Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
You are repeating this emphatically, but I'm not understanding your actual underlying point.
Are you asserting that you do not believe conflicts are possible, that you do not believe conflicts have happened, or do you just believe that the conflicts are rare?
Is your point that Daz should abandon this as their standard, or are you just pointing out that this is an option for other users?
As has been pointed out, it is exceedingly common for characters to be published with the same name. Here's a list that barely starts to scratch the surface...
Two G9 Jennys:
https://www.daz3d.com/js-jenny-hd-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/enn-jenny-for-genesis-9-feminine
Two G9 Ursulas:
https://www.daz3d.com/pn-ursula-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/p3d-ursula-hd-for-genesis-9
Two G9 Beatrices:
https://www.daz3d.com/fn-beatrice-hd-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/beatrice-and-bartholemew-for-genesis-9
Two G9 Nicoles:
https://www.daz3d.com/v3d-nicole-hd-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/e3d-nicole-hd-for-genesis-9
and five G8 Nicoles:
https://www.daz3d.com/nicole-for-genesis-3-and-8-female-s
https://www.daz3d.com/v3d-nicole-g8f
https://www.daz3d.com/feng-nicole-hd-for-genesis-81-female
https://www.daz3d.com/gdn-nicole
https://www.daz3d.com/sc-nicole-for-genesis-8-female
Three G9 Zoes:
https://www.daz3d.com/lala-zoe-hd-for-genesis-9-feminine
https://www.daz3d.com/p3d-zoe-hd-for-genesis-9
https://www.daz3d.com/vo-zoe-hd-for-genesis-9
Who also have three G8 Zoes to go with them:
https://www.daz3d.com/v3d-zoe-g8f-g8-1f
https://www.daz3d.com/meshgames-zoe-g8f-morph
https://www.daz3d.com/mbm-zoe-for-genesis-8-female
Two G9 Lins:
https://www.daz3d.com/pa-lin-for-genesis-9-feminine
https://www.daz3d.com/lala-lin-for-genesis-9-feminine
Three G8 (and G8.1) Eves:
https://www.daz3d.com/hid-eve-for-genesis-81-female
https://www.daz3d.com/deepsea-eve-hd-for-genesis-through-genesis-8
https://www.daz3d.com/eve-enhanced-virtual-entity-hd-for-genesis-8-female
(I'm not counting https://www.daz3d.com/eve-3022-hd-morph-for-genesis-8-females as she has her presets called EVE 3022)
Two G8 Celestes:
https://www.daz3d.com/celeste-for-teen-raven-8
https://www.daz3d.com/celeste-for-genesis-8-and-8-1-female
Two G8 Stephanies, despite one being a preexisting core character, and a name Daz has used for several generations of core character:
https://www.daz3d.com/mbm-stephanie-for-genesis-8-female
https://www.daz3d.com/stephanie-8
Two G8 Taras (in this case, the PA character preceded the DO core character):
https://www.daz3d.com/tara-2-hd-for-victoria-7-victoria-8
https://www.daz3d.com/tara-8
Two G8 Zaras:
https://www.daz3d.com/zara-g8f
https://www.daz3d.com/ly-zara-hd-for-genesis-8-female
Two G8 Jamies:
https://www.daz3d.com/krashwerks-jamie-for-genesis-8-female
https://www.daz3d.com/jasa-jamie-for-genesis-8-and-8-1-female
... I think it's a fair assertion that there's a significant chance that any character with a common name has a significant chance of a duplicate, and even a few slightly more fanciful ones do too.
Without being differentiated by vendor specific initials or folders, these products would clash.
It is a major task formally resaving every file in a product under a new name (as I explained before, it is strictly incorrect to simply rename the files; while it normally works, they will have incorrect internal paths and that can on rare occasions cause a problem, so while it's mostly okay for end users to do, it is not legitimate for a vendor as a way to rename their product). Moreover, renaming the user accessible library files is only part of the situation. If a character's name is changed in the library, then the underlying data files probably need renaming as well. And renaming files like this can actually break user's scenes.
It would not be good practice for a vendor to rely on being able to rename products after release. This is something that should be reserved for emergency cases.
As such, I could only see that a wild west system would result in a load of neo-spellings such that characters were called Daeyvide or Rhiebeckah.
Now, as far as real-life, I have a pet peeve about neo-spellings like this, because parents making their little snowflake have a unique name is going to cause the kid a metric butt-tonne of problems down the line. No-one is instinctively going to know how to spell their name, and then that's going to cause things like paperwork not matching exactly. Seriously, don't try to be clever with your kids' names.
In the Daz store, it just means no-one would be able to find any of them half the time. The store search has a long history of being very poor at fuzzy matching, and if you don't get a spelling exactly right (and sometimes even if you do), it won't find the product.
In the end, if you're just pointing out that this is an option for other users, then fine... but I don't think you're going to convince Daz to conform to the standards you want, because they know that file clashes have been a problem in the past, and I don't think it's worth you trying to press the point to them.
I, too, am in the Content Folders camp - Smart Content never worked well/right for me and didn't seem to make my life any easier. I did have a conflict one time, a character from DAZ that I really, really liked called Salem ended up sharing a content folder with a character from another store named "Salem" that I manually installed. One day I went to create a scene and it was pure pandemonium. I reached out to the content creator at the other store (since I bought their product second) and let them know of the conflict. Their response was valid, and perfectly reasonable, "How could I have possibly known someone else had created a character with the same name?" Since I use DIM to install stuff (for ease, and for ease of updates) I tend to let things be, but man, there are some days where I am tempted to move stuff around! I HAVE actually COPIED content around from DinoRaul dinosaurs - older ones from Poser are a in a nightmare files system so I copied poses and textures to subfolders under the actual main figure. Still.... A LOT of work.
All that to say, I get how you can pelase some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. Totally!
Matt_Castle I simply don't understand your questions.
I eliminated the PA folders. But underneath those folders were folders that contained the actual content.
I didn't change any file names. There are no name conflicts.
My first question was rhetorical; we know that there have been file clashes between products in the past, so anyone who thinks such clashes are either impossible or have never happened is demonstrably in error.
Sure, you as an individual user might never have bought a combination of products that causes a clash, but it is obviously possible that another buyer could purchase more than one G8F Nicole. And if they do that, then without those products having PA folders and abbreviations to stop the folders merging, then that would result in two sets of "Nicole" character presets and folders in conflict with each other.
~~~~~
As far as my second question, it was asking what your purpose of this thread was. Are you solely intending to inform other users that reorganising their files is something they can do, or are you attempting to persuade Daz to change their file structure policy?
Because if your answer is option A, then I would caution people that clashes *are* possible and that they need to demonstrate caution.
And if your answer is option B, then you would need to propose to Daz an alternative system for them to use that pre-emptively avoids product name clashes; for the technical reasons I addressed, having to rename a product after it has already been made is a last resort.
What drives me up the wall is the fact that DS has TWO content folders, one, is the content folder and the other is the My Library, which is redundant and pointless as it has the exact same directory setup as the content folder…
As far as PA folders, I prefer the ones that have logo art for their folders, but other than that, it is hard to find what you're looking for if the name is unpronounceable, like schuntrozinar as they're much harder to remember which and what product are they using…
We occasionally get some of the PAs on our (unofficial) Discord server asking for suggestions for the name of a WIP product of theirs, and my advice has always been not to get fancy with their naming.
The search function in both Studio and the store are very limited, as I've often found simply on the basis of being British rather than American - often I've been unable to find certain props in a search because the US calls whatever that thing is by a different name to the UK.
So I've told these PAs that that if they're making a robot, call it a robot. It's unimaginative, but there's a much better chance of a possible buyer finding it with a store search a year down the line.
Not sure what you're saying here. I have a single library folder broken into DS and Poser sections in DS. The library folder includes runtime directory that becomes the Poser file section in DS. Even if you don't own a single Poser item (and you probably own lots of them because many of us do), you need the Runtime directory because all the texture maps for all your assets are stored in the Runtime/Textures directory. And you probably already know all that, too,
One thing @Matt_Castle is noting is that there would likely need to be some PA differentiation even in a custom sorted library, because products often share the same name.
Thus, it's impractical for Daz or PAs to adopt a more sensible organizational structure for many reasons, including those kind of name conflicts.
But it's not very artist-friendly to have to dig around in a deep, disorganized content library with wild west naming conventions, so Ron Knights approach to manually moving duf files around is totally valid. If you open a duf file in a text editor, they link to resources in /Runtime or /data - so as long as those source resources don't move around, there won't be any asset loading conflicts in Daz Studio. You can move a duf, double click that duf, and as long as you haven't moved any of the files it references in /Runtime or /data the assets will load into Daz Studio just fine.
From http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/dson_spec/format_description/file_types/start
Reorganizing user-facing content library files instead of using smart content or categories has trade offs:
Pros:
Cons:
I have so far been using an approach similar to Ron Knights strategy, ie manually moving user-facing files around in my content libraries. I have a bunch of top level libraries for broad categories of content, so I can install to the right library through DIM (and also so I can move some of the content to different disks), and inside each library I manually organized all the duf assets. Example screenshots attached.
For black friday I picked up a Crucial - X10 8TB External USB-C SSD so I can finally fit my whole library on a fast disk. I'll be reinstalling my Daz library there and changing my organizational approach. Super excited to try something different! I'll be experimenting with some PA favorites plugins as well as a custom tool I wrote; if the latter shows any promise I'll share more about it.
My 3D Library is the location where your Daz3D purchases go when installed by methods such as DIM or directly by Daz Studio. It is the only place where Daz3D will install updates. My Library is the place where you install purchases from other sources such as Renderosity or Renderhub. It is undisturbed by updates so you rely on the individual store or vendor to provide updates. The division is also useful if you have to keep track of licensing.
Of the default paths, My Daz 3D Library is for store/third-party add-ons and My Library is for your own files, which is why one is in Public Documents and the other in your own Documents folder. They can of course be named and placed as you like.
It is the default path used by DIM, it isn't mandatory.
Sorry, Richard, I should have been more precise.
Oh, right! I forgot. I consolidated all that years ago.
I've noticed that "PA" items are actually installed under two folders!
The first one has the PA's name. The folder inside that one usually reflects the product itself.
I begin my install with DIM. I do that because DAZ will only support a product that is installed by DIM. They don't support a product that is manually installed.
Once DIM has done its "default" installation, I copy that to my own folder and do my own work.
Matt, I understand what you're saying. Maybe we can just leave it at that.
Filtering does support a lot of options:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/content_library/advanced_filtering/start
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/smart_content/advanced_filtering/start
but those do depend on how the PA and Daz have tagged etc. the files.
This is a wise solution, as simplicity will always win out over the complicated, it's why I can always find what I'm looking for when the PA uses a simple image along with their name as we're highly visual, being artists after all, so you can easily associate a product with an image!
What I meant was you can find the runtime and its like within both the content directory, as well as the “my library” directory; to put it a different way, DIM installs content in the content directory, while PAs (mostly off-site) install their content in the "my library" directory, so as far as I'm concerned the my library directory is redundant, so never use it.
This is perhaps the best explaination that I've come across, as it really clears things up, though I usually ignore the my library mainly because it's on the system drive, which has far less room to be considered as a practical solution for me.
You can configure DIM from the start so it installs content where you want it.
For example all my DAZ content goes onto an 8TB hard drive named "DAZ3D."
The folder for my installation is called "DAZall."
Support may well ask that a product be installed with DIM or Connect if the user encounters issues that might be related to file placement, in order to eliminate user-error - but in that case they would be asking for an unmodified installation, not one in which files had been moved.
@takezo_3001 it's what Richard said, but I moved everything out of the public directory a long time ago and then forgot it existed.
Richard, that is why I keep a "default" install done by DIM.
Then I copy that installation to a different folder, and do my work from there.
LOL, the only reason why I even consider it's existence is due to off site PAs always pointing their product to that directory!
The name and location of the content directories are not functionally significant, it's the relative paths within that matter. Zips which include My Library/My Daz 3D Library as a root folder are very annoying.
I gave up using WinZip to manually install my content.
That's because almost everything was installed under the Content folder.
I just really got lost. Sometimes I saw more than one Runtime or Textures folder. It's too much work to fix.
When you use DIM, you almost never see the Content folder.
Indeed, it is, as I have to open the folder within to be able to copy the "people/props/scripts/etc" over to my own content directory, so it's a bit of a pain…
I'm not going to sugar coat the hassle factor - It's a hassle! I use PeaZip to open all the zips from other sites into their own folders and then I combine and reconfigure the content as needed for installation and storage. Then I copy/paste into my content library. Then, I actually load the product to make sure it works and to see what it does. That last part... There are products in my library I have never loaded! Anyway, I've been doing that for so long that it doesn't bother me at all - It's just what I have do to install the product. As for Daz items installed with DIM, I use Everything (a search program @WendyLuvsCatz recommended) to find the items in my library and then I find them in DS, browse to folder and move/modify whatever needs moving to make me happy with the arrangement.
There's no free lunch. Even if one is using Smart Content, the metadata may need modification to suit people, as well - People do rearrange their stuff! Items from other sites may not even have any metadata! Is it quicker and easier to go through Smart Content? I don't know. Maybe? I think it's all in what one gets used to doing. I'm used to rearranging files, so I do that. I might reach a point in the future where I need or want to get Smart Content to work for me, and then I'll see.
I generally unzip, discarding excess folders, into a testing content directory to make sure it is working and to set up metadata, then I move into the real content directory (or not, as the case may be)
Don't forget options like links (.djl files), and of course the Smart Content pane is not the only metadata-using content view (Categories/Products in the Content Library pane, Presets tabs in most property panes) so it isn't an either/or.
Again, my approach is simple. Once I'vwe eliminated the PA folders, I have very little work to do.
I use the Content Library pane. Here is what I get. No need for search, metadata etc.
Which is, at least for now, fine for you and your decision. But others need to be aware of the potential issues, and that there are alternatives which don't involve throwing out the whole feature.
For me it's DIM for Daz, Zip installlation for off-site content, and I'm surprised no one mentioned Riverside Art's content wizard, it's a great companion for off-site installs as you can install straight from the zip as well as configure your installs for smart content!