Beta for DazCentral, your new Content Manager

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  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,223
    Tugpsx said:

    Any fix for DC stating that Studio is not instaled. I have several versions of studio installed and DIM usually install my content correctly. i noticed that the folder location is using / instead of \ on windows. i wonder if this is contributing to that issue. Also noted that some of the "default" folders dont match up. Will try to customize locations to see if i can get it resolved.

    / is a valid separator in Windows

  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,247
    Tugpsx said:

    Any fix for DC stating that Studio is not instaled. I have several versions of studio installed and DIM usually install my content correctly. i noticed that the folder location is using / instead of \ on windows. i wonder if this is contributing to that issue. Also noted that some of the "default" folders dont match up. Will try to customize locations to see if i can get it resolved.

    / is a valid separator in Windows

    I've had Windows reject it in search paths

  • Hey.  

    Please read this with an inner voice of mild concern.  Do not use inner sarcasm voice, or any derogatory tone, because this isn't a rant.  It's simply feedback, my impression, and a suggestion that would actually make this a favorable thing.  smiley   Onwards...

    I was less than impressed with Daz Central.  The email that pointed me to it sounded promising.  I downloaded and installed it.  Okay.  No, not so okay.

    One of the features is to have the tutorial videos available on the Dashboard in an easy to see location.  So I picked the first one, and was highly disappointed.  Here's the video it eventually landed me at on YouTube:  

    image

    For those who don't wish to click it, it's a 2016 tutorial showing an extremely outdated UI that looks nothing like today's UI.  In the comments that are years old, people were asking for an up to date tutorial please, and of course, now it's 2020 and at the time of this post, hasn't been updated in the least.  That killed all interest I've had in wanting to watch any other tutorials.  

    Next disappointment was showing me my current product purchases, and I can open them in Daz Studio 4.12 with one click.  Tried it, it works.  However, I could do the same thing in two clicks.  I can click to open Daz, then click the 'new' tagged product within Daz itself, on the products pane that is already open when Daz loads.  So they saved me one click, and perhaps a few inches on the mouse wheel to scroll through products to find the 'new' tag, if I was tag hunting.  I know what I bought by name, actually, and I find it easily regardless.  Still just two clicks.  Is the cost of an entire program development really worth only one click?  

    Now for a suggestion... why not actually put in a feature that isn't available in Daz Studio itself?  Like the ability to go to your saved files and delete a saved file and everything related to it in one click?  As of right now, you can't delete it.  You see, Daz is the only program I know where a save file isn't easy to get rid of.  I can load up a 20 year old program, click delete saved file/saved game/saved document/saved whatever, and it's gone, confirmation dialog or not.  I can load up a relatively new program and do the same thing.  Saved file/saved game/saved document/saved database/saved image/saved whatever, and it's gone.  No lingering thumbnails with error reporting hanging out anywhere.  

    Except for Daz Studio.  

    I looked it up once, a while back.  I have to delete the DUF, go into library whatever, find the related files, delete them, find another spot... yadda yadda yakity smackety and you know the rest, to delete just one old scene that I no longer use.  Because of this, I am highly reluctant to save any scene, because once it's there, I guess it's there forever, as I really don't have the time to become a coder to hunt down all the bits and pieces that Daz Studio will report as a prolem that's left over through a thumbnail connection that will never vanish otherwise.  

    I just want to right click the saved file in the saved files area, and choose a delete option that doesn't exist as of today, and that be that and it's gone, thumbnail, DUF and any other bits of code connected to it gone as well.  Or have that doable on Daz Central.  If so, I'll reinstall the nearly useless thing and be happy for that feature all by itself. 

    Thank you for your valuable time.  smiley

    Please note:  The email that was sent to me did not include a single word that this program was in beta.  I put the post above in the Product Suggestions forum, thinking it was a finished item development wise.  You may or may not understand how I got slightly jaded over the function issues I noted above.  If they had properly noted the status of the program, I may have been a touch less 'put off' from it.   

  • Sorry, but no. I don't like it when a program knows who I am without logging in and more importantly downloads and installs content on a random drive without asking. I will stick with DIM.

  • LoonyLoony Posts: 1,798
    edited May 2020

    @Daniel A Roberts

    That is HOW my Daz3d looks.

    You can change the style in daz3d.

    So for me does the linked Video show the current Style ;) I use the 0815 style from the base and... I can work good with it, the dark Skin remembers me to the new Gimp style or to Photoshop/Affinity.

    I am just talking about the criticsm about the Video not showing a current style, thats all I talk about :)

     

    Post edited by Loony on
  • I'm not a new user but I just built a new PC so I'm trying to give Daz Central a go, it might be something simple but I do like the idea of being able to see a picture of what I'm installing. The one thing I'd like to know is if it can install products using the install files I got using DIM on my old PC, instead of having to download them all again. If not, then yeah, I'll stick to DIM, I definitely don't want to download almost 4000 files again.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565

    DIM can download thumbnails for the products.

  • DIM can download thumbnails for the products.

    Hmm, and see them inside DIM? If that's so, then great because I'm thinking I'll stick to DIM. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to use the install files anyway and I just got the "not finding Daz installed issue" too, despite installing it from Daz Central just a moment ago...

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    For those who don't wish to click it, it's a 2016 tutorial showing an extremely outdated UI that looks nothing like today's UI.

    "Today's UI" isn't an absolute. The current default UI is nothing more than that; a default setting that DAZ considered to be a good compromise to make things easier for beginners to the program. I think part of the problem with this is that many newcomers just never notice the options, and many of us old hands preferred the old style to the new one. I'm one of those; in fact my UI looks even "older" than the one in the video, because I was perfectly satisfied with the layout as it was before D|S4.0 so recreating it and saving a preset was the first thing I did.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565

    DIM can download thumbnails for the products.

    Hmm, and see them inside DIM? If that's so, then great because I'm thinking I'll stick to DIM. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to use the install files anyway and I just got the "not finding Daz installed issue" too, despite installing it from Daz Central just a moment ago...

    Yes, select all the products you want thumbnails for (or all of them), right-click on one of them, and choose "Retrieve Thumbnails" > "All missing in selected".  Then the thumbnail is displayed when you hover over an item.

  • Ron KnightsRon Knights Posts: 1,723

    I'm done here.

  • Overall, I thought it was nice, needs improvements and with them it will be pretty good. Just not for everyone (not for me). Some people have this notion everything has to be for them or shouldn't exist.

  • 3D-GHDesign3D-GHDesign Posts: 670

    OK, so I installed it, it tried to instal automatically DS what I didn't notice in time and even if I canceled ( I didn't want the latest one), it still could mees everything. Now I open Install manager, the folders I set manually are messed up (how?) and it shows me I have not any installed content so I can't see the updated ones. I have no Smart Content inside DS, so a big no for me :( I uninstalled and I hope I didn't loose my custom data (I don't save it regularly) ... I hope it doesn't overwrite just set a different location ... I hope

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565

    Yes, it just sets a different location.  In DIM, click the gear icon in the upper right corner and choose Basic Settings.  Click on the path listed for "Manifest Archive" and navigate to the correct location -- C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/ManifestFiles.  If you go to Advanced-Settings and click on the Installation tab you can correct the location for your content folders (they may still be there and you just need to set the current one to the one you want.  It changes the CMS database location as well.

  • Noah LGPNoah LGP Posts: 2,556
    edited May 2020

    I don't try it because I see no real improvement in term of quality of service (download/installation) or content management.

    I would prefer DazConnect to be able to detect the installed corrupt products.

     

    DazConnect, DC Offline, DIM, Manual download/install, ... and now DazCentral, the 5th way to download content.

    Post edited by Noah LGP on
  • ooofestooofest Posts: 36
    edited May 2020
    The email made it sound like a better Daz Install Manager in some respects, so I installed it and - as others have said - it used new defaults for download directories.

    Almost everything of mine, Daz-wise, is on a non-C drive. But, there wasn't much in the way of customizing where to have it look for my installed content, unlike DIM's level of path settings.

    And it completely overwrote all my custom Daz paths + applications in DIM's Account.ini. Once I figured that out, I had to manually recreate everything for DIM and deleted DazCentral to prevent it from causing more havoc.

    The UI and idea is fine, but its amazingly destructive behavior to a pre-existing configuration is really unwarranted, I feel.

    Post edited by ooofest on
  • surrealsurreal Posts: 152

    I followed my usual process with Yuliana: select the zips, grab a thumbnail off Renderosity and add it, fill in the name/artist/store/product id fields, then click Analyze Content, then Install Content, then Install Smart Content. I don't believe that I entered any weird values or selected any unusual options that might have made things go strange.

    I am struggling with this one.  Nothing is jumping out at me.  Sorry.

     

    I lost all my G8F smart content late last week. I was not using CONTENT WIZARD.

    The only change I made before I lost the G8F smart content, was install the new DazCentral and install a couple of Daz Store products using it.

    All the G8F smart content reappeared after I uninstalled and then reinstalling a few G8F items using the old DAZ Install manager.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,223
    edited May 2020

    This post was moved from from: [Released] Content Wizard [Commercial].

    surreal said:

    I followed my usual process with Yuliana: select the zips, grab a thumbnail off Renderosity and add it, fill in the name/artist/store/product id fields, then click Analyze Content, then Install Content, then Install Smart Content. I don't believe that I entered any weird values or selected any unusual options that might have made things go strange.

    I am struggling with this one.  Nothing is jumping out at me.  Sorry.

     

    I lost all my G8F smart content late last week. I was not using CONTENT WIZARD.

    The only change I made before I lost the G8F smart content, was install the new DazCentral and install a couple of Daz Store products using it.

    All the G8F smart content reappeared after I uninstalled and then reinstalling a few G8F items using the old DAZ Install manager.


    See the discussion earlier about Daz Central reverting to the default paths.

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • Leo LeeLeo Lee Posts: 184
    Leo Lee said:
    Nath said:

     

    Me too, and after install it...

    DS was open when DazCentral installed it.  Make sure DS is closed, then uninstall and reinstall it.

    It works now. Thanks! smiley

  • WandererWanderer Posts: 956

    I'm afraid to try it because of bad experiences with new things put out by Daz in the past. 

  • BootwinkBootwink Posts: 43

    I tried to Download Das Central - when I try to install it onto my computer it opens up to Window appts on my machine, It shows DAZ 11 64bit. is intalled.   I have Daz 12 intalled. it shows that at the top of Daz Studio for one thing, I use to click on something and it would download onto my computer without going to Microsoft. I don't know what to do click on the Daz 11 installer or what how do Install DAZ Central at this point, this has never happend before.Every thing I've downloaded before just installed when I click to install, before

  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856

    When I used Daz Connect, I found that I couldn't download the files on one PC, and then transfer them later onto my main PC, which meant that I couldn't create a backup of all my products. (I'm on a 2mb line so downloading takes forever,) 

    Does DazCentral allow you to simply move your entire library around, backup, restore, move it onto an external hard drive if you start running out of space, move it to another PC, when you upgrade etc like you can with files downloaded through DIM? 

  • GalaxyGalaxy Posts: 562

    If a product contains both poser and daz studio version then which version will it download. Or how to install only Daz Studio version to reduce storage space and duplicate items?

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232

    Looking at today's sale banner... so, is it out of beta now? Have the bugs we've posted about been fixed? Have any of the bugs been fixed? This seems to be awfully rushed...

  • elFletchelFletch Posts: 8

    Firstly I love the new thumbnail view, I've been wishing for this for quite a while,  ( i used to scrape the product pages and replace all the tiny thumbnails in the metadata folder with full res ones :D ). This makes my life much easier. 

    Im a bit concerned about how much fragmentation there is in Installation methods

    • poser runtime
    • DAZ Library
    • DIM
    • Smart Content
    • Daz central

    One of the nice things about smart content is that it contextually gives you a list of compatible assets. Central is (at the moment) a slicker version of DIM (which is not bad but it feels like it should simply replace it)

    I would love to see better search features added to this, with a tag system. The tool would be much more usefull if I could specify the same filters as the Daz Store, or even better an abriatry list of Tag or a simple query

    like:

    all: "Geneis 8" "Outerwear"

    any: "Sci-Fi",  "Space"

    at the moment the search features of all offerings are quite limited, and dont scale very well with a big content library.

    I hope I dont come off as negative I'm a dev too and I know the pain of nothing but negative user feedback!

     

     

     

     

  • elFletchelFletch Posts: 8
    Sevrin said:

    I'm guessing this won't bring any relief with regard to assets purchased at Rendo, etc?

    What sort of relief? Renderocity dont offer an API for developers to use, the only way I've been able to get my asset list programatically is scraping with python, which is considered quite bad manners. as far as installing assets from zips goes Im sure there must be a script out there for it. I've been meaning to throw one together for a long time now. Renderosity are good with the structure of recent zips so its not hard to automate unzipping them to the correct location. I had a basic implementation working where it did that and then tried to register the assets in the CMS but documentation of how that works is non existant :(. Maybe someone from daz could help there.

  • BradCarstenBradCarsten Posts: 856
    edited May 2020

    When I used Daz Connect, I found that I couldn't download the files on one PC, and then transfer them later onto my main PC, which meant that I couldn't create a backup of all my products. (I'm on a 2mb line so downloading takes forever,) 

    Does DazCentral allow you to simply move your entire library around, backup, restore, move it onto an external hard drive if you start running out of space, move it to another PC, when you upgrade etc like you can with files downloaded through DIM? 

    I guess this answers my question. it looks like we have to redownload our entire library. It seems like just another form of DRM to be honest. 

    Can I copy products installed using Daz Connect from one computer to another?

    The preferred workflow is to log in to each computer and install the desired products using Daz Connect

    I like to move files around on disk to organize them differently. Can I still do that?

    You cannot move files around for products installed through Daz Connect. You can change the drive and/or path to which products are installed using Daz Connect, but you cannot manually re-organize the files within the product.

    Post edited by BradCarsten on
  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,714
    edited May 2020
    elFletch said:
    Sevrin said:

    I'm guessing this won't bring any relief with regard to assets purchased at Rendo, etc?

    What sort of relief? Renderocity dont offer an API for developers to use, the only way I've been able to get my asset list programatically is scraping with python, which is considered quite bad manners. as far as installing assets from zips goes Im sure there must be a script out there for it. I've been meaning to throw one together for a long time now. Renderosity are good with the structure of recent zips so its not hard to automate unzipping them to the correct location. I had a basic implementation working where it did that and then tried to register the assets in the CMS but documentation of how that works is non existant :(. Maybe someone from daz could help there.

    I've written a Product Manager / Downloader for Renderosity, initially it was working fine but they crippeled it unfortunately when adding the infamous google captcha to the login which made it impossible to log in via HttpRequest (at least I don't know how) and batch download product files.  But I'm working on an update that can at least get the product data via the built in webbrowser, and then import and categorize manually downloaded product files instead.  I've also added a simple auto-installer recently.  Currently it's split up into two versions, one for collecting data online and one for offline management, I need to merge them, add some more features and fix a number of things before it can be re-released.  Here's a quick video (cut out some of the slow and boring parts) showing some of the features:

    https://www.screencast.com/t/eIQgJxHR

     

    Post edited by Taoz on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,223

    When I used Daz Connect, I found that I couldn't download the files on one PC, and then transfer them later onto my main PC, which meant that I couldn't create a backup of all my products. (I'm on a 2mb line so downloading takes forever,) 

    Does DazCentral allow you to simply move your entire library around, backup, restore, move it onto an external hard drive if you start running out of space, move it to another PC, when you upgrade etc like you can with files downloaded through DIM? 

    I guess this answers my question. it looks like we have to redownload our entire library. It seems like just another form of DRM to be honest. 

    Can I copy products installed using Daz Connect from one computer to another?

    The preferred workflow is to log in to each computer and install the desired products using Daz Connect

    I like to move files around on disk to organize them differently. Can I still do that?

    You cannot move files around for products installed through Daz Connect. You can change the drive and/or path to which products are installed using Daz Connect, but you cannot manually re-organize the files within the product.

    The FAQ entries relate to Daz Connect (the Install pane etc. in DS), not Daz Central. (And the Connect files are not encrypted, so you can back them up - but they will not load correctly through CMS-based views if you move them.)

  • DesouzaDesouza Posts: 27

    I really love DAZ Central, especially after struggling for many years with too many separate files after creating renders in DAZ Studio. I am willing to pay for a commercial plugin to DAZ Central that would enable me to have the ability for my renders to show up sorted showing round thumbnails, file name, figure, date, and file size exactly as how "My Assets" and "Plugins" presently function. Such a plugin (to me) would be worth paying up to $35 to have.

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