Revisiting saving material presets
Causam3D
Posts: 217
For the last two years I've been dealing with Daz taking between 5-10 minutes to save a simple material preset to a mapped folder. I've been patiently hoping that this issue would be addressed in the next update, or the next, and so on. No luck.
Any suggestions as to how to get around this? It's very inconvenient.
Thanks!
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I too suffer from this (and have for 4 years now...not just with Materials, also with Scenes/SubSets/and Poses) and since DAZ seems to want to pretend it doesn't exist, I had to come up with my own way...
First of all the PROBLEM is with CMS database, and when a NEW SAVE first writes the "/Default/Saved Files/WHATEVERITIS" catagory field....
So one work around for a fast save that read about a couple years ago,is to right clicking ont content Library tab and choosing "Stop CMS/SMART" Do your saving then Right Click Content Library tab Again and Choose "Stop CMS/Immediate" and Right Click Content Library AGAIN... (getting old....) and Choose "Start CMS". So you will see that when you do this it will save the file in under a Second.... EXCEPT now you have no Meta.... So you're going to have to manually but the meta data in with the Content DB editor....
Now you could also Save it outside of Daz in a TEMP location for a fast save and then copy it into your "Materials" file for the Asset, still won't have metadata and also will the wrong absolute path in file, (though I'm sure you know daz will ignore this and use a relative path for the file..)
Well that gets old too...
So the MAIN way I do this now, when I am Setting up my Character (Subsets),Wearables and Material Presets is to Create ALL the files FIRST as a TEXT file in the Character or ASSETS Folder...
and then change the .txt to .duf
Once I have that done I go into folder in DAZ for the file I made, hit refresh... and I see the ! (icon) now I right click Content Library Tab and Open the Content DB Editor.... and then select the new "Material files" Up top, then again in the Catagories, and Then Right and choose "Add Custome Categories to Selected File(s)" I then go to a list I made in text file, of ALL the "Default/Saved Files/" Catagories that Daz uses.... and Copy this:
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Materials
And then Paste that into the Path(s): field, Hit Accept, Then Accept Again.... and THEN with the Asset selected I hit the (+) sing and save out a Material choosing the file made, and it will save WITH metadata in a second...
So here is a list of ALL the Default/Saved Files that DAZ writes when you are using the (+) sign to save ( there are more that it uses for when saving out as a Figure/Asset, and if you are having LONG saves while doing THAT, I would suggest NOT checking Set Catagory.... Because THAT is the same field that is causing the Slow down for the these Items... With it unchecked the Asset will save in a few seconds, not minutes...):
-----------------------------------------
/Default/Saved Files/Scene
/Default/Saved Files/Set
/Default/Saved Files/Prop
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Wearables
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Materials
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Materials/Hierarchical
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Layered-Image
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Shader
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Simulation-Settings
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Pose
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Pose/Hierarchical
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Morph/Apply
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Properties
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Camera
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Render-Settings
/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Light
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
It is Ridiculous to have to do it this way but it is MUCH faster then waiting 5 or 10 minutes PER first save of each item.... also if you later wanted to add a new preset to that file, you can "COPY" that catagory for the Item
from a similar one to a New MANUALLY created txt file turned into a duf with the method mentioned above (so it is visible in your folder in daz as an ! (icon), then in Content DB Editor with THAT and similar preset type (ie Material) that has Already been saved, open the triangle of the previously saved one under catagories and Right click on the"/Default/Saved Files/Preset/Materials" that it already has and choose Copy Selected Catagories to Listed Files...
Either way listed above requires alot of MANUAL work.... and while It will Save you time on the Saves, you are SPENDING time doing it Manually, So I too would love it if DAZ would fix this, The simplest way would be for them to create a Box that could be ticked to Save Metadata or NOT save Metadata. The Code line already exists as it IS an option you can toggle for Metadata in one of Riversofts Converter Scripts... (don't recall which one)
Last but not least there is Yet ANOTHER option... And that would be to create a new BAREBONES Content Library all together using the Content Directory Manager... Of course doing this requires ALOT of switching Back and forth between the new LOW ASSET BAREBONES Library, and your Main Library which you will THEN also note that everything you quickly saved in your new BAREBONES Library, shows up with NO metadata in your MAIN content Library.....So if you want them to have Metadata in your MAIN you will have to add that manually....
Which is why I eventually settled on the Method of just Manually creating the files myself and then manually adding the Metadata to them before I make my first real save in my MAIN Library.
Only saving a Mat. Preset takes a long time ?
1st, where is the mapped folder that you mentioned located ? Then have you tried setting up a My Daz Library locally and save your presets to this local Library path ?
For me as I said above it is not just Mats. It is also Scenes, Subsets, Wearables, and Poses. Hierarchical Mats,Hierarchical Poses, Shapes, and well all the rest ALL save as normal in under a second. So this isn't really about were the folder.
But yes, if by local you mean saving to the C:Drive, it doesn't matter, same thing happens if I add the original "My Library" that DAZ puts in the Documents Folder (via C:\\Users\\.......etc.) with Content Directory Manager, the same thing will happen with files saved into that library.
Also of note again, this is technically NOT a FILE SAVE issue, as the file itself will write instantly where ever it is saved inside the Librarys that are active in "DAZ Studio Formats", this can be observed by those of this happens to by browsing to the Folder(dir) before saving.... This is all about DAZ Studio getting HUNG UP while trying to write the "Default/Saved Files/" Category. and It also happens when Saving a NEW figure/Prop Asset IF "Set Catagory is Checked.
Also this is not an Anti-virus Issue (for one I have exceptions for DAZ Studio and PostgreSQL Server, and if it was it would effect ALL Preset types, not a select few) which brings me to my next point.
The REAL problem is caused by PostgreSQL Server (a thread of it) getting queued while trying to write that category. This too is observable with Task Manager open and expanding the DAZ Studio Application that is saving (I use instances which I can still work in while this is happening) and expanding it to see the PostgreSQL Server (Not Responding) Which can then be right Clicked on and "Go to Details" Where you can see the thread and use Analyze Wait Chain, to get a little more info...) Now I also mentioned Instances for a reason. The moment I saved that file I can use In my Instance while I "Wait" for the other to finish writing that Category, I will Also note that WHILE this is happening, NO Copy/Pasting of Files in File Explorer can be done, if you try It will Hang too and basically get Queued and do it when DAZ is finally finished Writing that Metadata to the "/Daz 3D/Application/Data/Daz 3D/Content Database. Of which Mine is currently located on my F:Drive, in the past I did try putting it back on the C:Drive, and the results where the same. Now a NEW Content Database can be made, and eliminate this problem completely, as everything will save instantly the way it should, But once you switch back to the MAIN, you will not have metadata, and STILL need to manually add it in. Trying to Save over that file that Instanty saved in the NEW "Content Database" will result in the same thing Happening, a very LONG save. So there really is no point in doing that for this purpose. Though there certainly IS, a purpose for having multiple "Content Database" locations...
So why do many people never have this problem? Simply put, their "LOCAL" librarys are not big enough. YET, and I stress that.
The current size of my "Content Database" where the Metadata is stored located "F:/Daz 3D/Applications/Data/Daz 3D/Content Database" is 21.4Gigs Total.
Base Folder= 21.1Gigs
1 Folder= 6.03Megs
12024 Folder= 6.03Megs
12029 Folder= 6.15Megs
16384 Folder=21.0Gigs
pgql_tmp Folder=0 bytes
I didn't mean C drive but the drives connected to your PC with pcie / SATA / USB etc. rather than network cables or wireless.
I don't think the size of cluster folder should be the culprit. I have 12TB Daz content (nearly 36K products with metadata), my cms cluster folder (condensed) is appr. 9.5GB. I've never had the issue that you guys have.
In general, postgreSQL is robust enough for such an application like DS, so committing a transaction of writing metadata to cms can be instantly done even with multiple sessions. You can check the db log to see if there's any significant issue ~~
Then, the size of your cluster folder is 20GB+ ... I don't know how many products you have or how many times that you ever did re-import metadata, etc. etc., but I'm afraid you may firstly give it a condense command with DB maintenance to improve its performance ~~
Using Condense Database from DB Maintenace used to correct the issue for the Materials Saves specifically, when the problem first started roughly 4 years, but would then DOUBLE the save time for Scenes, Subsets, Wearables, and Poses (at that time is was about 3 minutes per save, then turned into 6 mins after Condensing for those, and returning Materials to a 1 Second Save. Eventually the Material save began to take longer and longer again and trying to Condense again offered no improvement and ended up making them all worse. There is definitely not a simple Solution to this Problem from inside of DAZ.
As far as re-importing metadata, I did do that twice I think, possibly 3 times severals years ago while trying to solve the problem. Good to know your not having the same problem with that many assets installed. My installed DAZ Store Content is 34K+, not sure of the total from Rendo, would say roughly between a 10 to 12k more, and that doesn't really count content for Poser going back to Poser 6 days, nor the content I have created going to back to 3dsMax6 days. But total active content size is around 21TB. +/-1ish. Definity agree that it can't just be the amount of installed Conent, or you too would be having the problem.