ShadowSkillz said:

Has anyone else had problems with this item: https://www.daz3d.com/nd-special-eyes-for-genesis-81 , I am not seeing it for download in DIM?

I'm not seeing it in Daz Central either. 

I get that error when I try to start DIM or Daz central. Is there a way to uninstall all Daz components so I can have clean start/install ? Only one thing which I am suspecting is fisrt time I installed Daz on local disk D and not C, after running in this issue then I installed it on C but issue stayed same, don't know if this helps

Hi all, I've been trying to install Daz studio on my windows 11 machine. I have 11th gen i5, RTX laptop 3060, and 16GB DDR4 RAM. I've tried all the solutions online, it's been 2 days. I have updated(uninstall/install) C++ redistrubels, downloaded new direct x end-user runtime, downloaded some dll files which might be missing, tried different compatibilities, running as administrator, install uninstall multiple times, updated my GPU driver, it's same for install manager and Daz central studio. Please someone help I ran out of options, thanks in advance.

nomad-ads_8ecd56922e said:

wsterdan said:

Below I have a shot of three of the ships he built for me (the centre shot is the one with the warp sled added) while the outside two ships are actually the same ship, one with the wings morph showing the main hull with wings, the other using the "Trader" morphs to make it look more like a small cargo ship in the game, "Traveller". 

All three ships have landing gear that retracts, internal rooms with working doors and a cargo hatch with an elevator platform.

Finally, a render or two of the main ship. There's two morphs for the main deck, one where the centre is the captain's quarters, the second where the bridge is located.

3Dman25 dropped off the scene before all the work was completed, so they're all "not quite finished" but very usable as is.

After being unable to reach the artist for six or seven years, I hired Vanishing Point to do an overhaul on the main ship, and they did a brilliant job. I'll post some of the work on it tomorrow, but they gave it UV mapping, allowed for parts of the ship's exterior to be hidden to allow for better camera views, made the ship larger (adding a full deck and a central elevator, and more).

For the interior shots, I dropped a few pieces of furniture in for reference, I have yet to set up the interiors of any of the ships properly. Time is alway the enemy.

-- Walt Sterdan

Nice.  Are these ships available, or going to be available, for download somewhere? 

Thanks. I probably won't release this one, as it's a little on the "less polished" side and more difficult to work with.

If there's interest, I will release the second one, the one VP updated for me as it's much friendlier for the average user to work with and, due to the open floorplan (well, "empty" might be more accurate) people can lay the interior out to suit them. I'll check with VP about hosting it as a freebie.

Below, a shot in space, landed with gear down and lights uncovered, with the elevator down and a character standing in front of it, a shot with the bay doors open (they slide forward a bit, then slide to the sides) with the loading ramp extended, a shot with the left wall and roof hidden to see the three decks, a shot from slighty above with a character on the ramp for scale, and a final shot with the warp sled hidden so you can see the system ship on its own.

The main viewscreen is mapped to be a huge view screen to work with from the bridge but can be cleared to be an open viewing screen.

The one regret is that to give the ship three decks (part of the bottom deck is used for the landing gear wells) the main (middle) deck is rather high in comparison to the windows. If you're sitting on the bridge, for example, the forward screen/window is fine, but if you're standing, you're kinda looking downward through it. I felt it would have been too much work to alter that since we were starting with the original mesh, but it probably wouldn't be too much work to scale the whole ship up a few percent if it's an issue.

The elevator stops at all three floors (and on the ground outside) and VP included sections of walls (with and without working doors) to help you set up the interior. I'd love to see what people could come up with, possibly sharing some furniture to help others outfit it.

I've also tested the elevator for use on an outpost base; the ship can dock on the landing pad and, the station "roof" opens and the elevator is the right size to descend into the outpost corridor, it's actually kinda cool. I'll post a pict or two later to show that.

-- Walt Sterdan

 

wsterdan said:

I started working on a Trek project back in 2011; I wanted my story to take place around the beginning of the Archer years. I wanted a very small ship, one that could be used for a decent scout ship or a system patrol ship. My thoughts were to have something small but capable of Warp 2.5-3, that could make the trip from Earth to Proxima Centauri in 40-50 days and provide in-system support for Proxima, while also making regular jumps to the Alpha Centauri system.

I love the look of the Warp Delta ships, but as far as I know they don't do planetary landings as a matter of course. 

My thought was to take small, non-warp, civilian courier ships and add warp sleds to them with micro-warp engines.

At the time, I hired modeller 3Dman25 to build some ships. The main one starts out as an impulse-powered system ship then gets three nacelles added to it to give it warp capability.

Here's two very early animations he did showing the ship landing (landing gear comes out and the ramp opens and the stairs come out) and an overhead shot showing the doors opening and closing internally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F66yPTe8Q0c

And

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UzSDuhhDk

Below I have a shot of three of the ships he built for me (the centre shot is the one with the warp sled added) while the outside two ships are actually the same ship, one with the wings morph showing the main hull with wings, the other using the "Trader" morphs to make it look more like a small cargo ship in the game, "Traveller". 

All three ships have landing gear that retracts, internal rooms with working doors and a cargo hatch with an elevator platform.

Finally, a render or two of the main ship. There's two morphs for the main deck, one where the centre is the captain's quarters, the second where the bridge is located.

3Dman25 dropped off the scene before all the work was completed, so they're all "not quite finished" but very usable as is.

After being unable to reach the artist for six or seven years, I hired Vanishing Point to do an overhaul on the main ship, and they did a brilliant job. I'll post some of the work on it tomorrow, but they gave it UV mapping, allowed for parts of the ship's exterior to be hidden to allow for better camera views, made the ship larger (adding a full deck and a central elevator, and more).

For the interior shots, I dropped a few pieces of furniture in for reference, I have yet to set up the interiors of any of the ships properly. Time is alway the enemy.

-- Walt Sterdan

Nice.  Are these ships available, or going to be available, for download somewhere? 

okay, I have to log out where?

PerttiA said:

philhu35 said:

I am automatically logged in.

Logging in to Daz Studio is needed only when installing products with DAZ Connect within Daz Studio (in 'Smart' Content) 

If one is using DAZ Install Manager, DAZ Central or manual installation, being logged in to Daz Studio can mess up ones content library.

I did wipe the complete installation, including the database. The only things left were the backup of my user defined categories I made previously, hoping I might be able to restore them.

After installation DAZ Studio did reload the metadata. I got two messages about duplicate product_keys, which was a bit surprising since I believe I had an empty database. Unfortunately it tells which product it tries to register, but not the product it is in conflict with. So I don't know if this is an software error, or two of the products from daz3d.com have the same guid, which I think would be a bit surprising since I neither tried to create my own product nor did I try to add something from another source than daz3d.com yet.

I am currently in the process of re-installing all products through DAZ Studio. However I noticed that some of the products from my content library are missing in the content manager pane. So I do have to install them differently. Any advice, since I won't let DAZ Central back onto my hard disk?

philhu35 said:

I am automatically logged in.

Logging in to Daz Studio is needed only when installing products with DAZ Connect within Daz Studio (in 'Smart' Content) 

If one is using DAZ Install Manager, DAZ Central or manual installation, being logged in to Daz Studio can mess up ones content library.

Hello,

I am quite new to DAZ and had a previously working installation until I noticed I got dubious messages about duplicate keys when updating metadata and some of the products I bought not showing in the install pane in DAZ studio. Since I have used DAZ Studio, DAZ Installation manager and DAZ Central at the same time, I decided to come up clean and uninstalled everything I could find associated with DAZ Studio.

Then I tried a "clean" install using DAZ Central only. The application hung up several times, UI freezing while some background processes were running. It took me the whole day yesterday to get to 58% completion when installing with DAZ Central. This morning I wiped that piece of software from my disk. Instead I downloaded the DAZ studio windows installer from my product library and within the hour DAZ Studio was up and running. Then I tried to update my metadata. Surprise ... again I got primary key violations only this time with a different product.

2022-08-14 10:16:34.249 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\cloud\dzcloudtasknotifier.cpp(178): Query (UPDATE "product" SET name = 'dForce Night Dress Outfit for Genesis 8.1 Female', default_name = 'dForce Night Dress Outfit for Genesis 8.1 Female', store_id = 1, token = '84805', artists = 'Arki,Shox-Design,Anna Benjamin,Daz Original', description = '', guid = '6825d37c-4871-43b8-93a1-b8ad966979f8', meta_hash = '1171d39a2baeb8b81012e04ded262814', file_hash = '8e66955e8444f2b4957fb2db80a678a9', thumbnail_path = '', thumbnail_hash = '', last_update = '2022-04-12 06:04:38', date_purchased = '2022-04-12 11:29:14', date_installed = '2022-08-14 08:16:34', release_date = '1970-01-01 00:00:00', group_num = 0, hide = 'f', is_vendor = 't', has_cloud_meta_data = 't', is_installed = 'f', is_cloud_owned = 't', needs_update = 'f', normalized_name = 'dforce night dress outfit for genesis 81 female', normalized_name_first_letter = 'D' WHERE id = 1001) failed with exception: ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "product_guid_key"
DETAIL:  Key (guid)=(6825d37c-4871-43b8-93a1-b8ad966979f8) already exists.

2022-08-14 10:16:34.250 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\cloud\dzcloudtasknotifier.cpp(178): ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "product_guid_key"
DETAIL:  Key (guid)=(6825d37c-4871-43b8-93a1-b8ad966979f8) already exists.

Afterwards I tried to reinstall the content provided with DAZ Studio and got as far as "Secret Garden Shaded Heaven"... The log just states:

2022-08-14 10:49:06.256 [INFO] :: Beginning Install of "Secret Garden Shaded Haven"
2022-08-14 10:49:06.261 [INFO] :: "Secret Garden Shaded Haven": Install Failed.

What am I missing?

Best regards

Michael

I started working on a Trek project back in 2011; I wanted my story to take place around the beginning of the Archer years. I wanted a very small ship, one that could be used for a decent scout ship or a system patrol ship. My thoughts were to have something small but capable of Warp 2.5-3, that could make the trip from Earth to Proxima Centauri in 40-50 days and provide in-system support for Proxima, while also making regular jumps to the Alpha Centauri system.

I love the look of the Warp Delta ships, but as far as I know they don't do planetary landings as a matter of course. 

My thought was to take small, non-warp, civilian courier ships and add warp sleds to them with micro-warp engines.

At the time, I hired modeller 3Dman25 to build some ships. The main one starts out as an impulse-powered system ship then gets three nacelles added to it to give it warp capability.

Here's two very early animations he did showing the ship landing (landing gear comes out and the ramp opens and the stairs come out) and an overhead shot showing the doors opening and closing internally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F66yPTe8Q0c

And

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9UzSDuhhDk

Below I have a shot of three of the ships he built for me (the centre shot is the one with the warp sled added) while the outside two ships are actually the same ship, one with the wings morph showing the main hull with wings, the other using the "Trader" morphs to make it look more like a small cargo ship in the game, "Traveller". 

All three ships have landing gear that retracts, internal rooms with working doors and a cargo hatch with an elevator platform.

Finally, a render or two of the main ship. There's two morphs for the main deck, one where the centre is the captain's quarters, the second where the bridge is located.

3Dman25 dropped off the scene before all the work was completed, so they're all "not quite finished" but very usable as is.

After being unable to reach the artist for six or seven years, I hired Vanishing Point to do an overhaul on the main ship, and they did a brilliant job. I'll post some of the work on it tomorrow, but they gave it UV mapping, allowed for parts of the ship's exterior to be hidden to allow for better camera views, made the ship larger (adding a full deck and a central elevator, and more).

For the interior shots, I dropped a few pieces of furniture in for reference, I have yet to set up the interiors of any of the ships properly. Time is alway the enemy.

-- Walt Sterdan

Im trying to download the Daz central, but the velocity are VERY low (i have fast internet - 500mb) smething like 200 kb. I disable firewall, my Kaspersky ... and nothing change.

@csaa I think the subtlety blue background one looks great! The red color might be a bit too intense and kind of detracts from the figures in the scene. I like the blend of color and black and white, but I think if it's the background that has color it keeps bringing the eyes to the background rather than the figures unless the color is muted and not very saturated. Just IMO, of course. These are looking cool, maybe just a really muted red instead and I think it'll be excellent! Oh and I love the silhouettes of the figures in the background! It totally helps the central character stand out while still informing the viewer of the presence of the other figures in the scene. Very Cool!

axel.valerian1325 said:

Hello,

I didn't use daz since last time I've updated blender to V 3.0.1, last night I tryed to export a new charachter from daz to blender using the bridge but : 

When I go to scripts > bridge > blender / I click on blender (normally a new window with settings should appear), but in my case nothing happens.

I tryed to uninstall daz central, uninstall the bridge, uninstall Daz Studio and install em' again but nothing works..... I'm going crazy.. 

Does someone knows what is happening with my bridge ? 

Thank you very much. 

 

Axel 

I feel your pain! I've been having issues too, I tried the GitHub option (latest release) and that didn't work, and now I'm trying the standard DAZ FBX Export (without the bridge)! But the result was a mangled Gen8 figure.

* Could someone kindly confirm what the settings should be for Gen8 Zero'd Figure both DAZ (FBX Export Settings) and Blender (FBX Import settings). Your help will greatly be appreciated! Thanks.

And please correct me if I am wrong about the following:

. 2023, first quarter of next year Blender could release the latest LTS version?

. LTS versions are considered to be stable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Some info about myself:
I have TV credits including an interview about the making of a music video that aired nationwide, and I also have songwriting credits that include overseas radio airplay. 

If your files are currently in the default locations (C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library and C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\), you can move them, but you will have to point DAZ and the DIM/Daz Central at the new location in the settings. Be sure to copy the entire folder tree under each to the new location. I currently have my content on a network drive, and created paths starting with "Public\documents\" and "<my name>\documents\" to house the paths. So I have something like "H:\Public\Documents\My Daz 3D Library\" and "H:\<my user name>\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\" in the root of the drive.

First, copy the files to the external drive then:

To change the Daz Studio setting:

1. go to Edit -> Preferences then click Content and select Content Directory Manager. 
2. Click on DAZ Studio Formats and click "Add," then browse to the new location for both the Public and the <your username> folders.
3. You can remove the entries for the C: drive folders
4. Accept the changes.

Note, if you use Daz Collect (the installation through Daz Studio) you need to change that file location in the Content Directory Manager as well.

In DIM

1. Click on the gear in the upper right corner of the window, then select "Advanced settings" 
2. Click the "Downoads" tab and then click the three dots next to the "Content" entry
3. Browse to the external drive location for the "public" folders content and click "select folder"
4. You can also change the package archive and thumbnail archive locations by clicking their three dots and following the procedure above. 
5. Click Accept.

I would suggest renaming the current C: drive folders after copying and doing the above before deleting. That way, you can open Daz Studio and make sure your content is still showing up properly.

Unfortunately, I do not use Daz Central, so I am not sure how to change that install location.

For speed, I would suggest picking up an external SSD if that is in your price range.

I also want to add that the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title was was adding punctuation:

"Can I put my DAZ files on an external drive?" "And how!"

Based on the old informal use (I think American English only, but could be wrong) use: The phrase "and how!" is used to show that one agrees emphatically with what someone else has said or done. The origin of the phrase is unclear, and there is little information confirming whether it was first used in the mid-19th century or the early 20th century.

I'm trying to install DAZ 3D with Daz Central on my computer but it gets stuck at 71%. When I press the Install button, the download text appears for 1 second and the button becomes old again. help please

@aki3d

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and thorough critique. I will be working on this further so it is nice to have so many suggestions.

Ahhhhhh and Urrrrg....the grey wall. Let's just call it what it is...my wall of frustration. I choose to use it after experimenting unsuccessfully for days with a mirror wall and a wall of windows with a beautiful outdoor scene. Both gave a much better appearance except, when it came to adding enough lights to light all of the characters well and in an interesting fashion. I was getting too many reflections from floor, glass and mirror making the lighting look crazy and un-natural. So, I through up a wall so that I could control the lighting enough to get it in here and get some feedback. This is why in my first post I asked if anyone is familiar with any tutorials about lighting scenes with multiple characters/multiple focuses. Seems to me there must be a best practices for something like this? :- )

And, I do have a very clear story in my head. In fact you got most of it  :- )

The only major difference is that the story in my head takes place at a Modern dance studio. The master choreographer/teacher has brought in a talented Flamenco dancer because he wants to blend his modern style with some flamenco technique. There is a jealous couple and the lone girl in the back is fretting that she might lose her partner to the new girl. All of the dancers from the modern studio are dressed appropriately. I might add a shirt to the central male dancer but shoes are not a must for him, in this case.

Thanks again for the feedback. As I go  back and tackle the lighting I will also think about the other elements you mentioned.

@alewis478

Thank you for your very helpful feedback. I love to pose and I really appreciate that you said that lighting can be tough when lighting so many characters...I have found it to be a frustrating yet a wonderful challenge. I am really attracted to doing these multi-person scenes so I am hoping that someone here might be able to point me to some specifics for lighting this type of scene. As for my lovely grey wall, please see my above explanation to aki3d. I appreciate you both calling me on it!

 

PerttiA said:

It all started with Poser and while the idea of Poser categorization has probably sounded logical at the start, when one had gathered significant amount of assets, it quicly lost the luster... First you were digging for hours for the base geometry, then you did the same for textures for that geometry and started pulling your hairs out if the texture you were looking for, was made by someone else than the one who created the original geometry
When they came up with Mat Poses (material poses), that were actually 'textures' but placed within poses, the content library had become ones worst nightmare and was one of the reasons I took a 5 year break from even touching 3D modelling. Came back to DS 4.8 and found the content library structure much more logical and faster to use, although one can still see the Poser's legacy on some creators organization of the files, when they throw stuff that should be kept together all over the place.

The huge number of creators with their own ideas together with beginning creators that are still looking for the idea, counts for a portion of the mess as well
DAZ has not enforced standards for the folder structure for the User Facing files as they feel what the creator has decided, is the creators choice, apart from adhering to rules within 'Data* and 'Runtime' folders that need to be created correctly for the product to work.

The good thing with DS is, that apart from 'Data', 'Runtime' and to keep it safe 'Scripts', one can organize the library to please one own preferences... With two catches... If a product uses scripts to load assets, like the UltraScenery, all the files must be kept in their original folders for it to work (better create a content library of it's own) and the other catch is that if one moves the files within the folders used for 'User Facing files', one can't use DIM of DAZ Central to uninstall them anymore.

I install all the content manually, because it lets me place the 'User Facing files' to the location, where I think it should be and when this is done at the time of installation, it doesn't take much more time, but saves a LOT of time, when one doesn't have to hunt down products in a jungle of vanity folders and stuff that's obviously located in a wrong place. There's a house, should it be in Environments\Architecture, Props or even Poses? - Where one finds it, is anybody's guess if left where the creator thought it should be.

Wrote this earlier; https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7635596/#Comment_7635596

 

 

I use custom categories to organise my content. I use DIM to install Studio content and I don't move it so DIM can update it. DIM can automatically find what products have been updated and apply the updates.

Custom categries take a bit of time to set up but once I had categorised everything already installed I just have to categorise new stuff as I install it. They also have the advantage that content can be in more than one category without being installed more than once. For example, I have a lot of clothes that are categorised both under historical and fantasy, some Sci Fi vehicles categorised under both air and space vehicles if I think they look OK in both types of scene.

It all started with Poser and while the idea of Poser categorization has probably sounded logical at the start, when one had gathered significant amount of assets, it quicly lost the luster... First you were digging for hours for the base geometry, then you did the same for textures for that geometry and started pulling your hairs out if the texture you were looking for, was made by someone else than the one who created the original geometry
When they came up with Mat Poses (material poses), that were actually 'textures' but placed within poses, the content library had become ones worst nightmare and was one of the reasons I took a 5 year break from even touching 3D modelling. Came back to DS 4.8 and found the content library structure much more logical and faster to use, although one can still see the Poser's legacy on some creators organization of the files, when they throw stuff that should be kept together all over the place.

The huge number of creators with their own ideas together with beginning creators that are still looking for the idea, counts for a portion of the mess as well
DAZ has not enforced standards for the folder structure for the User Facing files as they feel what the creator has decided, is the creators choice, apart from adhering to rules within 'Data* and 'Runtime' folders that need to be created correctly for the product to work.

The good thing with DS is, that apart from 'Data', 'Runtime' and to keep it safe 'Scripts', one can organize the library to please one own preferences... With two catches... If a product uses scripts to load assets, like the UltraScenery, all the files must be kept in their original folders for it to work (better create a content library of it's own) and the other catch is that if one moves the files within the folders used for 'User Facing files', one can't use DIM of DAZ Central to uninstall them anymore.

I install all the content manually, because it lets me place the 'User Facing files' to the location, where I think it should be and when this is done at the time of installation, it doesn't take much more time, but saves a LOT of time, when one doesn't have to hunt down products in a jungle of vanity folders and stuff that's obviously located in a wrong place. There's a house, should it be in Environments\Architecture, Props or even Poses? - Where one finds it, is anybody's guess if left where the creator thought it should be.

Wrote this earlier; https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7635596/#Comment_7635596

 

 

martin_bourassa said:

I have the same problem. If someone has an answer, it would be greatly appireciated.

Didn't manage to fix it. But someone suggested to just get rid of Daz Central and install Daz3D through the shop rather than through Daz Central. Maybe that's the way to go?

Not sure if I mess up any of added files if I attempt a re-installation though

Had some time on my hands...

Base folder

Base Folder for a content library can reside just about anywhere, but not recomended to place it on the same drive with the OS (Space will eventually run out and it is the most likely drive to corrupt files due to the constant activities of the OS, also worst drive for any rescue operations).

The name of the base folder can be just about anything, default folder names have been 'Content', 'My Library', 'My Daz 3D Library' or whatever if you have given the folder a name by yourself. DS doesn't care what the name of the folder is, as long as the folder is set as a content folder in 'Content Directory Manager'

Within the installation (Zip) files, this folder is named 'Content', which was used as the name of the base folder in ancient times.

It is also better to keep the path to the base folder as short as possible, preferably put it straight into root of the drive where you want to put it, for example 'D:\My DAZ3D Library'

Inside the base folder, there are a number of sub-folders, the most important ones for DS are 'Data' and 'Runtime'

‘Data’ folder

'Data' folder contains the geometry of the characters, environments, props, whatever (=assets) together with the information on how the morphs are changing the assets they are meant for (=morph deltas)

In general, one should not move any files under the 'Data' folder, nor make any corrections to misspelled names of files/folders or delete anything inside the 'Data' folder or the sub-folders in there.

If changes are made inside the 'Data' folder or it's sub-folders, it can cause the assets to load as gray cubes because they can't find the needed geometry information anymore.

‘Runtime’ folder

'Runtime' is a remnant of ancient times, it is the base folder for Poser content, but still holds two important sub-folders for DS as well, these folders are 'Support' and 'Textures'

'Support' folder contains the metadata and thumbnails for assets that are installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. One should not make changes inside this folder.

'Textures' folder contains all the textures and maps for the assets that are installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. Any manual changes inside this folder or it's sub-folders can cause assets not finding their textures anymore.
The ‘Textures’ folder is sometimes misspelled, I have seen it spelled Texture, Texutre, Texturen. One should not correct these misspellings, as the same errors are most likely written inside the files that load the assets into DS with their textures.

“Scripts” folder

The ‘Scripts’ folder contains the scripts one has installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. One should not make manual changes inside this folder as that can render the scripts non functional. 

The rest of the folders contain what is called ‘User facing files’, which are used to load assets into a DS scene, these files can be seen in the ‘Content Library’ inside DS, under ‘DAZ Studio Formats’ with the same folder structure that can be seen with the Windows Explorer on the drive they are installed in.

With two exeptions, the names of the 'User Facing files' and folders and their locations can be changed as long as the files and folders are not moved outside the base folder of the Content Library or into the ‘Data’ or ‘Runtime’ folders as those folders have a special meaning and are hidden within the ‘Content Library’ inside DS.

The two exeptions for renaming/moving the user facing files/folders are when those files are called by scripts (for example the UtraScenery files) or one wants to preserve the possibility to uninstall assets with the DIM or DAZ Central.

Attached also instructions for manual installation, which will help in understanding how DS knows about where to find the assets and how one can help DS to find them