The background: I'm one of those people who've been shut out of Studio because of incompatibility with the latest Mac OS Big Sur. I've created a Windows installation through bootcamp in the meantime. I've used the Daz Connect installation for those products purchased from the Daz store but that library seems to be encrypted and doesn't seem to allow any process to manually install items by following the traditional non Connect file hierarchy.

The problem: I have several products purchased from sources other than the Daz store and Daz Central or Daz Connect doesn't seem to allow for manual installation of these files by following the paths created when the zip files are uncompressed. There's a bullet point in the Daz Connect FAQ which says that files may be manually added to the Connect library

• Can I still custom sort my files?

  Yes, you can still customize how your files are categorized by adding your own categories.
  Note: We have added the ability to create stand-in shortcut files for users who prefer to use folders and files to organize content instead of categories. This allows the source files to remain in place and benefit from product updates, while also allowing users to keep a workflow that is similar to those they have already established.

However I can find no easily accessible documentation about how to do this in such a way as to be able to add products not purchased from the store to the Connect library.

An example: I have numerous products created by Arryn_Onnel in my library which were purchased through the Daz store but a few other items by these artists purchased from Renderosity which were not available from the Daz store. I can find no way based on my Connect library structure to add these products to my library. This is just one example but I have roughly fifty or so items that I would like to add to my library purchased from various sources other than the Daz store which were downloaded as zip files and uncompressed to the older non-Connect file hierarchy.

How can I install and use these non Daz store files?

miladyderyni_173d399f47 said:

The forecasts in north Arkansas (where we just moved) have been saying for at least a week that starting today/Wednesday of this week and into next week, lows would ranged from <10 to 20F & highs in the teens to 20s. This past Saturday evening what was supposed to be regular rain turned into light snow.

Woke up this morning to a Winter Weather Alert for north & central Arkansas for Wednesday & Thursday that includes "Areas of freezing rain. Accruals of ice over a quarter inch thick are possible." 

 

Update: we didn't get nearly as much ice, thankfully, as forecast for Thursday. 

BUT, a Winter Storm Warning was issued that very day for this coming Sunday & Monday. 3-6" snow. That is heavy for this state. Wind chills below zero Fahrenheit through Tuesday.

Glad they finally got the propane tank for Brand New Heater installed & filled this morning. This Florida native is sitting inside wearing a tee & leggings as opposed to 2 or 3 layers. 

galactica1981 said:

Ascania said:

In the D|S preferences you can set your content folder locations.

Where exactly is that? Is that in DAZ Studio or in DAZ Central? 

Daz Studio... I feel your pain by the way, tried to look into Daz Central yesterday myself (using sandbox mode). Let's just say that I wasn't impressed.

Anyway, here's what you do:

• In DS press 'F2' to get to your preferences; another option is using the 'Edit' menu.
• Open the 'Content' tab, you'll find a button at the bottom: "Content Directory Manager...", click it.
• Now you're in the management screen, from here you can point DS to your Poser, Daz en Daz connect libraries; both personal as system-wide (so: your user library and the system library).

Hope this can help!

What do you mean by "Daz 3D"? The website? One of the installers (Daz Central or Install Manager)? Daz Studio? How are you trying to run the application? How did you install?

Ascania said:

In the D|S preferences you can set your content folder locations.

Where exactly is that? Is that in DAZ Studio or in DAZ Central? 

So, I nervously dive into this....

When you install via Daz Central/DIM/DazConnect,  a zipped folder or folders are downloaded to the installer program, unzipped, installed to the locations you tell it to, and a set of files are placed in specific places: a manifest file is placed in a folder called Manifest which tells the installler (DazConnect, DIM or DAZ Central) that you have installed a copy, and a set of files are placed in the Content Folder>Runtime>Support Folder which include the png/jpg, some html, and links to the product which are all used by Smart Content.  Ideally, a content creator has created the proper metadata (i.e.  this is a garment meant to be worn by Genesis 8 female on her feet... shoes)  so that when you select a G8F, you see the shoes in Wardrobe> Shoes for example.  In the platonic ideal, you could select a bunch of products such as high heels, right-click and categorize to make a new category such as High Heels which would show up along with character, poses, props, anatomy, wardrobe etc... all for G8F....  
What can go wrong?  Well, there are people who install manually who break all this stuff sin ce they never install all the right files in the right places, also Creators can tag things improperly so that the right character isn't associated with the right file, and finally, the database can be corrupted (there are tools to fix it).  I thought I would show you the steps that a content creator goes through to create Smart Content so you can see why a left out step or typo can make things go astray: https://www.burningchr0me.net/ds-poser-forum/creating-metadata-for-daz-studio/  If you find you want to correct, metadata the steps are far simpler but I will wait to find out if you want to know more.

I haven't used DAZ in a few years. I updated DAZ Studio to 4.15 but none of my products I bought are showing up. I went to DAZ Central to Settings and then changed both the Base Location and the DAZ Studio install location. It still isn't working and now with DAZ Studio I can't connect to my account. I need to connect DAZ Studio to the My Library folder which has everything that I've bought. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Connect is working, I haven't tried DIM/Daz central, but yes the product Library is doing that - I will report. In the meantime, even if you want to do manual installs you could try using Install Manager as a downloader.

ShelLuser said:

Sounds like something could have gone wrong with your moving of the library. I mean... if you remove the external drive with the library and then still load your character then it doesn't look like you really moved the library at all. Where is that character data coming from?

I created all my characters using Daz Studio Genesis 3 and 8 characters.  Daz Studio loads up from my C: drive and it has a copy of My Library located under users-public-public documents-My DAZ 3D Library. On my F; drive I have a My DAZ 3D Library with all my content. I copied the whole My DAZ 3D Library to the external hard drive. This is a fresh installation of Daz3D 4.15, so the only content is from the Daz Central installation. I installed default resources for Daz3D 4.15, character essentials, dforce essentials, face transfer, Octane render kit, and required PostgresSQL CMS and PostgresSQL CMS from Valentina CMS conversion. I did not have this issue with the 4.14 version, but 4.15 and the new 8.1 have cause these problems.

docbadwrench said:

My question regards the house cat with dforce hair. According to the product listing, I can use the Daz-to-Blender Bridge to use the figure in Blender. But I have never successfully achieved this.

When I attempt to do so, I'm treated to the Error Has Occured message. I receive this message whether I attempt to port just the cat or the cat plus the hair.

Are there some additional considerations I am not aware of? Has anyone actually used the bridge successfully for this figure?

A sort of follow-up question is that, even when I export as an FBX (with animations completely in tact), the fur is missing. I'm assuming that this is because I need to use the relevant software's particle system to recreate this, but is that correct?

Thanks; it's noob-central over here.

I've exported it as an obj, then added particle hair.

Was simple for what I required as was part of the background. I posted the image a while back in Show us Your Blender Renders.

The only potential issue is your installations using Install manager of Daz Central, as those record the actual location of the files - not usually an issue, but it might be a problem if an update needed a file to be removed and not replaced. If you kept the zips in Install Manager you can select everything in the Installed tab and, via the right-click menu, opt to reinstall using current paths.

As the subject says, as of this post I still don't have a download link for Arcane Enchantress Appurtenances for Genesis 8 Female: https://www.daz3d.com/arcane-enchantress-appurtenances-for-genesis-8-female

I have a link for the templates, strangely enough, but not for the product itself (either manually or through Daz Central.

Is there a fix for this?

Yes, I'm using DC and no, there is no zip file downloaded anywhere named IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip although there is a manifest file for it in the installmanager folder.
I uninstalled Daz Studio and DC, removed all folder/file references, restarted and reinstalled DC, then DS then UE plugin. I then searched my drive for the referenced zip file but it is not found. I posted earlier where I went this 7 times before until UE4.26 showed the Daz plugin as installed. I'm tired of all this BS...why don't you guys simply attach the damn zip file to this post?

Razzle-Dazzle3D said:

mt900_81a0736ec2 said:

After going thru the DC uninstall/reinstall/restart system routine 7 times for the Daz to Unreal plugin, I finally had a 4.26 project show the plugin installed but not active.
After activating it normally and restarting, I get the attached error and the project won't even load now. Good thing I'm familiar with this type of crap from Daz and was only working with a test project. The only way to get back into the project is to delete the daztounreal plugin folder under Engines/Plugins and then restart the affected UE4 project. You then get a standard UE4 plugin not found error but you now have the option to disable it so the project will load.
Someone is spending too much time on social media and not coding.

I apologize for the confusion; to confirm, are you using Daz Central to install this bridge? As it appears that this is so from your screenshot, so I'll base my instructions on this installer. As Sam noted previously, you will need to manually install the file to its proper location for 4.26 in order to utilize this version of Unreal. For the time being, you will not be able to access 4.26 by simply downloading the update via an Install Manager.

 

To do this you will first want to grab the Unreal 4.26 bridge file from wherever content is installed to on your machine; this should be similar to "...Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Downloads". You can see this from within Daz Central by naviagting to the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the window and taking note of the location listed under Daz Studio 4.5 Install Location.

Once you've located the downloads folder in your files, copy the entire "IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip" folder to your desktop (you can delete this afterwards), right-click and extract the files using 7-Zip (or similar). Then locate the file for DaztoUnreal_4.26 and copy it.

Finally, navigate within your files to wherever you have your Unreal plugin installed to, which by default is located under C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.26\Engine\Plugins; and paste the DaztoUnreal_4.26 file here and rename it "DazToUnreal". 

 

Once you have manually installed this file to this location, you should be able to locate the plugin and enable it within Unreal the next time you launch it.

 

Currently, I have found that there is currently no way to download it -- not DIM, not DAZ Central, not manually.  I've sent in a ticket on it.

PAYITFORWARD
In a random thread I was reading, I saw a comment that struck home with me...
It might have been a debate about Daz's upgrades are leaving those with older computers behind.
Anwyhoo... to get to the meat,
I recently had a house move, and I am a hoarder, the wifes a minimalist.  We went from a big house to a medium sized house, or put another way, I had to put 10lbs of Crap in a 5lb bag.
The Hoarder always looks bad in a house move, and the minimalist smells like roses...
I upgraded my system last year from a Intel i5 6600K and 16GB ram to a AMD Ryzen 9 3900X with 32GB of Ram....
That "old system" has kind of been lying around in the way and is now part of "the clutter", so I thought, "time to pay it forward" and let somebody else enjoy it because my floor certainly isn't getting anything out of it.
I haven't figured out how to attach pictures to Private Messages, and I wanted to let the one on the recieving end see what they were getting... so I gotta do it here.
The Case isn't going, as the items are going from Central Europe to North America and I wanted to save a bit on shipping/the other is a screen shot of the computer running, right before I broke it down to pack it up...
 

I have tried using all 3 methods, neither appears to resolve the issue. Daz Central ALWAYS has me re-install the main app, DIM have so much content in it that it takes 6 days to download it all, oly to have it re-show as needing to be installed the very next time I run it. Manual installs produce very strange results, I can SEE the content through file browser, but Studio doesn't.

The forecasts in north Arkansas (where we just moved) have been saying for at least a week that starting today/Wednesday of this week and into next week, lows would ranged from <10 to 20F & highs in the teens to 20s. This past Saturday evening what was supposed to be regular rain turned into light snow.

Woke up this morning to a Winter Weather Alert for north & central Arkansas for Wednesday & Thursday that includes "Areas of freezing rain. Accruals of ice over a quarter inch thick are possible." 

 

 

 

Totte said:

"A valid PostgreSQL CMS connection could not be established."
This is the issue here, which has to do with macOS 10.15.3+ and changes Apple did to the default priveligies  for folders under ~/Library.  I made a little applescript hack that udually solves this issue, you can find it here. (DAZ Studio CMS Fix for macOS Catalina).
When it comes to installations, I do recommend using DIM over DAZ Central as it give you a little more control. Stand alone installers usually has even more issues whe  it comes to the CMS and DS.

Apple has not made it easy for developers lately.
If you want to remove, you should also delete the ~/Library/Application Support/DAZ 3D/ folder as well. not only /Applications/DAZ 3D/.
 

TOTTE, YOU ARE AMAZING!!!   Not sure if it was your script or if you sent me an outstanding good luck-spell, but it worked. JK with the spell-thingy, Your script did the trick! 

Used DIM to install and also used the recommended script and it worked as a charm!

Probably wasn't to clear previous regarding what I deleted, but deleted any Daz association in /Library/Preferences/ - /Library/Application Support/ - /Library/Caches/ every time, so the only difference on this installation was your script; DAZ Studio CMS Fix for macOS Catalina.

Also found your RendoInstall-2.0 and it is awesome!

Can't thank you enough! Now I'm off to see what else I can mess up in my re-learning/re-training exploration. lol

Have done a whole clothing collection in Clo and Marvelous that I want to be able to display in a cool way, and with your help I'm heaps closer to get there. 

Thank You

Cheers Jen

ps. Totte? Kan du vara Svensk, måntro? Isådana fall, tack så otroligt mycket för din hjälp! ds

paul_ae567ab9 said:

When I look to download an update I can only find links to DazCentral.

I have ZERO interest in any CMS including Central. I manualy manage all my own content the way I want it.

Where is the link to the actual DasStudio program updates for download?

https://www.daz3d.com/downloader/customer/files#prod_13176