Woes about product names and finding stuff
JonnyRay
Posts: 1,744
I've resisted trying to categorize my content library because I have 1000s of items there and it feels overwhelming, but last weekend I finally said "Okay, get over it and just start. How about all your architecture?"
I thought I'd start by looking at what was already in the category. "Architecture -> Indoors" and the first 6 things are all called "!Preload All"
*heavy sigh and abort*
Even if I were to categorize them myself, I would have the issue that "!Preload All" makes perfect sense within the context of the folder hierarchy in the library, but without that additional context to it, it's useless. I would end up needing a sub category for every product to keep things making sense. And then I may as well just use the content library folders directly! Or, I can rename the file to something more descriptive, but then the next product update that comes along with orphan that item.
Speaking of the Content Folders, I believe it is Daz's recommendation that they do something like "\Environment\<Artist Name>\Product" I find it frustrating when I'm looking for a new kitchen that I bought that I have to also remember the artist that made it or I can't browse the library to find it. I used to move all those things around myself by hand, but then DIM product updates would come along and I would miss out on updating critical files.
I guess I just need to resign myself that I probably have content I'll never use again because I won't be able to find it.
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Comments
I'm guessing those are from older products because it's a hard rule now that we don't name stuff like that. We have to start everything with the product name first, then we can do ! in filenames. So... Fabulous Kitchen !Preload All or something like that. So at least buying here forward you won't get names like that here :D
I don't know about the vanity folders. I know for characters, we can't have them, and on my props sets they weren't allowed either, so maybe those are older products also? Or maybe that's not a rule. I know it used to be the standard, but I think people have largely moved away from that.
Yeah, the whole content library thing is really the only complaint I have with Studio. Otherwise it's pretty incredible, and very well written and designed. But with the content library fiasco, people spend hours and hours or days and days manually tweaking it and then say "oh, yeah, no problem, I did it, it's great".
And the whole thing about tieing everything to the vendor's name is horrendous. And if you have any OBJ's or whatever that you made in another app it's a whole lot of manual work to make icons and add it to the library. And guaranteed at some point all that hard work will get messed up and you end up scratching your head about where everything is.
"Don't use Smart Content, do it all manually with Content Library!! It only took me 3 weeks to get it all set up, piece of cake"
Yeah, right.
They could be older. :) My first purchase at Daz was 9-Dec-2006. So I'm sure I have some "odd" stuff in my library and runtime folder structures.
I groan OFTEN at the insanity in the file structure - mostly from misspelled words leading to new root-level folders (environment vs environments vs enviroment etc). I don't bother changing them since DIM would have seizures or just recreate the wrong version on the next update. I can't completley blame DAZ Quality Control since I dump content from several other sites in my library as well. Having been a POSER fanboy in a previous life I can say that no matter how messed up my DAZ library gets, it is WAAAAYYYYY better than the horror that was Poser library file structure (i.e. a 'pose' an be anything from a mat file change to an actual pose to a new configuration and the hunting you had to do for anything was time-consuming. And don't even get me started on poke-through remediation!). HA HA!
what everyone said.
Mine is a mess. I was just thinking of taking each product and printing a page with my own category system so I know what I have and where , then create several binders with everyone and aslo a table of contents for each. .... it would taqke me probably 20 years to do it. By then everything will be obsolete, including me.
HA HA! Made me laugh out loud at work.
A perfect case of where NEEDING to do something, ANYTHING, is more important than the practicality of actually doing it.
If I’m doing something for myself, I go through my purchased products libraries and search for things I’ve never used because they are either no longer in the store or not in Smart Content and try to come up with something. There are sooo many products I haven’t used because I can’t find them in the library or the store... I wish Daz would have a page for all discontinued products so at least you could find them easily and know what they are!
I know, especially the little freebies during the major sales. They disappear from the store almost immediately. DIM can link you to the Readme page, but it's not the same as having a store page to look at.
Remember that you can see the categories in the Products tab of Smart Content, which will show everythign if you uncheck Filter By Selection. Of course you will then need to open the product to see which ndividual files it has in any given category but it will avoid the cryptic !Preloads and so on.
I love it when artists keep their stuff under their artist name. Makes it really easy for me since I have a mental picture of what these artists make - and why I buy them.
But it doesn't bother me if they put it in a folder under the product name either.
What really bothers me to no end, is when things are added to the library without following the same common rules as everyone else who makes similar items. For example, if evryone making Architecture products normally use the Architecture folder to start with, but someone doesn't do that and just uses their artist name outside of that structure, that drives me up the wall.
Luckily for me, I use Carrara. So once I load stuff in, if I like it and want to use it in my work, I optimize it for Carrara and then save it to a proper folder structure in my Carrara browser. I love that!
OH! And on this one, if you remember the name of the product and want to find it (I know it's a little longer, but...) go to Smart Content --> Products and type in one whole word from the product name that you remember. Then you can select the product and item in the product you want, then right click and Show Content In.. --> Content Library --> Mapped Folder. I use Smart Content and Content Library pretty much 50/50.
Content library Ugh!! This is why I manually install everything everytime . I unzip it to a file on my desktop so I can see the structure & content in it first then place the file its proper hard drive or folder location. Then when it comes time to find a item that could not remember the PA's name of but i have a idea of the prop or item names I use windows search at the top of windows explore browser. use the name of the item I am looking for as a keyword and bingo windows exploer will list all the files names associated to the files and folders you put in for the search with that items name including texture, DUF's everything. the only reason I do that way is as someone working with daz for animation that uses tons of 3d content for projects that has been the fastest solution for me when your building scenes for animating you don't want to spend a week gather assets for the project. windows search best way by far.
Well, the wonderful thing about using DIM, is that we can use the Installed tab to easily check to see where files are installed to with a simple right-click - no matter how long ago we've installed it.
I am from the older Poser Runtime era, where I install my Poser Content to various Runtimes of memorable names, but then I install all of my DUF (DS Content) to the main My Daz Library - but I only install those if the product doesn't have the Poser install - so I mostly try to by products that are NOT duf-only, but I don't keep that as a rigid rule anymore, like I used to.
Daz Install Manager - Installing Custom Poser Runtimes
Basic walkthrough of designing your own custom runtime structure
I do what Ivy described (even though I don't animate...yet) - manual is the only way I can reconcile all the different styles and find what I need in the future.
Doesn't always work as there are props that come with environments but I only need to check 2 places (3 if you count poser runtimes separately - I have a few of those by type too).
For my own products (not at Daz), I don't use the vanity folders (I add an SW suffix to the product name) since I find those get between me and the products when using things - extra clicks are bad m'kay. But I'm afraid I have used !Pre All before - didn't consider the need to differentiate if not used within a particular folder. I've started using e.g. '!Pre Tea All' if that helps. I like the idea of the product name at the beginning of each file - but on my layout that would hide all the actual object names under '...' abbreviations.
I thought Daz's 'Categories' was supposed to be there for us to rearrange our layouts as we see fit (though by the time we got it, I was already deep into manual installs (+ had rearranged all my poser and DS runtimes) and it'd take forever to set it all up again).
Personally I never understood the smart content philosophy. I always use the regular content tab and manual install. And I only install the assets I need for the current project. If I have to search for something I use the shop.
As for the content I own it is organized my own way in a backup disk.
I have considered simply making a personal database of all the stuff I have, based on a "tag" system. Designing such a thing would be pretty simple and straightforward. Designing and writing an interface for it would be a bit more work, but also still managable. Turning it into a plug-in for Daz Studio would require a bit of research, but probably be possible as well.
However... populating the database with all the information would mostly have to be done by hand, and my thoughts stop dead in their tracks just thinking about it..
If you look at the tabs at the bottom of the Smart Content pane you will see there is already a tag system, you can add your own tags, you can click on a tag to find all other items with the same tag, and you can do a search by tag.
Well, at least I'm not the only one struggling with this. :)
I wonder if it would be better for me to ignore all the default categories and just create my own? It kills me that I know I miss things (espeically in the Poser Format libraries) that I might use if I remembered I had them.
I love it when the pa's use Icons for their folders that sure makes it easier to find ther content. . I use icons for my own content folders. let me tell you icons make things quick finding a certian Pa folder for sure
An alternative would be to learn how to memorize things. It's almost unbelievable how much one's memory can improve that way. But of course, it doesn't solve the problem of having to browse forth and back to find the things you need.
Ah, cool - I'll have to look at how to do that :)
I make my own sub categories, and often deselect from the default, for example, I don't use defaults like product name or "real world" categories, and I label all my human figures and their wardrobe, hair, etc like this: G2, V5, V6, so I triple my chances of finding them in one search query since those 3 (and the other generations model iterations) will use the same wardrobe and hair. Why? because it is faster to type G2F or G8 than Genesis 8 Female. Sometime, I just type in 8. That works very fast. I usually add, like, "bootsFlat" "bootsHeel", and so forth as sub categories in wardrobe footwear.
I seem to get quite a few in Lost and Found, what ever that is, if I can't find something I look there, and deselect that category. I have so many there, it takes some one-time scrolling, and making sure I deselect from the Lost and Found, and any of its sub categories, and then simply click on my own at the same time and click accept. Then, it's done.
For example, Environments with damaged buildings, and associated props and click on my sub category "ruined". And may include sub2 categories: "temple", "cave", and "Egyptian", "Asian", "Greek", so that I can not only find products specifically made for 1 product but others that may work well. I try not to use more than 1 maybe 2 subcategories.
I recommend if you can't find a product in "files" pane" or "product" in the Smart Content, try checking the "Lost and Found" category. Go in, uncheck all the lost and found category and sub categories, and check your own. Then the product you knew you have will appear in the smart content panes. I have other subcategories, like crowns, tiaras, diadems, wreathes, and so forth that usually are not in the product names, but are included in the files/Smart Content pane.I have even made a category for specific scenes I'm working on. That is so handy. edited: I forgot to suggest to deselect the filter by selected item check box at bottom left in the Smart Content.
Yeah ... I used to try to do that. My Order History has over 60 pages of orders going back to 2006, my Product Library now has 63 pages, and according to DIM, it has performed over 3500 installations. That doesn't count things from other markets or freebies. Memorization isn't really an option when you need to memorize an entire encyclopedia of items.
To add to this, I will also create icons for products. The steps are pretty simple...
Let's say you have the Apartment Floor set. This will get installed to "\Environments\Architecture\Apartment Floor" with sub-folders for 3Delight and Iray.
The good news about this is that a DIM update won't undo your work since you're not changing anything that it creates/installs. UNLESS they decide to rename the "Apartment Floor" folder, then you'll have to rename your PNG file to match. This helps a lot when the PA has given their product a cool sounding name, but you don't remember what the difference is between Alatariel and Anarane just by the names alone.
..I did that the first time around as theI had no connectivity from home so the DIM was useless. Most of what I installed came from my installer arachives using the old Windows Bitrock installers. Hence I had a corrupted database from the start as there was no metadata on most of what I had so Smart Content was pretty useless.
After discovering last night that I had been reinstlaling Daz Library content to the wrong folder on the Data drive ("Studio3" [I still run 3.1 for certain plugins that no longer work in 4] instead of "Studio 4") all these weeks, I had to uninstall everything last night as it created havoc with the older Poser runtime structure that 3.1 uses. I also found some items installing to the C:/Documents folder which I do not use at all for anything (and is on the smaller boot drive).
So basically I have to rebuild everything form scratch...yet again. I don;'t have much issue with the 4+ library as I do with the older runtime structure as there naming conventions were even more of a mess then which is why I manually categorise the Runtime/libraries portion of the structure myself. As long as textures go where they should, geometry goes where it should, data goes where it should, I'm OK with arranging how I feel the content tab should be organised. "Poses" should be for "poses", not also MATs, & such. I actually follow the Daz 4 library concept to a degree. Architecture goes under "Architecture", Environments under "Environments", People under "People", etc, etc, etc. I place the MAT folders as a subfolder of the content itself, just like in the Daz4 library, so I don't have to go hunting wound for them I also rename the individual product folder in the Library tree to what it is actually called, not the creator's name or whatever. Yeah a lot of work especially when you have thousands of products. (and that's not including products from other stores or my massive freebie collection). So indeed, a monumental job.
I have seen too many instances where the Smart Content database becomes corrupted, and when that occurs, one has even a bigger mess to deal with.
...not good when one begins ot have memory lapses like I do (age and a few bumps on the noggin)..
I'm getting to the age where a little exercise would do my memory some good. It is fun to scroll through the store with "Only show owned" selected. I'm genuinely suprised by some of the things I own sometimes. If I ever actually sat down to do some rendering, I could make some cool pictures.
^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^
Yep This
...going though a second redownload (after accidentally installing a huge portion of my content library to the wrong folder) and wondering when I bought some of the products I see listed. G8? When did I ever buy any G8 stuff (like the Growing Up morphs, some poses, some clothing and a character)? I know Daz doesn't have a "gifting option" like Rendo has so that can't be it.