I have eliminated all PA folders!
Ron Knights
Posts: 2,029
in The Commons
I rearranged my content again, and eliminated all PA folders.
There were absolutely no problems with any content.
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because Smart Content doesn't work for me anyway, I quite happily moved everything to folders that suit me, in my case things are ander PA names like Predatron or Stinemason instead pf being all over the place such as props, vehicles, environments, environments Architecture, Environments Arvhitecture DAZ Originals etc.
I do recall suggesting you at least copy them to where you want as that won't break Smart content
I think I remember your suggestion. I never use Smart Content. We have that much in common.
I am in this club. I've also eliminated pa folders and don't use smart content.
As long as you don't change the names of anything in your data and runtime folders, or move anything within them, you are ok. Daz Studio used the Textures folder under the Runtime folder. You cannot change anything in the Texture folder. either.
Within your Library folder, name all of the other folders anything you want to.
So, I have in my Library folder, I have:
Data
Genesis 3
Genesis 8
Genesis 9
Props
Runtime
A very simplified listing, for sure LOL
So, in all folders EXCEPT "Data" And "Runtime," I name my folders anything I want to. :)
I have always manually installed my content because that is the only way I can remember where my things are.
I even have "Theme" folders under all of my main folders. I have my Halloween stuff in one folder, Christmas stuff in another. Further catagorized within those folders.
I routinely reorganize the Poser Libraries folders.
After 20 years, I finally have a system I like. :)
It has taken a long time to get them where I can remember what I have.
I am a stickler for backing up my files, as well!!
If I could just say something with regard to the presence of 'Vanity' folders from the point of view of a freebie creator.
I am aware that everyone likes to put all their stuff in thier own system. The trouble, from my point of view, is that there is more than one system, and I don't know what yours is. If there was one, mandated and DOCUMENTED system, I'd use it. But there isn't and I don't know your system, so while I'd like to, I can't pre-organise the stuff to suit. So, what to do? Well, the obvious thing is to put it in a folder associated with me - called by some a 'Vanity Folder' - so you know where to look for it and can find it easily until you move it to where you want it. That, I fear, is the best I can do, and it's not done for reasons of vanity, it's done so you won't lose the stuff before it gets moved into your system.
And I understand DAZ PA's are explicitly required to use folders with their names on. It's not the PA's 'vanity' making them use the system, it's DAZ QA.
Regards,
Richard
I still have a question about this, especially with characters. When Daz is creating a figure and has to go through every file looking for morphs, does it end up with duplicate morphs because a copy of an expression DUF is found in the "good location" and also in the "default location"?
Every time I hear PAs and others complaining about DAZ QA requirements I remember QA (or whoever make QA policy) probably doesn't use Daz to do work. And this is probably why they enforce some odd requirements.
The worst is buying an environment, such as a furnished apartment, and all the props are arranged in a single group without any other hierarchy. Madness. Why aren't the nickknacks children of the shelves where they are located? Why is chair1 through chair6 not arranged as children of the dining table, which should be in the kitchen? Is it worth making a ticket?
Don't worry Richard. I'm not dinging anyone for how they do things on the user facing side. For my own sanity and for having a hope of using the stuff I've got, reorganization has to happen!
Sadly, smart content didn't work out for me and there can be problems backing up and reloading a database. So that's not anything I want to bother with. My system, such as it is, can be backed up and plopped onto any computer or drive anywhere and will work the same every time as long as DS can find it.
The actual morphs and expressions live in the data directory. As mentioned above, best to leave that alone. The files in the user facing directories are saved presets that apply various morphs and expressions to quickly shape the figure.
Also worth noting, there is a lot more weirdness in the setup of the poser era figures. Whatever complaints we may have about Daz as standards, those standards do seem to help keep data organized and consistent. Trouble sometimes comes when loading assets from other sites.
I just organize mine into custom categories. I don't have to worry about moving or breaking anything and I can set things up exactly how I want them. I can also put things into multiple categories. For instance, I have all the jewelry from all the clothing not only with the clothing but the necklaces go under, for instance, G8F FEMALE, CLOTHING, JEWELRY, NECKLCACES. So if I am looking for a necklace when kit bashing, I go directly there instead of hunting through all of the G8F clothing.More info here. I actually did a whole tutorial on this a while back
1. How I organize my Custom Categories - About half way down the page is where it starts. There is also more examples on the next page.
the point is everyone has their own workflow
while Ron and I differ on how we prefer stuff organised, as long as we can organise it the way we prefer, that's all that matters
and nobody should enforce their choices on others
Well said, Wendy
Couldn't agree more. My Poser folders are an utter mess, but I'm not too bothered because I rarely delve there.
Regards,
Richadr
Richard, I stopped using the word "Vanity" awhile ago. I finally admitted that it had a negative connotation to PAs like yourself.
I totally respect the PAs. I just get upset when I have to go through so much work just to find things.
Right now I am going through the Poser content in my collection.
Things were particularly brutal when we dealt with Generation 3 (Michael 3, etc.) We had all those DAZ folders, etc.
Well, cool for you, but I have had the problem.
Before Daz implemented their QA policy about this, I had an issue where two PAs had used the same name for characters they made, and had a file clash as a result. (Long enough now that I don't actually remember what those characters were even called any more, which is probably indicative of the fact I've barely used them).
Daz needed to set up some convention to avoid this, and given that PA names are already established as unique, it's simpler to use those to avoid product clashes rather than expect PAs to check a database of every existing Daz product before they start developing (particularly as that wouldn't even account for the possibility of a clash with WIP products that aren't in the database).
I will note that correctly resaving a product is a non-trivial job (while end users can mostly get away with moving around user-side library files, this is technically incorrect; all the preset files internally list their expected library location, and very occasionally you can have problems if this doesn't agree), so knowing your filepaths are unique from the start is important, and it would be poor practice to expect vendors to fix products after the fact when it could have been avoided from the start.
I mean, I agree that everyone has a different workflow and that it's good that we can largely organize everything according to our whims.
But...DAZ CAN obviously enforce some standard structures. So I am a little miffed they enforce largely (to me) superflous folders named after PA's instead of preventing folder structures like "Environments/Architecture/DAZ Originals/Artist Name/DAZ Originals". Or having the 'Materials' folder randomly named 'Materials', 'Material', 'Mats', 'MATS' oder 'Iray Mats'. Sometimes there is a sub-folder named 'Iray'. Somethimes there isn't. I haven't seen other kinds of materials in years so why do we need it? Do I really require a link to the PA store I just bought the product from?
I don't need PA folders, but I understand they may be useful for some people. Had I set up my library in a different way, I might use them myself. It's OK. But why is that the place where DAZ puts their foot down when there are so many other things they could streamline? It just seems so...unprofessional.
I started re-organizing my Poser content back with Poser 4.
Does anyone remember when the Library structure was very limited? Many people resorted to mass-renaming of file extensions.
They placed Pose files into other Library folders with the new file extension names. Pose files might be in the Light Library, etc.
Then Hogwarden introduced what became Pbooost. We could switch between banks of library folders. But there were problems.
We discovered that numerous items had incorrect file references.
Hogwarden introduced CorrectReference Pro (CRPro) which fixed bad file references.
CRPro didn't achieve "official recognition." I communicated with one DAZ employee maybe 15 years ago. I was told DAZ's content was "just fine."
Over the years we got past the Library folder limitations, etc. Then, of course we got DAZ Studio.
I started reorganizing my DAZ (Poser) content back around 2000. It's been difficult to come to terms with the current structures.
'Vanity' folders are the textbook example of a simple solution preventing a problem (name conflicts due to two products by different artists having the same name) leading to people thinking that solution is useless because, well, they don't have any problem.
As an example, they are two Genesis 9 character named Ursula on Daz3D.com and a search on common first name will likely lead to multiple results either on one store alone or accross all the store, none which are conflicting with each other because by using a folder named after themselves, each artist has access to all first names in existence, will only have to pay attention to what they have already released and not to what every other artists have released / are releasing.
And while characters' names are likely the most prone to conflict (after all, many real people are sharing a first AND a last name), it can happen on other kind of products too.
Shorthands like MSO for Mousso, SU for Sue Yee, etc, are also used to prevent name conflicts, at the Smart Content level though (it's also useful at the store level considering the way the URL are built), because AFAIK, product's names have to been unique too.
Regarding your folder structure example, if the artist used that structure to create the product, it's not raising any error while loading that product, so while it's something that will likely be fixed if you opened a ticket, it may not have been seen by Daz QA when they checked it (they should have caught it, but with close to 400 monthly products released monthly on Daz3D.com, errors are prone to happen).
I prefer to leave DAZ items in whichever folder the PA chose. That way, in the unlikely event that I can't find something, I can manually re-download the file(s) from DAZ, and look inside the ZIP to see which folders are used for that product.
I've done the checl-the-zip thing a number of times, too. Or looked at the Readme link, that the Daz-Deals pluggin inserts, to see if that listes the location.
@elor Which is why I opt for a hybrid solution: change the folder name to an artist identifier then the product - something like mousso/riley becomes MSO Riley. I just want all the products on the same level so I can scroll through in one pass. Incidentally, no, I haven't had problems with naming collisions.
If you use DIM to install your products you can just open it , go to installed, type in the name of what you are looking for and click on the little "i" and it will take you to the page that tells you where everything is.
You clearly understand wrong, because some PAs use named folders, others put a short prefix on the name of everything they create, and others don't do either. So there can't be any official policy being applied here.
Someone has missed the point that I made at the beginning of this thread.
I took over 20 years of DAZ products. I eliminated every single "PA" folder. That includes both DAZ Studio & Poser content.
There were no conflicts.
Looking at their file lists on the Daz documentation site, every one of today's new releases follows this as a standard except for KindredArts' Camera/Lighting set...
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/112740/file_list
... which is creating a new top category for G9 anyway, because it doesn't belong under the general lighting category (as the presets are specifically for G9) nor under any standard category like Accessories/Characters/Clothing/etc that G9 already has, so file path clashes are exceedingly unlikely because of that unique pathing.
While it has not *always* been a policy, evidence is pretty compelling that it is a standard that is now applied.
(I will note that in some cases, items that have been bought out by Daz can remain in the release queue for months or years, so it's *possible* some more newly released items may have been submitted prior to changes to standards).
And as people have said in response, that is a single anecdote that cannot involve an exhaustive collection of everything ever released by Daz, because there are known cases of such clashes happening.
Daz has a policy for handling naming. If people are willing to put the work in, and resolve any conflicts or other issues that do arise, then they are free to modify it as they wish using any of the various options available. This isn't a matter of right and wrong but of choice, priorities, and workflow. Please don't turn it into a battle.
What method do you use to install your content? If you install with DIM, you will likely encounter issues with add-ons for a product or an update for a product. You'd be best to install everything manually.
I've done a three-pronged approach to installing content.
1.) I use DIM to create a default Runtime Collection. (Most recently "DAZ All.") That has my entire DAZ content collection.
2.) I copy that collection over to a new folder. (In this case, it's "All Ron.")
3.) I rearrange the "facing files" to my liking. I eliminate every PA folder.
There are no conflicts. None whatsoever.
I think some people only see the default DIM installations. So they can only guess at what happens.
Edited to add:
I use this method because, quite frankly, I cannot effectively use DAZ Studio with the "default" organization method.
I want to "make art." I don't want or need databases, Smart Content, etc.