hi guys, I just make a clean start because I would like to keep libraires better organized (I started using the default library for everything, not a good idea); after first erasing everything from DIM then from disk and registry I discovered that somehow the new DIM installation kept all my settings, even Daz Studio, Photoshop and maya installation paths (into Applications tab) and custom libraries I created before unistalling just to see how they worked and how to organize.. I searched the registry carefully before reinstalling and I'm pretty sure I removed everything, but my settings were there already..

I also gave a try to Daz Central for ten minutes, I just logged in and check.. maybe it stores settings online?

Anyway after reinstalling a few stuff I also discovered that my Smart Content data was full of old stuff, all references poiting to non existant files. I had to reset the database and build it again.. I don't think it's normal.. is there an help page where are reported all daz used paths? I don't think I missed something because I also doble checked on my secondary PC but you can't never know..

And about the current question: is it normal that in Losts and Found I now have Genesis 3 Starter Essentials and a Michael 7 character? I remember them being categorized.. I'm attaching a screenshot..

This is Camilla for Aubrey 8 in the Long Tunic and Skirt Outfit and Dolly Hair. I used one of the walking down stairs poses from ROG and put her in the ROG Red Crow Inn. Then had to find Mesh Grabber (deleted by DAZ Central) and fix some poke through on the knee. The tunic was very shiny, so I messed with the Surfaces settings (something I hesitate to do, but a plastic look was just wrong. 

Camilla is lovely. The tunic has a 'dickie' insert. The simple shoes are like heeless shoes. Very interesting. It is not listed as dForce, but I applied dForce to the tunic and long skirt and did not have any more issues with them, than I might with an official dForce outfit. The tunic and skirt both have adjustment morphs. 

Found my install paths for downloads were reverted to my C: drive. And only because of a major Windows 10 update today. My drive was maxed out. Thanks. It took a bit, and finally found a slew of 'Custom' paths added to my DIM that were not there yesterday. Deleted them, uninstalled today's downloads, and reinstalled to my F: drive.

Now, how the heck do you uninstall DAZ Central? I don't want a program that is going to override my paths and preferences behind my back.

Mary

Thanks for posting this! I have fought long and hard to get a working content archetecture on my d drive, the very last thing I need is what you just described! Not going on my main PC render machine! I would consider trying it on my mac but....Daz didn't even say it was coming to mac soon;) to bad cause it looks cool.

I don't think anyone is wilfully withholding an answer to the question about third-party content, but I doubt it has been tested so it's waiting on someone giving it a go.

Don't forget that Daz Rawb said above that DIM and Daz Central are the same base core, so I doubt this is a matter of development costs (and I'd hold out hope that cool stuff added to DC will find its way into DIM too). I think the "you" who "spoke" would eb the silent(ish) group who use the content and applications but don't post on the forums.

I'm pretty sure that DIM and Daz Central won't introduce some kind of DRM - they are dealing with plain zips, albeit with a particular structure - but I wouldn't bet on  there never being a return to DRM (I get sent links to the industrial-scale warez sites that are leaching on Daz content).

If DIM remains an option, I don't see myself ever using Daz Central.

The primary reason I use DIM is because you can right-click on an installed package and get the list of installed files and their location.  I got so old that I can no longer count on knowing where stuff is just because I had installed it myself.

This is priceless. DAZ hasn't yet produced a good Content Manager. postgresql cms still doesn't work on a Mac. Now you're introducing DAZCentral which won't work on a Mac. Has DAZ stopped supporting Macs? Shouldn't you get one product working before moving onto a replacement?

PostgreSQL does work on the Mac, though there have recently been some (fixable) configuration issues that seem to affect new installs.

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

ding ding ding...

You can't ding ding ding something that plainly isn't correct, and has been confirmed to be incorrect.

In my read, I didn't see any overt confirmation of that. When DAZ_RawB writes something like "No, DRM will never be part of the new DazCentral system", then I'll raise my cynical eyebrows and admit that "hmmm, they weren't trying to smuggle it in again, silly me..."

(FWIW, I understand and even support the DRM motivation, but as an honest customer that saw the 'Connect' fiasco unfold, my response isn't exactly unprovoked)

But let me offer a beer-bet that cynically predicts that DRM *will* be integrated someday - as will direct store purchasing features - both fine by me. Just note that I'm betting in favor of DAZ's interests, not the user-base's.

You on?

exactly who asked for this? anyone?

I could see this as a good long-term strategy for DAZ and its future customers, but I honestly don't think the voices in these forums were asking for this 'feature' over other improvements  - e.g. clean DS shutdowns, animations that load the way they were saved, BVH loading/saving that works, etc...

Of course I understand that priorities are likely to differ and the future is not the past, even if for its own sake. The natural tension of the marketplace continues. Vote accordingly.

I would recommend to the mothership that manual downloads and DIM remain enabled over the long-term, else another 'connect'-like event is likely to be looming should that change.

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

It is for new users who have trouble with the options in DIM, as explained above. Since it uses the same system as DIM (just with a streamlined UI, as explained above) it will presumably not do anything with content that isn't set up to work in DIM - I dion't know if it will work with the small number of items from other sites thata re set up to work with DIM, though.

Excellent idea! Good thinking on the part of DAZ.

Per my comments ("good for DAZ and future customers"), I *can* see the logic/motivation of this tool. And FWIW, I use and like DIM for my download management.

But... As I stated in a recent previous post, when you tell a veteran userbase/audience in the first 4 lines of a forum announcement that 'We heard your voices', then a few posts later describe the tool as 'being designed for new users', the flurry of commentary that it has generated in this crowd doesn't surprise me at all.

This product simply was not designed for 95% of *us*. And that's fine and it's good to for us to know.

And I think it's safe to assume that my interests in using it to import foreign data probably won't be found here, even if they never actually answer the question - it's implied. New users won't need that. Fine.

I'm pragmatic and blunt, which often comes across as mean or vindictive when I sense hidden agendas or plain BS, but in most of my commentary, deleted or otherwise, there are usually truths that might be worth discussing. I just don't wrap 'em with a pretty bow anymore.

--ms

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

...

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

That question is way easier asked than answered. Just to give an idea of the complexity involved:

Automated access -
Most marketplaces are designed and optimized for manual interactions and not for automated bulk access using any tool. Not all sites have the need nor the capability to handle automated downloads. In fact, several of these marketplaces may have safeguards to prevent such automated bulk access in order to avoid spikes of overload or prevent any DOS attack to their servers. Daz may be handling this scenario by routing calls from DIM/Studio to different servers than those that are used to access content catalog/description using web browser. So if you try to circumvent such site-wide measures using a tool, you risk getting flagged as a malicious user.

Proprietary metadata -
3rd party marketplaces sell their 3D content according to formats supported by popular tools used by professionals. Each additional format require additional effort from their publishers to support that format. For the few sites that support the Daz format (such as duf files) outside Daz, there is a severe lack of formalization to provide metadata that would facilitate categorization and searching inside studio. Publishers just get away with providing a path to access their content in the content library in a readme file and that have been deemed sufficient so far. As revolting as it may sound, but the support for arbitary manual installation of content diminishes the requirement for formal metadata. So in the absence of Daz prescribed metadata, your content is "invisible" to any tool that relies on the presence of it.

Of course, there are further concerns regarding standardization of - access to content "repositories", federated content search/discovery using content "registries". But those challenges are way beyond the simple hurdles I mentioned above.

Sure - then a simple "no" would be fine.

I never stated or implied in any way that the request was trivial. As a business decision, the cost to DAZ of dealing with what you describe is completely relevant.

At the same time, virtually everyone in here (not new users, trust me, I know the names - rough guess pegs 95% to 5+ year users), owns and uses content from Rendo, Hivewire, Pre-DAZ-RDNA, PoserWorld, etc., let alone the zillions of *randomly* packaged freebies from sharecg and other sources... So the question to us not-new users is probably one of *the* features that would still interest us most! That's what I would expect 'we heard your voices' to reflect, and the question still goes unanswered.

Proof of this need is the existence of incredibly sophisticated tools like Riverside Arts's Content Wizard here at the store (and a few variations) that have been written to help us create home-made DIM packages and Smart-Content Meta-Data. Perhaps Riverside will be able to extend their great product to integrate with this tool, which would be great for everyone.

 

The original question is still legit, and still hasn't been answered formally by a DAZ rep anywhere I can see, and I find that telling - in information and attitude, but that's just me.

Either a simple 'we may someday', or 'sorry, no' or even 'sorry, no, DAZ doesn't do foreign data' would be *fine* with me, or... better yet, 'yeah, that's coming, but it's pretty complicated, given the many variations of foreign data out there. We may add support for the fairly regimented Poser Runtimes like we still sell at the store here first, and see how that goes... but we're going to work get the core under control first...'

just sayin'

Given the recent comments from DAZ_RawB that indicate that it is for *new* users (which is fine), starting the announcement out with "We've heard your voices" really begs the question, though doesn't it.

Thanks for the response.

--ms

When Studio 4.9 was released with the integrated Encrypted Daz Connect (they meant DRM but folks don't like DRM), they said they had done all the changes to make it easier for new users to find stuff; the forum went into melt-down. This hasn't been the same, but I'm getting the same vibe; obviously it's just my opinion, but there are a number of comments that have reinforced my feeling. There are no comments that have reassured me.

I was actually quite interested in this, and curious to see what it did. It fell down on the forced restart.

... Hopefully Daz will sort it out, and we'll be able to use DIM as normal, even when trying this out. Ideally being able to use both would be the way forward.

Personally, why wasn't DIM improved? It does most of what it says on the tin really well. It's only issue is search, but even that is not too bad, and being able to use regex is helpful for those that know what it is and how to create search terms.

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

...

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

That question is way easier asked than answered. Just to give an idea of the complexity involved:

Automated access -
Most marketplaces are designed and optimized for manual interactions and not for automated bulk access using any tool. Not all sites have the need nor the capability to handle automated downloads. In fact, several of these marketplaces may have safeguards to prevent such automated bulk access in order to avoid spikes of overload or prevent any DOS attack to their servers. Daz may be handling this scenario by routing calls from DIM/Studio to different servers than those that are used to access content catalog/description using web browser. So if you try to circumvent such site-wide measures using a tool, you risk getting flagged as a malicious user.

Proprietary metadata -
3rd party marketplaces sell their 3D content according to formats supported by popular tools used by professionals. Each additional format require additional effort from their publishers to support that format. For the few sites that support the Daz format (such as duf files) outside Daz, there is a severe lack of formalization to provide metadata that would facilitate categorization and searching inside studio. Publishers just get away with providing a path to access their content in the content library in a readme file and that have been deemed sufficient so far. As revolting as it may sound, but the support for arbitary manual installation of content diminishes the requirement for formal metadata. So in the absence of Daz prescribed metadata, your content is "invisible" to any tool that relies on the presence of it.

Of course, there are further concerns regarding standardization of - access to content "repositories", federated content search/discovery using content "registries". But those challenges are way beyond the simple hurdles I mentioned above.

Sure - then a simple "no" would be fine.

I never stated or implied in any way that the request was trivial. As a business decision, the cost to DAZ of dealing with what you describe is completely relevant.

At the same time, virtually everyone in here (not new users, trust me, I know the names - rough guess pegs 95% to 5+ year users), owns and uses content from Rendo, Hivewire, Pre-DAZ-RDNA, PoserWorld, etc., let alone the zillions of *randomly* packaged freebies from sharecg and other sources... So the question to us not-new users is probably one of *the* features that would still interest us most! That's what I would expect 'we heard your voices' to reflect, and the question still goes unanswered.

Proof of this need is the existence of incredibly sophisticated tools like Riverside Arts's Content Wizard here at the store (and a few variations) that have been written to help us create home-made DIM packages and Smart-Content Meta-Data. Perhaps Riverside will be able to extend their great product to integrate with this tool, which would be great for everyone.

The original question is still legit, and still hasn't been answered formally by a DAZ rep anywhere I can see, and I find that telling - in information and attitude, but that's just me.

Either a simple 'we may someday', or 'sorry, no' or even 'sorry, no, DAZ doesn't do foreign data' would be *fine* with me, or... better yet, 'yeah, that's coming, but it's pretty complicated, given the many variations of foreign data out there. We may add support for the fairly regimented Poser Runtimes like we still sell at the store here first, and see how that goes... but we're going to work get the core under control first...'

just sayin'

Given the recent comments from DAZ_RawB that indicate that it is for *new* users (which is fine), starting the announcement out with "We've heard your voices" really begs the question, though doesn't it.

Thanks for the response.

--ms

Have any of you tried that DAZ Central?

doubt Carrara can use it but wondering if it actually breaks stuff for Carrara

I would ask but they are touchy about it and I would likely get moderated

I am wondering too about the size of the footprint on the computer.

Name: Sir Fartsalot

whose gaseous indiscretion were renowned throughout the Realm. 

Behinders, also known as Ass Tyrants, Elderberry Orbs, and Gastators, are probably among the most feared when it comes to monsters that use foul gases as one of their weapons. Some have even been rumored to put adult Green Dragons to shame when it comes to lethal gassings. It consists of a large round floating body having two large cheeks and a central orifice, above which a large eye is located. From the top of its main body sprouts several or more appendages of which to the ends are attached what appear to be the lower torso, behinds, and strong legs of humanoids. Each also has its own eye positioned just above its respective central orifice between the "hindquarters". Besides having the ability to shoot waste & spew gases for various effects(some potentially lethal and far-reaching), death from Behinder kicks, stomping rampages, and cheek smotherings are also real possibilities; especially when the Behinder wants to mete out punishment up close and personal. Never mess with those "cheeks of many reeks" unprepared, or your adventuring party could find itself kicked, stomped, and gassed... hhhorribly

Third Serious Gamer: "Those buttholders are really nasty..."

Sixth Serious Gamer: "Worse than beholders - not just eyes but ane-eyes too. So you have to be extremely careful if you want to try and incapacitate them by poking them in the eyes"

First Serious Gamer: "Oh lordy, I remember that - the Lair Of Khazi, wasn't it ? Absolutely horrible..."

[a sudden whimper of terror]

"No way, NO WAY ! I'm not going on a quest with a turkey-zombifying Blacksmith-Necromancer if there's even the vaguest chance of running into behinders ! Not again ! You obviously do* remember what happened last time... !"

P.S. Coming up with this rubbish, and reading it again later, always gives me a good chuckle. I'd definitely recommend it as therapy in these gloomy days. Give it a try !

*Okay, if you insist I'll explain.
But be forewarned - although the explanation is brief, it's unpleasant... in the extreme.
So if you're of a delicate disposition then please close your eyes while reading what follows....

Have you got your eyes firmly closed ?
I don't believe you !

So just to be on the safe side the explanation is also protected by virtual hazard warning tape**:

The description of behinders in the "Grimoire Arcanus" of the mad magus Madmagus reveals that the 'legs' on the ends of its appendages are actually articulated mandibles.

Being eaten alive by a behinder is probably the most unpleasantly embarassing way any adventurer could shuffleoff this mortal coil

** to temporarily peel off virtual hazard warning tape you have to do some sort of click-draggy thing

DIM has been updated, anyone who hasn't updated wont be able to log in with the old version.

EDIT

Scratch that, the new DIM and that Central don't recognise my password, same one I'm logged into the site with, guess the coders made an ass of it somewhere.

You may need to update your password, especially if it's short or simple.

It's definitely a different experience depending on where you live...the NYC metro area that encompasses most of Connecticut and New Jersey is a nightmare zone (I live in central Connecticut). People often forget that this thing doesn't care about borders and state lines. My cousin who is a paramedic was born and raised in Connecticut and only recently moved to South Carolina...and even in that little time, his mentality seems to have shifted. With his being a paramedic, I was dumbfounded that he wasn't taking this as seriously as I would have thought...I'd gather his mindset as a front-line responder would be something rather different if he was back home. 

I've stopped looking at the news...otherwise I don't think I'd get out of bed. Though I recently learned that as of 5/20, there is a plan to re-open restaurants, retail including indoor malls (seriously, wtf here), and salons. Sorry. No amount of hair growth would push me to go to a salon right now. Restaurants will be outdoor dining only, and masks will be required...have no idea how that is going to work. But still...nope. Delivery and home cooking it is for the forseeable future for me. I'm not playing with fire. My money is on everything getting tightened back up in three weeks once another wave of people getting sick hits. We're still at our peak...it's a mistake. 

The only thing that bothers me about DIM is how unintuitive the UI is.  There's still no easy way to find just your tutorials, for instance.  And coming to the forums in hope that someone will provide a sequence of letters they can copy/paste into the filter box is not a substitute.  

 Daz is marketed as a consumer/hobbyist product, but its interface doesn't reflect that.  So rather than design DIM so that it's easier for everyone to use, Daz Central will provide a colourful interface with what looks like fewer options that will frustrate users as soon as their requirements expand.  Then they will be told to use DIM and just deal with it.

DIM has been updated, anyone who hasn't updated wont be able to log in with the old version.

EDIT

Scratch that, the new DIM and that Central don't recognise my password, same one I'm logged into the site with, guess the coders made an ass of it somewhere.

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

...

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

That question is way easier asked than answered. Just to give an idea of the complexity involved:

Automated access -
Most marketplaces are designed and optimized for manual interactions and not for automated bulk access using any tool. Not all sites have the need nor the capability to handle automated downloads. In fact, several of these marketplaces may have safeguards to prevent such automated bulk access in order to avoid spikes of overload or prevent any DOS attack to their servers. Daz may be handling this scenario by routing calls from DIM/Studio to different servers than those that are used to access content catalog/description using web browser. So if you try to circumvent such site-wide measures using a tool, you risk getting flagged as a malicious user.

Proprietary metadata -
3rd party marketplaces sell their 3D content according to formats supported by popular tools used by professionals. Each additional format require additional effort from their publishers to support that format. For the few sites that support the Daz format (such as duf files) outside Daz, there is a severe lack of formalization to provide metadata that would facilitate categorization and searching inside studio. Publishers just get away with providing a path to access their content in the content library in a readme file and that have been deemed sufficient so far. As revolting as it may sound, but the support for arbitary manual installation of content diminishes the requirement for formal metadata. So in the absence of Daz prescribed metadata, your content is "invisible" to any tool that relies on the presence of it.

Of course, there are further concerns regarding standardization of - access to content "repositories", federated content search/discovery using content "registries". But those challenges are way beyond the simple hurdles I mentioned above.

 

With a tool making metadata before installation is enough. I use for rendo products and freebies a  Rstudio script to create metadata, manifest, support files, generate ID and introduce a custom category, then I zip all and set in DIM package folder, and DIM install the product. So, If I can do it, daz can do it better. The same using Riversoft content wizard plus doctot jellybean content package (I can't afford the money for these so I needed be creative and write my own primitive version)

In fact, we don't need DIM if we don't care about the capacity of uninstalling or be tired reading the metadata in Daz Studio. A well made metadata is enough..

To have (metadata), or not to have, that is the question. Many power users find it empowering if the content they download doesn't contain the metadata(categorization, tags) to their liking or style. That way they can start with a clean slate for categorizing and tagging each item rather than rely on the artist's perception. Those users have the necessary tools and knowhow to add their own custom metadata. Similary many artists realize this empowerment, so they publish their content with minimal required metadata or sometimes none at all. Some artists on the other hand, may find it an unproductive chore or don't have the tools/knowhow to add Daz specific metadata assuming(?) that most users don't use SmartContent so the cost/benefit equation doesn't weigh enough. In any case, not having appropriate metadata at the source (i.e. on the server) hurts the development of content management tools that rely on the presence of metadata at the source before it can help the user in deciding whether (if and when) to download the content based on their current needs.

Let me try to illustrate how DazCentral might approach this for Rendo (or any other site for that matter):

1) Authenticate with the external site (can be automated)
2) Navigate to the user's account section to retrieve the direct download links for assets. (can be automated)
3) Categorize the assests or try to identify tags without downloading those assets. (well....)
4) List the external assets in the DazCentral interface based on user specified criteria (gated due to #3 above)

I hope you can now see the importance of having metadata (or atleast some rudimentary form of categorization/tagging) at the source that is accessible within content management tools. That is where the need for standardization for content "repositories" across marketplaces wrt to Daz Studio come into play.

My first impression is that I really like the look and feel of DazCentral. I am optimistic about it!

I have two suggestions for improvement:

1) I would like the ability to configure which version of Daz Studio is launched when an item is clicked. I would like DazCentral to launch the latest beta version of Daz Studio by default as that is what I mostly use.

2) I would like the ability to perform more complex (e.g., boolean and metadata) searches. Like others, I have a fairly large content library. I would like to be able to search within current search results. Also, to be able to tag items from multiple searches and view all the tagged items as their own group or category would be very handy.

Going forwards, I will use DazCentral as much as possible. However, it will need to have the same functionality as DIM before I switch permanently to DazCentral - I have come to really appreciate what DIM can do!

I am the same, I will use Daz Central more when it has the features that DiM currently has such as custom folder install, and new features such as better sorting of content into catagories..

As was expalined earlier, this is aimed at new uers who find DIM overwhelming - so I think we can be confident that it won't be getting all the options DIM has. DIM will continue to be avaialble for those who need the additional options.

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

...

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

That question is way easier asked than answered. Just to give an idea of the complexity involved:

Automated access -
Most marketplaces are designed and optimized for manual interactions and not for automated bulk access using any tool. Not all sites have the need nor the capability to handle automated downloads. In fact, several of these marketplaces may have safeguards to prevent such automated bulk access in order to avoid spikes of overload or prevent any DOS attack to their servers. Daz may be handling this scenario by routing calls from DIM/Studio to different servers than those that are used to access content catalog/description using web browser. So if you try to circumvent such site-wide measures using a tool, you risk getting flagged as a malicious user.

Proprietary metadata -
3rd party marketplaces sell their 3D content according to formats supported by popular tools used by professionals. Each additional format require additional effort from their publishers to support that format. For the few sites that support the Daz format (such as duf files) outside Daz, there is a severe lack of formalization to provide metadata that would facilitate categorization and searching inside studio. Publishers just get away with providing a path to access their content in the content library in a readme file and that have been deemed sufficient so far. As revolting as it may sound, but the support for arbitary manual installation of content diminishes the requirement for formal metadata. So in the absence of Daz prescribed metadata, your content is "invisible" to any tool that relies on the presence of it.

Of course, there are further concerns regarding standardization of - access to content "repositories", federated content search/discovery using content "registries". But those challenges are way beyond the simple hurdles I mentioned above.

 

With a tool making metadata before installation is enough. I use for rendo products and freebies a  Rstudio script to create metadata, manifest, support files, generate ID and introduce a custom category, then I zip all and set in DIM package folder, and DIM install the product. So, If I can do it, daz can do it better. The same using Riversoft content wizard plus doctot jellybean content package (I can't afford the money for these so I needed be creative and write my own primitive version)

In fact, we don't need DIM if we don't care about the capacity of uninstalling or be tired reading the metadata in Daz Studio. A well made metadata is enough..

My first impression is that I really like the look and feel of DazCentral. I am optimistic about it!

I have two suggestions for improvement:

1) I would like the ability to configure which version of Daz Studio is launched when an item is clicked. I would like DazCentral to launch the latest beta version of Daz Studio by default as that is what I mostly use.

2) I would like the ability to perform more complex (e.g., boolean and metadata) searches. Like others, I have a fairly large content library. I would like to be able to search within current search results. Also, to be able to tag items from multiple searches and view all the tagged items as their own group or category would be very handy.

Going forwards, I will use DazCentral as much as possible. However, it will need to have the same functionality as DIM before I switch permanently to DazCentral - I have come to really appreciate what DIM can do!

I am the same, I will use Daz Central more when it has the features that DiM currently has such as custom folder install, and new features such as better sorting of content into catagories..

As was expalined earlier, this is aimed at new uers who find DIM overwhelming - so I think we can be confident that it won't be getting all the options DIM has. DIM will continue to be avaialble for those who need the additional options.

This is priceless. DAZ hasn't yet produced a good Content Manager. postgresql cms still doesn't work on a Mac. Now you're introducing DAZCentral which won't work on a Mac. Has DAZ stopped supporting Macs? Shouldn't you get one product working before moving onto a replacement?

PostgreSQL does work on the Mac, though there have recently been some (fixable) configuration issues that seem to affect new installs.

 

Plugin installation/update support could have been added to SmartContent. V4/M4 capability and content development is pretty much frozen wrt Daz store, so once installed via DIM/manual don't require further maintenance. Doesn't justify building an entire "parallel" product for it.

Yeah, I don't think ease-of-use is the point of this, but rather DRM.

ding ding ding...

You can't ding ding ding something that plainly isn't correct, and has been confirmed to be incorrect.

exactly who asked for this? anyone?

I could see this as a good long-term strategy for DAZ and its future customers, but I honestly don't think the voices in these forums were asking for this 'feature' over other improvements  - e.g. clean DS shutdowns, animations that load the way they were saved, BVH loading/saving that works, etc...

Of course I understand that priorities are likely to differ and the future is not the past, even if for its own sake. The natural tension of the marketplace continues. Vote accordingly.

I would recommend to the mothership that manual downloads and DIM remain enabled over the long-term, else another 'connect'-like event is likely to be looming should that change.

Never did see an answer to the multiple questions about Daz Central and ... 'foreign' content. This continued silence is likely to become an answer in itself.

--ms

It is for new users who have trouble with the options in DIM, as explained above. Since it uses the same system as DIM (just with a streamlined UI, as explained above) it will presumably not do anything with content that isn't set up to work in DIM - I dion't know if it will work with the small number of items from other sites thata re set up to work with DIM, though.

My first impression is that I really like the look and feel of DazCentral. I am optimistic about it!

I have two suggestions for improvement:

1) I would like the ability to configure which version of Daz Studio is launched when an item is clicked. I would like DazCentral to launch the latest beta version of Daz Studio by default as that is what I mostly use.

2) I would like the ability to perform more complex (e.g., boolean and metadata) searches. Like others, I have a fairly large content library. I would like to be able to search within current search results. Also, to be able to tag items from multiple searches and view all the tagged items as their own group or category would be very handy.

Going forwards, I will use DazCentral as much as possible. However, it will need to have the same functionality as DIM before I switch permanently to DazCentral - I have come to really appreciate what DIM can do!

I am the same, I will use Daz Central more when it has the features that DiM currently has such as custom folder install, and new features such as better sorting of content into catagories..