgrading to the 4.9 release, just in case the category thing is a real problem and I have to go back to 4.8.
That is exactly why I LOVE the studio layout and smart content. It makes finding things so much easier and I have never nor will I ever have time to do some sort of creative organizing. I need to work without a search and that is pretty much exactly why I have never set up my own organization. If I have a hair product I want the materials to be in the file right there with the hair and not some crazy "pose" folder. If I like an old product well enough to actually use it I save it as a scene subset with the character it fits and the mat file I will actually use with it and have done.
Amen to that!! Ignoring the hard drive space issue of copying close to 1/2 a terabyte, I am really interested in the new file structure and improvements to Smart Content.
I'm like a lot of folks here where i have a huge library of stuff, but I'll have to say that lately DAZ studio has been looking less and less attractive to me, and this just seems to be one of those watershed moments where I had to take a serious look at what I wanted to do, and which tool was going to give me the best chance of achieving it. I love the Implementation of Iray. In my opinion, it's the greatest move the've made in recent years. However, everything else around it with the exception of the figures have remaind stagnant. The stuff I really wanted to have just isn't going to be available to me if I stay on this platform. While I've been hoping that they would ditch the antiquated way that clothing is fitted for something more innovative. It seems if I'm looking for that, I'm going to be waiting a long time.
So I started making a few strategic decisions. I'm not ditching the figures or the props. I think right now I've got more than enough of them between Genesis 2 and 3 to keep me animating for years to come. So right now, I'm actually going through the process of converting each prop that I have to FBX. It's going to take a few months, but there's really no other way to do it. When I first started, I was content to do still renders, but these days, I've gone beyound that and I really want to do animations. I spent some time in Iclone which was pretty cool, but like DAZ, they were intent on other features and left the animation stuff to just stringing together motion clips. That's nice if you want to make a MMD dance number, but the moment you want to do something a little more complex, you're stuck. So with that in mind I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to get to it from either place.
When it boils down to it, the only things I really still like about DAZ Studio when it comes to animation, are the meshes themselves and the render quality of Iray/Octane. Once I realized that, then all the rest of the stuff became moot. Carrara won't work with Genesis 3 and doesn't have animation controls like Modo/Cinema4d/Maya/3DS Max, etc. So I went looking for the most efficient way to convert the meshes I like so much into a form that's easily animatable and it seems that Modo was the best choice for me. Maya and 3DS Max are really heavy hitters, but for a one person operation like me --it's overkill. Modo with ACS 2 offers the best opportunity for animation that a hobbyist like me is going to get. I like Cinema 4D's interface a lot, but it's too expensive for my tastes. Maybe if DAZ makes signifigant steps forward with animation, but right now it seems they're more intent on trying to get everyone to re-buy everything for Morph3d and that's just not the way I want to go.
Very simple answer... Where is the manual? Where is the official announcement or page that lays this out. Either they don't exist or I can't find them.
I don't want to dig through forum threads with massive number of replies. I want the official DAZ, one page (or manual) that spells out what can and can't be done. Until that happens, nothing being said is official. Not even if it is a thread reply from a "DAZ_xxxxxx" name.
The fact of the matter is, as others have pointed out, it was repeatedly stated that there was no plans for DAZ Connect only content. Yet here it is. On Day 1. With more announced for the coming days. So now I have even more reason to question the validity of forum replies.
And I still can't get answers to two of my fundamental questions:
1. Does / Will Content Gatherer still work with 4.9?
2. Does / Will Reality still work with 4.9?
Those two items are fundamental to my workflow. Without them I cannot even try 4.9.
Argel I was no big fan of smart content before I got the 4.9 beta. It just never seemed to work right. But now? Oh my gawd.. Not only does it make everything easier to find it is just so much easier to see what is there. I can see what the product is so much better, all the associated files, and have more information about the product right there. If I need to I had to learn to check and uncheck filter by context sometimes but that wasn't exactly rocket science.
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/new_features/start#delight Update information and http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/69628/daz-studio-4-9-pro-general-release-now-available#latest the forum post
Don`t worry about what the product page say... I got all three new products (for free) this morning and installed it with DIM. They show up in DIM after purchase and can be installed through DIM without problem.
Thank you. Semi-helpful, but still missing the information that I am looking for. I.e. what specific file content is encrypted (so that I can understand the impact to my workflow), what the installation / upgrade process entails, what this "content migration" after installation is actually doing, if after installing unencrypted content with DIM does 4.9 then encrypt it, etc. etc. The technical details of the upgrade, not the happy marketing speak.
Dang, you really have my interest piqued now!!
Thanks for the reply but it's the inconsistency that muddies the waters... all three products say DAZ Connect but two offer offline files & one doesn't - why no offline files? There is no explanation for this on the individual product page. I skimmed thru the 4.9 faq beforehand. It's still unclear if I can make an acquisition (free or paid) & download the product to install at a later date of my choosing or not at all. I have tons of items I haven't installed yet... Whether I use an item or not is on me but it completes the purchase transaction between myself & DAZ. If I can't download anything until I'm ready to install than why buy at all? I guess the relationship between DAZ & the physical purchase by the customer needs to be clearer...
It's been on the front page of the store all day.
http://www.daz3d.com/daz-connect ;
There's a video there. There's a link to the faq. All right there. I don't understand the issue.
All that was right above in that link. It's in the rotating banner on the front page trumpeting 4.9.
Once again if you read the faq from the store front page, all the content you have already installed is not affected. Plugins aren't affected. That's been stated too. Content gatherer is a tool to gather **your** content for distribution, not others. So it will work with the content you build, but it won't gather the encrypted content of others.
The Smart Content pane doesn't and never has worked for me.
Attached is three screenshots of my DIM. You can see that more than half my content has no metadata, which means none of it will show up in Smart Content. Unless this has somehow changed with 4.9.
I already took days to catagorize these items myself, only to find the database collapse and all that work being lost. So I am not going to be doing that again.
Not to menetion the DIM seems to be out to lunch today. Took me 2 hours for what should have been a 5 min dl :( I tried to do a manual dl and it is just as slow. Looks like DAZ pulled an old server out of the basement to handel the DIM and manual dl's.
See my comment about the technical details being missing. And your last answer doesn't make sense. So will Reality still export the geometry files, or is that content consider "encrypted?" Will Content Gatherer still collect all of the geometry, texture, etc. files or are those "encrypted?"
In that case put a ticket in for the 3rd. But it's really not all that confusing, you still have to authenticate through DS before you can even use those files. All files still are encrypted as stated from the product description and you have to go through DAZ connect to download.
DAZ connect deals with content that is downloaded. Once it is in the scene it will be like any other content, so the geometry can be exported through reality, octane, etc. You can export an obj, make a cr2 or fbx. You just can't read the encrpyted files from the file system.
Content Gather is a content developer tool for your content on the file system. If you make the files and save them, there is no change. It won't work with DAZ Connect encrypted files, nor should you be gathering the work that other people created (geometry, jpgs, etc). If you didn't make it, don't gather it into a pack.
Content Gatherer does exactly what you are describing. It reads the the DAZ project file, makes a list of all the assets used in that file (textures, geometries, temporary files, etc.) and then places them into a zip file.
I then take that zip file to another computer for final rendering. Or I archive the zip. Depending on which step of the workflow I am up to.
So common sense says that it will not work with 4.9. Particularly if this "content migration" that I am hearing about (but is undocumented) is encrypting the existing files. Or if 4.9 is encrypting files downloaded and installed by DIM (also not documented).
Like I said before, if you made the content the program will work with it. I have the program myself. When I use it I use it with the content I made and there's no problem. You do not use the program with encrypted content from DAZ. Content is encrypted when it is submitted as a product to DAZ, not saved to your hard drive. I'm not sure why you aren't understanding that distinction.
Sounds like you are just not understanding. It is being used by many of us, not for original product creation, but for utilizing it with stuff we bought and are currently using. Has nothing to do with submitting anything, but creating neat little modular packs, instead of migrating huge blaoted libraries.
Greetings,
This piqued my interest; actually, they do.
At least the Horror Nurse is installed under People/{character}/Clothing/MadNurse/Horror, so it's a subdirectory of the MadNurse which is the parent product. It's actually _exactly_ the way it should be, with nothing unnecessary included.
Given your avatar, I presume you're looking at the PoserCF files which appear to be installed in the standard Poser location for Materials, which doesn't leave much room for customizing. Maybe that specific PoserCF set of files could be better, but it's nowhere near as awful and totally random as every single V4 thing I download from 'rosity. :( And that mess is not DAZ's fault.
In fact, 4.9 is working to fix that. Now the fix may not be to everyone's liking, because it involves giving up the ability to make a dogs breakfast of your content folders, at least for new items, but they are at least trying to fix it.
-- Morgan
You know that there is no need to be so condescending, right? You are not helping the conversation, only further confusing it.
I am going to follow your own advice: you are not a forum moderator nor a DAZ employee; so your responses are not official ones.
As of yet, I have not gotten an official reply to my question. It has just been repeatedly avoided.
I do understand, but if you're using the tool for which it is not designed, it is not the fault of the PA, DAZ or DAZ Connect. You should only move your files and especially not move files that reside in the Data directory. Those files should never be moved, because if the product is updated, you have broken the product in your install, and you won't have access to move vendor content with encrypted files.