I just want to point out that I am not against breaking some compatibility if the improvements are big enough. I just don't think the improvements are big enough to warrant breaking all compatibility. At least with Genesis 3 to 8 it was easier to make the move, even though G8 was not a big jump at all. (And I still question why we needed G8 in the first place, but whatever.)

What I am saying is that if we must break things, then the new thing must be better in every possible way. Not just for PAs. From my perspective, I do not see it enough in Genesis 9 to make me want to leave the almost 6 years of content I created for Genesis 8. That is what a new model has to do, it has to really wow me to get me on board. I do make some models as well, sculpting and texturing some things. I still don't see the big deal. G9 has more polys, yet I cannot sculpt a belly button. Perhaps that sounds ridiculous to some of you, but it is still a fact. To get the best details you still need a normal or displacement map, unless you are a PA with access to the HD import. So the extra polygons are like a very small bone for a hungry dog.

That's another thing. Genesis 8 ran 5 full years. The first 3 Genesis generations combine for just 6. Genesis 8 nearly matches the first 3 put together. Things are different than they were in 2017. There are more people using Daz Studio, and more people actually know what Daz and Genesis are today. Technology has rapidly advanced, and even though the GPU market went crazy for a while, a 3060 nearly doubles a 1080ti performance in Iray, the fastest GPU in 2017, for half the price and 100+ fewer Watts of power. 3D rendering has never been more accessible to the public.

What improvements do I want? I want skin that deforms like skin. I want posing to have an AI element that knows how muscles move as a bone moves and how expressions distort the face, so you don't need a thousand JCMs clogging up the runtime. These things are hard, but that would be real innovation. Epic's Metahuman is freaking wild, and while it is very limited in what you can do with them, it gives us a taste of what can be done. Until Daz can give us that kind of innovation, they need to just tweak Genesis instead of breaking all forms of compatibility.

Padone said:

Yes the importing of custom morphs for figures has been considerably improved and made easier. Now you can use baked correctives and daz favorites. Then dforce clothing was implemented some time ago and there's no improvement there, that is, you have to know how to use the blender simulation tools to work with it.

Another feature we added that you may like is softbody simulations.

One word of advice. Do not try to use blender the same as daz studio, this is the worst thing you can do. Blender is not daz studio and has its way to do things, often much better. So don't import thousands of morphs but only those you need for animation, all the others will be baked in the dbz. Also you may want to avoid HD figures and environments as they are not meant for animation and degrade the viewport and rendering speed considerably, other than requiring much more memory to work. That is, not everything that's in the daz shop makes sense in blender, some things make sense only in daz studio.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Import/Easy Import DAZ

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Advanced/Simulation

I am getting used to the peculiarities of Blender and know that it is conceptually different to DAZ Studio. It might be a bit of a task to decide which morphs to include as favourites and which to bake but I guess that will come with experience. I have a LOT of morph packs and I use them extensively in DAZ Studio. When I animate in DAZ Studio I like to see muscle movement for greater realism, for example, so I need that flexibility.  I agree about HD and I tend to avoid it anyway because it causes lots of poke-through issues in IRay renders. So I would not use th HD exporter for Diffeo.

Other issues for me have to do with trying to understand the more advanced features. I get very confused in trying to understand how IK/FK works, for example. Also, Blender has a Non Linear approach to animation which is very difficult to achieve in DAZ Studio - I think than Aniblocks can be used but I don't play with them much anyway.

I just purchased Liquid Puddles and Splashes by SF-Design and dForce Slime and Goo by KindredArts.  I can't find either of these in my content library, but I know I downloaded them properly.  I know the paths where the files are located. When I try importing them, I can't find any of the cr2 or pp2 files.  So, how do I apply them to the scene?  Obviously not by using the Content Library nor the Import function.  

Yes the importing of custom morphs for figures has been considerably improved and made easier. Now you can use baked correctives and daz favorites. Then dforce clothing was implemented some time ago and there's no improvement there, that is, you have to know how to use the blender simulation tools to work with it.

Another feature we added that you may like is softbody simulations.

One word of advice. Do not try to use blender the same as daz studio, this is the worst thing you can do. Blender is not daz studio and has its way to do things, often much better. So don't import thousands of morphs but only those you need for animation, all the others will be baked in the dbz. Also you may want to avoid HD figures and environments as they are not meant for animation and degrade the viewport and rendering speed considerably, other than requiring much more memory to work. That is, not everything that's in the daz shop makes sense in blender, some things make sense only in daz studio.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Import/Easy Import DAZ

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Advanced/Simulation

Looks likea  metadata issue of some kind - please report it, with the log attached, to Technical Support.

Lost and Found is a category, it doesn't mean there is anythign wrong with the installation.

The missing icon in your screen shot has the same name as one that is there - if that loads I would suspect that the metadata has doubled-up references, and only one is pointing to actual files (which would be a bug, but an annoying one rather than a show-stopper).

Sorry, I don't use DAZ Central. Typically, I use the Daz Install Manager or do it manually.  Perhaps trying one or both of those methods would work better?  You can get the zip files for a manual install from your Product Library. Then just unzip to a new folder on the desktop. You'll see the folder structure and that'll tell you where all the bits and pieces belong in Daz Studio.  Then a quick copy/paste and you're good to go!  You may not get all the fancy Smart Content MetaData. But you should be able to find the items and use them.
Another thought... did you look inside the section labled "Products" in your Library?  That Appliance Pack is an old item ( I bought it  when Poser was the only game in town!). Sometimes those older things get put in the Products section instead of where you might expect it.  Click to expand it and  look for it. 

Nothing was installed witih Daz Connect though. If I go to any given product, whether it was installed by DIM correctly or one of the broken ones, a right click only offers an "Install" option. I'm serious, all I did was log on and update metadata, every single thing on my new machine was installed by DIM.
(this is not the case with my old machine, which I am currently using to try things I was always afraid to before, because I don't care that much if I break stuff on there now. But this older box has the exact same set of busted products.)

No need for drastic measures, but first stop logging in to DS, then go to the 'Smart' content, select everything and choose uninstall - This will only uninstall those that have been installed by DAZ Connect.
Then you need to refresh the metadata with what has been installed by DIM.

Someone may have more accurate instructions, as I have never logged in to DS and have never had to fix the problems caused by DAZ Connect myself.

So, this is a brand new computer. It took some time to install all those products, but I have gigabit internet connection so i was able to do it in like, a day, while watching netflix. Should I just punt and do a complete reinstall of everything at this point and start over? I'm going to have this thing for years, and right now I have nothing invested in it on the "setup" side but a day's work or so. Or is there some way I can fix whatever got borked when I logged in and downloaded all the metadata? I have read a few thngs that indicate that daz is a bit wonky to uninstall and reinstall, but I could take the scortched earth philosophy and format the drives and reinstall windows, etc, if necessary. Seems a bit extreme, but I don't want to have issues for years because of some stupid mistake I made the first day.
p.s. Does anyone have the product below? I'm curious if someone installed it fresh today with DIM if it would work for them
https://www.daz3d.com/sunglasses-bundle-for-genesis-8-and-81-males-and-females

All that makes sense, I guess, but how come I see the same behavior on like 20 products out of 4,500 on two independant machines? (Yes, I have a problem, I never said I was sane.) And if Logging on wrecks your installs to the extent you say it does, why isn't this made more obvious? I mean, logging on to update your metadata sounds like a reasonable thing to do in most cases. It's like leaving a loaded gun on the coffee table when all the toddler-like beginners are in the room pushing buttons. That's just crazy.
Okay so hypothetically, let's assume you're right. I don't have anything else to go on so might as well run with that. Let's get to the important part. How do I fix it? I haven't installed a single product through Daz Connect on my new machine so I shouldn't have to worry about that part at least.

Banyan said:

I created a support ticket for this issue, but I just read another thread that said tech tickets could sometimes take months to get answers, which does not bode well for me. My google-fu is usually pretty good, but I haven't hit anything helpful.
Can someone tell me what files I should even be looking at, or where to start? I think the files were all copied to the directories they were supposed to be in, but for some reason they're not "hooked in" to daz studio it seems. So the sliders are showing up in parameters and such, but I can't access any of the materials or the character skin or any of that through the content library or smart content tabls. What file might case that behavior if it got borked? Maybe I can look for that file in the connect installed version on my testing rig and see if I can use it to make the DIM installed version work corrrectly. Or something. It feel like the fix is probably a line or two in a config file, but I've got no way to know how to find it.

It is because you have been logging in to DS.

When one logs into DS, it means you give DAZ Connect inside DS permission to call home to check what have you bought, 'update' the metadata (which sometimes fails) and inform you that the products have not been installed with DAZ Connect (which is not necessary).
If one makes the further mistake of letting DAZ Connect inside DS install anything, the stuff gets installed to a different place of where the other installers are putting them and the DAZ Connect installed versions steal priority over the installations done by other means, even in cases when DAZ Connect made installations are not working (not that uncommon)

Logging in to DS is needed only when one has made s concious and informed decision to use DAZ Connect as their primary method of installing content.

benniewoodell said:

You can use diffeo to get a G9 into blender. I've been doing an animated film for a client and been using Toon Heroes perfectly fine in Blender. I don't think they've had an update to the Daz to Blender bridge since G9 came out, so who knows how long it'll take.

I tried using diffeo to import a G9 model to blender, everything but the G9 body loads up

Ok everyone, I'm a little late here but ran into issues importing fbx. I have characterized G8 in motionbuilder, the animation looks perfect in motionbuilder, but when I import it into daz studio after exporting fbx from motionbuilder, after first 1/4th of the frames, the animation is screwed up. I also opened the fbx file in other programs, and the animation is perfect, its just the Daz that has problems. Anyone having same problems and figured it out, let me know, it'll be a big help

OK, I have some animation files, which I'm trying to import in Daz via motion builder, the animation looks good in motionbuilder, but when I import the fbx file in Daz, it goes well for firts 1/4th of the frames but then shoulder and hip movement is off the chart. I also opened the exported fbx from motionbuilder into other viewer software and it works good in that. It doesn't happen to all animations, but is total random. Anyone using the same pipeline, let me know if you've gone through same and if you've find any solutions. Thanks!!

fastbike1 said:

I can't get any characters to convert. The most I can get are eyebrows. Usually I get the dialog box that says "No NEW character files detected.    Note: etc, etc."  I've tried characters from Raiya, Cherubit, Jessaii and Emrys among others. This is pretty disappointing.

Sounds like your DB is not reporting metadata correctly.  You can turn off Check Content Type in options and then use the Add Files button to add any characters. 

you can also look at Quixel assets.  They are unlimited download/export if you use an Unreal Engine account to log in to Quixel.

Can import them to Daz Studio as obj and set up shader material.

They have a lot of city street assets if you cant find high quality on Daz Store.

That Worked. I uninstalled it from the products tab then updated metadata then reinstalled from the Products tab. Thanks Richard.

What do you mean with Daz directory and Product directory? If you are referring to Smart Content, then it is not determined by where the product is created but on metadata. Metadata is a special activity.

Have you tried to install a product manually? That should give you an idea of which file structure you should end up with. E.g. you could go to the freebi section and grab a freebi and see how that is structured, as it hopefully uses the same standard.

One thing I have to remember if I want to search for an older character is to use both numbers associated with their generation, i.e. Genesis (you get everyone) or 5, Gen 2 or 6, Gen 3 or 7, Gen 8, 81, 8.1 and now Gen 9 (some of the nines never made it to people, so search on 'Figures'. (I now check as I add new characters to my runtime and add the extra metadata to them due to this.)