Tips for organizing V4/M4 content

I've read through a few great articles on the forums about organizing Daz content using categories, and it's been great for all of my Genesis content.

However, I've found that the V4/M4 content can be impossible at times. Content spread between various folders (Figure/Pose/Props/Materials/etc) and often times the sub-folders are named differently (V4_Character and MAT_V4Character). Not to mention occasionally even after I categorize something, it shows up in the category as an empty folder.

Does anyone have any tips on speeding it up? I'm finding a lot of good stuff I've bought is slipping through the cracks (of my Daz Library) :)

Thanks! 

Comments

  • CybersoxCybersox Posts: 8,745

    For products purchased from DAZ, the easiest way I've found to figure out where all the stuff has been hidden without long tedious searches is to use DIM.  Once you've installed the product, right click on the listing in DIM and then left click on "show installed files"  That'll give you a list of every single item showing what names and folders everything is in so that you're not looking for textures under poses, figures in props or things that are just saved under crazy names.   For Renderosity products, the fastest route is usually to go to your product library pages in their web store under Account and then Item List so you can see everything you own (unless it was received as a gift, in which case it will be under Account/Gifts), then click on the product name which islinked to the product page.  Unlike DAZ, Rendo never deletes those pages so you can then go to the read mes and see what folders things are in.  (This doesn't work well with DAZ, by the way, as DAZ has the annoying habit of deleting all the read me information for products that are no longer in the store.)  As for everything bought elsewhere, freebies or items that you got as BOGOs directly from Rendo PAs... unfortunately, you're usually stuck with actually having to open the actual zip/rar file to see where everything is supposed to go.   

  • NorthOf45NorthOf45 Posts: 5,183

    It can be boring and time-consuming, in fact I think a definition of "tedious" is categorizing content in Daz Studio. However, once done, you will soon recover the time spent trying to find it otherwise. What I did was go through each order in DIM (chronologically, so you don't miss any), and methodically categorize every product one at a time (again, so you don't miss any pieces). Yes, the Poser contents are spread over a number of folders, but there's no avoiding it, that's how Poser wants it. 

    Using the Installed Files popup in DIM as a guide, locate the files in the Poser formats section of the content library and categorize from there. You can do the whole folder or sub-tree, copy and paste individually, or select files and right-click, select Categorize, and navigate to the category you want to use in the pop-up dialog, or make a new one somewhere in the tree. If there is a separate Studio Companion file, you should use those DS-native files (from the DAZ Studio Formats section) instead of the Poser equivalents for the categories. You don't have to segregate Poser and Studio files in the category folders, since they are just references to the originals.

  • I have have spent an enormous amount of time installing all Gen 4 and older content like this and I am so glad I did! 

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7V9X9tWy8

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246

    A lot depends on how much time you're prepared to put in, and whether you use the various Studio-provided shortcuts. By which I mean the stuff that links to metadata or shows up in smart content or whatever.

    I don't use any of that stuff, so when I needed to rebuild my runtimes I consolidated all the files in Library folders into *one* master product folder. Geometry files still need to be in the Geometry folder. Textures still need to be in the Textures folder, but if you are using the product in Studio, the program doesn't care where all the rest of the files actually are, so go ahead and put a subfolder for the props inside the product folder, and other subfolders for the Poses, or Materials, or whatever other things the original organization scatters across half a dozen different libraries. Makes things much easier to find all the third party add-ons if they are all in the master folder. 

    But things like smart content are not going to be able to find any of it, so you have to decide whether it's worth the extra work to have things where *you* put them.

  • evacynevacyn Posts: 950

    Thank you everyone for the suggestions! :) 

     

    BornTechy said:

    I have have spent an enormous amount of time installing all Gen 4 and older content like this and I am so glad I did! 

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7V9X9tWy8

    I think this seems like the best plan (given that I have all of the Genesis content organized) even if it is a bit daunting to go back over all of the V4/M4 stuff now to do it. 

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