Optitex Dynamic Freebies - where to install them properly?

wargis

Tested some optitex Dynamic freebies and found problems with installation - they recommend to unpack files in Content folder of DAZ Studio - as I understood, it is not that Content folder within Program Files - DAZ studio main folder. So I tried to unzip these archives to Content folder, which is placed inside My DAZ Library folder (my main store of all content). But I cannot load them in DS, get the message about texture and other files missing, and invisible items with no visible geometry (although textures are present in the surfaces and opacity = 100). I  noticed that the inner Content Folder ( My DAZ Library \ Content) duplicates the contents of My DAZ Library and contains the same People\Victoria4, Support, Runtime \Textures etc folders.  So I transferred all files and folders of dynamic clothing to appropriate My DAZ Library folders (level up) and tried again, but no success yet, I get the same bug. Where should I unzip these freebies to get them loaded?

Richard Haseltine

The contents of the folder named Content should be in the actual content dierctory, so what you are doing sounds right. Did you merge all of the stuff in that folder with the existing folders in your actual content diectory? It sounds as if you may be missing the \Data folder, assuming that you have the Dynamic Clothing plug-in working (check Help>About Installed Plug-ins)..

L'Adair

Opening one of the zip files for an Optitex freebie I downloaded, the Boyfriend Sweater, I see one product image, (800x1035px,) two templates, (V4 and V5,) the license file and another zip file named content. Opening the content zip file, I see three folders: data, People and Runtime. In my DS 4.8 install, those folders are in the top level of the "My DAZ 3D Library" folder under Public Documents. Assuming the item you are trying to install uses the same structure, I believe extracting the folders from the content.zip file to the "My DAZ 3D Library" will install the product.

(I keep all products purchased/downloaded elsewhere in a separate "library" and have had no problems installing in this manner.)

wargis

Thanks, Richard, it seems I was really missing that Data folder - unzipping the archives put it in the wrong place. Now I just unzip them all manually and copy\paste all files and everything works fine.

SpottedKitty

A lot of people have got confused about this over the years — "the Content folder" does not mean "the folder named Content", it means "the folder (whatever its name and wherever it is) containing your D|S content files". The actual name and location of the content folder has changed several times over the various D|S versions, so it might not match the current defaults, especially if you have an older original content setup from an early D|S version; the exact name and location is set in your Content Directory Management dialog.

This is where it gets confusing; many of these old dynamic freebies are old enough to still use "Content" as the name of the content folder, which it was many years ago. If you just unzip the lot straight into your live content location, you are likely to end up with the situation you described, something called "nested content folders". This makes the mis-installed content invisible and unuseable, because everything is one (or more) folder too deep. When you install something like this, it's usually a very good idea to look inside the .zip first and see if it contains a folder containing your content, or if there's another folder level lurking in there.

Note that this is generally considered good advice for any freebie; some content creators are better at creating content than they are at setting up the proper folders in a .zip file...