There are some pretty big beds out there

As a shout out to Maclean, your stuff has always been spot on in size

Well, I don't see why it shouldn't be. I mean, it's as easy to model something the right size as the wrong size. You still have to model it.

My approach is pretty straightforward.I don't use figures (I don't even have G8. The last fig I had was V4). For smaller props, I use real-life objects and a tape measure, and if it's an object which may vary from country to country, I look it up on the net and take the optimum size. I try to make sure every prop, room, chair, etc is as near 'normal' size as possible, and at the very end of a pack, I load up everything, along with some guide objects from older products, and double- check there are no glaring errors. (Yes, I've caught a couple of weird mistakes this way).

And yes, I'm fanatical about rooms having opening doors, light switches and sockets. Who can live without electricity? Not me, that's for sure!

And that's a whole other discussion, makes me want to get a set of various power outlets and switches to put in any room modern enough to have them. (Also things like thermostats, vents for central air/heat. Heaters/ac units...)

AutoFit should handle any item that is fitted to the figure (not just parented) - but, at least in the other direction, it's often better just to parent the hair without fitting it or to chnage the base in Edit>Figure>Scene identification.

Are you using freshly installed content or content you copied over from the old machine? Are you usign non-default paths, and have you installed Daz Central?

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be much urgency on Daz's part to fix this. Which is kind of surprising to me, since we're talking about actual *data loss* here. Bugs don't get more serious than that.

This is what it looks like to me. There seems to be a bit of "shiny new thing" mentality. I'm all for shiny new things, but I like to see existing features maintained and improved, too. dForce and Iray are features that seem to be continually updated. Others seem to languish after release.

• We got Daz Connect. Bugs I reported have never been fixed. I gave up and returned to DIM.
• We got Strand Based Hair but no new features have been added and I haven't seen any bug fixes for it in a long long time.
• We got Face Transfer, but it has only basic capabilities and does not seem to be getting any improvements either.
• Now we have the "new" timeline, which is buggy. The change log hasn't shown any work on it in recent weeks. And Keymate and Graphmate, which work pretty well, were removed from the store.
• We got Daz Central. During the beta phase, people complained loudly about big problems. They weren't fixed, but the software was released with big fanfare.

It gets frustrating, but we have no visibility to the Daz Studio roadmap or Daz3D company priorities.

Yes, I watched several videos via Daz Central, but they didn't correspond to the reality I was getting so I stopped. For instance, according to the videos, you can launch the program from Daz Central by clicking on the button under an item and it will find the item once DS is open- but DS doesn't open at all that way, and if you open it manually, none of the little hints shown in the video launch. I don't really like having to ask about all these little things in a forum, but the things you mention about file systems and meta data and of course Daz' long history of versions and updates and legacy material makes it hard to find 3rd party tutorials that address Daz as it exists at the moment.

I know it's a big program and an even bigger universe of content, but somebody really should sit down and clean it up and make at least the stuff that the Daz store sells play by a consistent set of rules. Since most of the content is 3rd party, this wouldn't be that much work for the Daz team themselves, and it would make the program MUCH more accessible to new users. I think it would be a good business decision, besides just being good manners toward the customers.

Daz Central was supposedly designed to make things easier for new customers, but lots of people have been having lots of problems with it. I have not installed it. I continue to use the Daz Install Manager, which I find reliable. But, I have been around for a long time, and have had time to learn its ins and outs. You can also install products from within Daz Studio itself on the Install pane or the Smart Content pane. That is called Daz Connect. I found it too problematic and reverted to using Daz Install Manager. The important thing is, don't install the same product in multiple ways. If just wastes disk space and causes lots of confusion.

The Daz Studio Smart Content pane can help you figure out what goes with what. It works well for recent items that have good metadata. The problem is that very old products usually don't have any metadata at all. The other problem is that even new products get released with metadata errors occasionally. There is a Filter by Context checkbox on the Smart Content pane. If you select and item in the Scene pane and check Filter by Context, the Smart Content pane will show you only items that are compatible with the selected item. I love Smart Content.

I think you could benefit from watching some tutorial videos before you get too frustrated. It could make the whole process more fun for you. Daz Central was supposed to have tutorial links, I think. Does it? 

Ah, thanks. Yes, I did install G8 Starter Essentials, but no figure- but I just uninstalled it and reinstalled it, and now the base figure appears. 

Daz Studio has some great features, but the file system is weird and kind of buggy- and it's very hard for a newcomer to see what works with what, or where to find things, both in the program and in the store.

I still can't launch anything from Daz Central, so I need to launch Daz Studio manually and then hunt up stuff through the libraries. And now I see that there's something in my cart, although I emptied it about ten minutes ago...

Some of the problems I'm running into seem pretty minor, but they add up to confusion and a loss of confidence in the package.

It can be really easy to forget to set Instancing Optimization to Memory, and a pain to gain control of DS again when you forget. (Voice of experience, of course!) What I did was set up my Custom Menus to include an action that will make the change for me:

When I go to open any of my Instancing scripts, (interesting they are all from Howie!) the first thing I see is the item to Set Optimization to Memory. I click on that, and then come back and open the script I need.

To create something like that, you have to first save a Render-Settings preset with optimization set to Memory. Use Uncheck All in the popup dialog and then drill down to Instancing Optimization and check that, then save. Find the preset and right-click, then select Create a Custom Action from the popup menu. (You can further customize these menus from the Window > Workspace > Customize, or F3, dialog.)

@daveso You can look in DIM to see where something installed.  Go to the Installed tab and find the product you want to look at, click on it once to highlight it.  At the bottom right theres a check box to show details click it. A box should show in the window and at the bottom of the listed info click the Show File List button.  It will bring up a list of the files, look to make sure its going to the correct location where USC is installed.  Image attached for reference if you need it.

thanks ..yeah, its inn the wrong place. will try to move it, but I need to straighten out my install directories again. its a mess for sure. It hought it was all good. weird that some stuff goes to my custom directories and others go to the directories set up by DAZ Central ... which I had deleted when it didn;t even recognize Daz Studio being installed. 

Uninstall the pines thru DIM and then install them again manually where you want them. Sometimes it's just the lesser of two evils.

Laurie

Recently I've updated to a new PC and that means I have to download and install daz and it's content again even though I still have a folder containing all my daz connect files.
this time I've tried the new daz central and it was yet another install manager that just makes a bigger mess of installation folder instead of making it simpler.
luckily I've noticed the daz studio stand alone installer and it was what I hoped for, simply gave it a directory to install the software and another directory to store the content. it was a joy to open daz and see it isn't trying to fill my OS drive full of downloaded content.
There is still a DAZ3D directory in my roaming folder that worries me what would happen next time I change my ssd that is my windows drive or when for some reason I have to re-install it. Do I have to download and install all of my content because of whatever it is that this folder holds?
 

thanks everyone for the help./.. i was getting wonky for sure on this one. 
I have version 1.1 of Ultrascenery. 
So uninstalled and reinstalled to my custom path ... I have no idea why the other paths came back again ..Interesting that some other stuff got installed to wrong directory as well, but it shows in DS and works, but the USC script cannot find the stuff. 
So now I'm going to go in and delete all the default directories and paths ...and will need to reinstall the products that are in there. My entire DS installation is a mess as far as files and folders. 
OH ..CHECK THIS - - - PINES !!! I just wnated to render some pines ... and now to actually try to create something :)    
PINES - OH MY
Thanks again for the help.

Yippee! Glad you got it sorted. (Sounds like avoiding Daz Central is a smart move.)

Daz Central doesn't work for me. I launch it, and the buttons that go here or to the store work, but it will not launch Daz Studio from the Daz Studio button or from any installed content. 

Also, if I launch Daz Studio from its own launcher, it does not do seem to recognize some of the content I've downloaded.

What will fix these issues? Do I need to reinstall something, install in a particular order?  I installed according to the instruction in the tutorial video, then tried reinstalling  Daz Central, but that did not help.

Is there a way to make 'smart content library' recognize all products? Everything I have at this point is from the files that come with the initial installation or the Daz freebies pages, but not all of it shows up. 

 

I'm really trying not to be a PITA ... but how do I get Ultrascenery Pines to be recognized by the main script? 
I've uninstalled/reinstalled at least 10 times, updated metadata multitudes of times, deleted the entire product from DIM, rebooted my computer 3 or 4 times, etc etc etc. The product has been installed by DIM in the exact same folder and locations as all the others products in USC in both smart cantent and content libray ... but no pines show in the Ultrascenery Creator ecology tab. I do have the Nature Trees PAck 4 installed as well. It is in the PROPS folder and in Products -N within Content Library

Look under Content Library/Enviroments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies/  scroll down there should be 7 ecologies there that says USC Pines 1, USC Pines 2 etc...

I see all the ecologies other than the pines. 

 

I'm really trying not to be a PITA ... but how do I get Ultrascenery Pines to be recognized by the main script? 
I've uninstalled/reinstalled at least 10 times, updated metadata multitudes of times, deleted the entire product from DIM, rebooted my computer 3 or 4 times, etc etc etc. The product has been installed by DIM in the exact same folder and locations as all the others products in USC in both smart cantent and content libray ... but no pines show in the Ultrascenery Creator ecology tab. I do have the Nature Trees PAck 4 installed as well. It is in the PROPS folder and in Products -N within Content Library

Look under Content Library/Enviroments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies/  scroll down there should be 7 ecologies there that says USC Pines 1, USC Pines 2 etc...

I see all the ecologies other than the pines. 

@daveso, outside of Daz Studio, use your operating system file explorer to look in the Environments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies folder in your content library folder. You should see a folder for each ecology. Do you see the USC Pines 01 through USC Pines 07 folders? If so, open one of the folders. Do you see some json,duf, and png files?

What version of UltraSceneCreator script are you running? The version number is near the top of the window when you run the script.

somehow its installing to thew directory created by DAZ Central..which I had all straightened out, I thought. What a mess in this thing. I think I'm just going to uninstall my entire DAZ installation ..but I only have a 512gig SSD, so do not want any data or product files there at all ...only the actuall program files. 

Before you go to that extent, launch UltraScenery and tell us which version it is. The version number is near top right I believe.

@daveso You can look in DIM to see where something installed.  Go to the Installed tab and find the product you want to look at, click on it once to highlight it.  At the bottom right theres a check box to show details click it. A box should show in the window and at the bottom of the listed info click the Show File List button.  It will bring up a list of the files, look to make sure its going to the correct location where USC is installed.  Image attached for reference if you need it.

thanks ..yeah, its inn the wrong place. will try to move it, but I need to straighten out my install directories again. its a mess for sure. It hought it was all good. weird that some stuff goes to my custom directories and others go to the directories set up by DAZ Central ... which I had deleted when it didn;t even recognize Daz Studio being installed. 

I'm really trying not to be a PITA ... but how do I get Ultrascenery Pines to be recognized by the main script? 
I've uninstalled/reinstalled at least 10 times, updated metadata multitudes of times, deleted the entire product from DIM, rebooted my computer 3 or 4 times, etc etc etc. The product has been installed by DIM in the exact same folder and locations as all the others products in USC in both smart cantent and content libray ... but no pines show in the Ultrascenery Creator ecology tab. I do have the Nature Trees PAck 4 installed as well. It is in the PROPS folder and in Products -N within Content Library

Look under Content Library/Enviroments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies/  scroll down there should be 7 ecologies there that says USC Pines 1, USC Pines 2 etc...

I see all the ecologies other than the pines. 

 

I'm really trying not to be a PITA ... but how do I get Ultrascenery Pines to be recognized by the main script? 
I've uninstalled/reinstalled at least 10 times, updated metadata multitudes of times, deleted the entire product from DIM, rebooted my computer 3 or 4 times, etc etc etc. The product has been installed by DIM in the exact same folder and locations as all the others products in USC in both smart cantent and content libray ... but no pines show in the Ultrascenery Creator ecology tab. I do have the Nature Trees PAck 4 installed as well. It is in the PROPS folder and in Products -N within Content Library

Look under Content Library/Enviroments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies/  scroll down there should be 7 ecologies there that says USC Pines 1, USC Pines 2 etc...

I see all the ecologies other than the pines. 

@daveso, outside of Daz Studio, use your operating system file explorer to look in the Environments/Landscapes/UltraScenery/Ecologies folder in your content library folder. You should see a folder for each ecology. Do you see the USC Pines 01 through USC Pines 07 folders? If so, open one of the folders. Do you see some json,duf, and png files?

What version of UltraSceneCreator script are you running? The version number is near the top of the window when you run the script.

somehow its installing to thew directory created by DAZ Central..which I had all straightened out, I thought. What a mess in this thing. I think I'm just going to uninstall my entire DAZ installation ..but I only have a 512gig SSD, so do not want any data or product files there at all ...only the actuall program files. 

I bought the following product https://www.daz3d.com/tan-skin-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8-males but there doesn't appear to be anyway to download it, except for Daz Central, which I haven't installed. The order page says it is not available through DIM. When I click on the Manual Download option, which is suppose to be available, there is no button to actually download. Oddly, for all the products that I have purchased recently, Daz Connect isn't listed at all for any of the products. But they all seemed to be available through Connect, except for the Tan-skin-merchant-resource-for genesis-8-males.

I doubt there are any Daz Central installers either. Reported the issue.

I bought the following product https://www.daz3d.com/tan-skin-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8-males but there doesn't appear to be anyway to download it, except for Daz Central, which I haven't installed. The order page says it is not available through DIM. When I click on the Manual Download option, which is suppose to be available, there is no button to actually download. Oddly, for all the products that I have purchased recently, Daz Connect isn't listed at all for any of the products. But they all seemed to be available through Connect, except for the Tan-skin-merchant-resource-for genesis-8-males.

Looks like another case of missing install files... 

I bought the following product https://www.daz3d.com/tan-skin-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8-males but there doesn't appear to be anyway to download it, except for Daz Central, which I haven't installed. The order page says it is not available through DIM. When I click on the Manual Download option, which is suppose to be available, there is no button to actually download. Oddly, for all the products that I have purchased recently, Daz Connect isn't listed at all for any of the products. But they all seemed to be available through Connect, except for the Tan-skin-merchant-resource-for genesis-8-males.

I just started using Daz Studio tonight, and if I'm reading this thread right, a big part of the problem I'm having is having two file management systems that use different library locations and are sensitive to some feature that makes some of it 'smart.' This seems like really bad product design to me.

Although I have installed it twice, Daz Central wil not open Daz Studio when I try to open installed content from it. Nothing happens at all. It also appears to make a difference where I start from, where an item will end up. Shopping from the program, Daz Central, and directly from the web site, all seem to be different. Maybe that's not why Michael won't install automatically, but if it isn't, there's something else non-functional going on. 

Really, Daz, there should be one file managment system, it should work consistently with ALL products in your store, and you should stop recommending that I install something that's already installed- especially because it does not appear to work. 
Fortunately, I don't really want to use Daz Studio for much, but if things work like they should it would be a time-saver for some early steps in making characters to be finished out and animated in Blender (in which, btw, you can make any mesh work with physics. I understand that Daz appeals largely to a hobbiest demographic, but it does have some features that would be helpful in a productivity pipeline if I could easily see which elements work with each other (ideally because ALL hair has physics, ALL clothing is 'smart,' and so on). I really don't want to spend money on items that I have to do much work on to fit properly or pose properly, I might as well make them myself in Blender or download free obj. files and mess with them until they behave. If you're selling convenience, your product needs to be convenient.

Same here. Every time I log into DAZ Studio I get the following status bar message:

Metadata update failed: 1 items succeeded, 2 items failed.

This has been going on for quite some time, ever since I tried using DAZ Central to be precise. Not sure if it has anything to do with that though... But I uninstalled DAZ Central after installing only two products with it, and went back to DAZ Install Manager. 

I can't even tell which products are the issue because they are just files with numbers and a .json extension that are producing the errors.

Is there some way to figure out which products are causing this issue?

I redownloaded it and opened it through Daz Central, yes.

So that was using Daz Central?