I'm Considering Starting All Over With Daz Studio
Greybro
Posts: 2,608
Like so many of us, I have been working with external runtimes for so long. I have character files going back to the Mil 3 characters. The price I've paid reconnecting this old files in Content Manager preferences is the bloody Duplicate ID's error every darn time I open any saved file. I wonder how long I've actually spent actually pressing and waiting on that darn "Ok" button.
While I hate to abandoned all those scenes I put some so much TLC in building, if it meant aperfectly clean install whereby I could start using the render que script to run my renders overnight as I do on the work pc, That would surely increase my propductivity. Still, so much work lost. All my characters. While I know they can all be built in superior form for G3 without too much trouble, it still feels wrong to effectively kill at that old content. What do you guys think? Out with the old. In with the new? I am torn about this.
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Comments
Have you tried the duplicate id script? https://direct.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/79621/questions-about-duplicate-ids
Indeed. Sadly, it did not solve my issue. I tend this thing of this as a DS issue when using ANY older content. I think I'll need to make a point of only using recent content AD Daz Connect to avoid it in the future.
I had the same dilema a few years back. What I did was buy a new external hard drive and using DIM, I redownloaded and installed everything Genesis and future, and all the props I regularly use. It took a while to reorganize the props and stick all the clothes and hair and stuff in the vendor folders, how I like them, but it is so refreshing to not have to wade through tons of outdated stuff for V2, V3, V4, and the huge collection of freebies I had accumulated and never used. I still find that I have some props and sets I'd like to use, so I download those as needed.
I kept everything in place on my old external hard drive. It is really easy to add it as a new directory if the need should ever arise. I think I've had to do that about 5 times in the last 4 years. I'm happy having the old drive as a back up plan, but for day to day working, it is really nice not to have to click through all the older stuff.
May i have you double-check the paths that DIM, Daz Studio Content Manager, and Daz Connect use; I would only do the big "nuke" as a last resort...
I have lots of legacy and poser content and multiple runtimes also and have only had the dulpicate error a couple of times (knock on wood!) I recently got a new PC and wondered if I would have to do a total scratch install for it, but I just copied all my runtimes over to an external drive, got the PC set up and then copied them back over at set the paths and so far everything works as before. I can't imagine the amount of work it would take to start over, especially the pain of old scenes not loading because of path changes.
Wait, back up one sec,,, what render que script?
Probably this one: https://www.daz3d.com/batch-render-for-daz-studio-4-and-rib
Or the one on rendo.
I'm not sure why you would be getting this error, certainly not on Mil 3 and Mil 4 content. There was some Genesis 1 content that caused this, but the ones sold here were updated. Is it happening with any figure? Do you have a startup scene that always loads? Is it possible you have duplicate Genesis content in different content folders?
Yes. This is probably caused by actual duplicate content from various run times I've connected to from backups going back to the first install of DS I ever had.
That's the one!
I thought scene files were independent of runtime paths - as long as the absolute content paths inside the runtimes are unaltered it should work. Just tried to load two scenes from a DS installation with runtime on K into another with runtime on F, works fine.
The scenes work but I have the popup Duplicate ID's error which effectively stops the batch render script cold!
I'm not sure what causes it but if it's duplicate files it should be possible to correct it, e.g. with this one:
https://www.daz3d.com/content-folder-twins
Could be, all I know is if I load older scenes (4.5 saves) and there is one file path missing on any texture, the scene won't load and I get an error. I use a lot of .OBJ files I have modeled and other non poser/daz content. and found out this doesn't work for me till too late to organze better.
I need to face the fact that I shouldn't have every peice of content I own at Daz installed at one time. The resource requirements are ridiculous! This kind of leaves my old Rendo content out in the cold unless I just really have to have something in which case the Dup ID's error might start back.
Let it go Bro, Let it go Bro !!!
LOL!
I ended up moving all my content onto a (much) larger external drive on both my pc and my laptop as I simply ran out of space on the original hard drives.
I'm very glad that I had my new PC (a custom job) built with a 256GB SSD to put the OS and Daz Studio on, with 2 4TB SATA hard drives to hold all the data. I hooked up the new PC to the old one with an Ethernet cable and was able to transfer directly from machine to machine, putting the runtime on one HD and the zipped files on the second one, without needing the intervention of an external drive, and virtually everything transferred properly except for a few unzipped files in the zips directory that had too-long filenames. My old PC had two 2TB HD's and I was starting to run seriously low on space after five years of using it and some 4 1/2 years of running Daz.
I think I topped out around a TB with all my old Runtimes.
Save the various files that make up the runtime, auto_adapted springs to mind as one.
That way you can always go looking for it if you need it.
It is worth starting again occasionally.
Greetings,
I keep all my 'rosity content in a separate runtime from my DAZ content. I've only got ~50GB of their stuff. My DAZ stuff is absurdly large, almost 800GB, and that's with almost no V4/M4 or earlier characters or clothes installed. (DAZ Install Manager tells me I have ~50GB of DAZ stuff to install, that I probably won't until I get a much larger hard drive, and maybe not even then.)
I essentially did what you're describing when I moved to DAZ Install Manager-managed content. I did a big install-over, on top of existing content. It took a freaking long time, but it was SO worth it.
At this point, I'm not 100% sure I have a need even for Genesis content, and I could get rid of it, but most of it can be autofit easily enough and doesn't suffer as much as Gen4 stuff, so I don't bother getting rid of it.
-- Morgan
I want to be able to use my favorite feature of Connect, auto loading of any needed products without producing that infernal Dup Id's error, EVER AGAIN! Sigh. A fresh start just a different ideaology just feels right. Load only needed products for the composition I'm working on. Delete said files from Smart Content when I no longer need them for the next composition. In theory, so long as the paths in content manager do not change between content loads, I should never encounter the error right?
I hear you Morgan. It's rare that I want to work with Genesis first generation items. I was vehemently opposed to rebuying much of the same type content for Genesis 2 until I realized how much better that figure worked and looked than it's predacessor. With Genesis 3, I had to finally accept how much easier it was to pose than it's predacessors. Then off to buy all new content for it. The cycle continues very soon likely with G3. At any point past Genesis I think I could still have accomplished most goals with character creation, it's just the latest and greatest will always beckon. But, for me Connect was the real game changer with regards to upfitting old scene and character builds.
you mean like, re d/l everything?
if i could do it all again, i'd only put stuff that needs autofit in main dslib folder.
everything else in separate lib.
no eyes or hair with baked in highlights.
all the older stuff not in neat data folder, subfolders, none of that.