Locating the elements listed in the Scene?
funwrestling
Posts: 34
The forum is here for that, I'm a beginner.
I have created a basic scene with a G3F Character. She wears a swimsuit.
In the SCENE tab, I see two elements: her underwear + her top.
How can I find where those underwear and top come from? Is there a simple way in Daz3d to locate them? They might come from the standard bundles delivered with Daz3d just like by content I have uploadedc and that can be found in the CONTENT LIBRARY. But in the content library, I have two main folders entitled DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Studio Formats, plus many subfolders. That's A LOT of places where to look. When I tried to filter via the search box, I noticed you have to give the exact spelling ortherwise it does not work well. Still, that's a lot of different places... especially knowing that some of the Underwear can be found in the Characters subfolders, others in the Props or Wardrobe subfolders.
How can I locate the elements used in the Scene easily?
Thank you.
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Comments
If the item is set up as Smart Content (freebies and items from other stores gernally aren't) then selecting the item, going to the Smart Content pane, within that the products tab, and checking Filter by Selection should show the item's product.
@Richard: Not sure what you mean by Filter By Selection. All I find as an option in the Smart Content is a checkbox entitled "Filter by Context"
Also, I am not sure if I was clear enough in my initial message, but when talking about elements found in the CONTENT LIBRARY, I actually referred mostly to freebies and items from other stores indeed. So, how do I locate those items?
Example: say I have a huundred of different underwears located in dozen of different folders under the DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Studio Formats, plus many subfolders. Say the Search does not work or I can't remember the exact name of the underwear I have used in teh scene. How do I then locate where is the underwear used in the scene?
Is there a way to click it on the scene while pressing on a touch at the same time or I don't know what? Such an option would be fantastic, giving you immediately the path to where the element is stored/located in the Content Library.
For items that aren't set as products the only possible route I can think of is to look at the paths for the textures, which you could get in the Surfaces pane by hovering the mouse pointer over one of the micro-thumbnails so that a larger version of the image appears in a pop-up with the location at the top - if the maker had used fairly informative folder names that might help. Otherwise I'm not sure what you could do.
You can actually find the name of the product in the node information when you select the item in question, if the product has Metadata.
Since you are new and you have a lot of freebie products your best bet would be to start categorizing your content now before you get to much of it. then you will always know where it is. And when you grab a new item you hunt it down right away, categorize it and then you will always be able to find it again.
Very interesting answer. Thank you. Still, I'm a bit confused.
When the Compatibility Base says the following: /Genesis 3 Female Basicwear/Top, where should I look to find the product?
Option 1: I went to my Hardrive > Users > Public > Public Documents > My DAZ 3D LIbrary... but there is no such path like /Genesis 3 Female Basicwear/Top
Option 2: SmartContent. Same, no such identical path.
Option 3: ContentLibrary tab: same, no such identical path.
Can you please give me a concrete example on how to go from the path in the Node tab to finding the element again...
@IceDragon: You mean I can create as many subfolders and drag and drop my free products anywhere I want in Hardrive > Users > Public > Public Documents > My DAZ 3D LIbrary...?
I'm just afraid to break links. See the attachment. I'm not sure to understand how to categorize and where to put my content among the several folders: Content, Data, People, Runtime, etc.
Next question: Once I have already used products, I guess it is too late for me to change their location without breaking the links in my Daz scenes?
Check out what it says in the scene ID, that's the first line above below the Metadata. It tells you exactly where the file is located. However, it does not tell you where the material is stored and such, but you'll usually find them in the Runtime/Texture folder. There, it usually helps to know who the creating PA is (in my example EARKham, and locate the folder for that artist.
The data subfolder usually contains the user facing files for DAZ Studio only geared duf files from "DAZ Studio Formats". It doesn't contain any materials, morphs or geometry. Those, you will find in the Runtime directory. The geometries subfolder of the Runtime folder contains the actual meshes. The libraries subfolder contains the cr2 user facing files for Poser geared content (which can be used by DS as well, but that shows up in your "Poser Formats"). Then, there's the Textures subfolders, which contains all Textures. Note that Geometrie and Textures folders are used by both, DS and Poser items.
Also, I see that you have a Content folder in your DAZ directory, which probably contains a Runtime subdirectory? If yes, please copy the content out of the Content folder and relocate it one level higher, merging it with the existent runtime folder. Otherwise, it might cause hiccups.
Let me pull up my studio and i will take a screen shot for you. The categories won't break any links because they don't move any files they just create a link back to the original file. Its just a link that you can organize in a manner that makes sense to you. So even if you delete the category link, change the name whatever, nothing happens to the main file.
I don't understand what "cr2 users facing files" mean. I'm not 100% sure what morphs VS geometries are. I understand about materials: are materials and textures synonyms?
Indeed, my Content folder does have a Runtime subdirectory.See attached. I did the merging you asked for. Should I now delete the Content folder?
CR2s are the files used for Poser-format figures.
The geometry is the basic mesh, with a default shape, UV mapping and so on, a morph is a modifier that changes the shape without affecting other aspects of it.
Textures are just imaeg files, a material will apply a shader, values for the shader's properties, and textures for the properties that use them (an actual materials preset may not change all of the properties though).
Okay in the first one you can see where you go to create the initial categories. Right click on the categories title and hit create sub category. You can create as many categories and sub categories as you want and as many sub sub categories under each category as well. I included a second screen shot to show you what I mean. What I do when I purchase or load new content is first track it down (that's the hard part, but worst case scenerio, I like in the file structure of the zip and that usually tells me where its at. Like it might me under people, midnight stories, genesis2 female, hair, pretty long hair, or whatever. this works for both daz side of things and freebie poser side of things.) Ones you have found your item I right click and highlight the thumbnails of the items and hit create subcategory. this will pull up the categories box and you follow you category links until you find the spot you want to create the new one in (i.e. right click the thumbnails, click on create subcategory, box pulls up follow your category structure to people, genesis 2, female, hair and then create your new category for your pretty long hair or however you set things up) Hope that helps!
Of course this doesn't help you find things in the first place (except for the zip file trick mentioned above) but it should save you hours of frustration once you have found the stuff and organized it in a manner that makes sense to you.
Sonja, you are a genius! THANK YOU so much for that so useful tip.
@Richard: thanks. That's clearer. I still feel I need to find a tutorial explaining the basics, but I'm so excited posing my characters and being under time pressure with other life projects that I can't stop! You know, the story of the man who's late cutting his trees and does not want t o stop to sharpen his saw. Blame on me!
Let me recap a few things:
Yes, that can go - it should not have been there in the first place.
That's right.
That means either that the thumbnail is not where the file is or the whole product is not where the database says it is.
Most welcome! I am glad I could help. Once I realized that I could organize in a way that works for me it was a game changer lol. One other benefit of doing this is that you do start to find things faster just because you have some idea where the items might be. The freebies and poser files are the tough ones. If all else fails look in the Poses file that seems to be a catch all for some reason. And remember as well that Poser files are usually split so you might find the main prop or character under props or figures, the materials files under materials and the poses under poses. Or they may be all over the place lol. You want to make sure you find all the bits and pieces so everything works right. Just make sure you back your stuff up regularly. I lost my content organization after some months and had to redo literally thousands of items it took me close to two months of evenings and weekends to put it back together. It was worth it though, my work flow is much smoother.
I should add that this isn't my original idea much as I would like to take credit for it lol. I wish I could remember who originally pointed this out to me so I could give them the credit.
Richard and Sonja, thanks so much again.
1 - One big question: when a freebie comes with both Daz3D files and Poser files, are the Poser files then useful or are they just a useless doubloon of the Daz 3D files?
2 - Some files come with a file entitled Manifest.Daz Shared XML. What is this file? I usually never copy or install it for it has the same filename for different products and would then crash the precedent ones...
3 - I'm already afraid about a possible crash of my machines. How to back up all my freebies/products and their related file organization? Should I just copy and paste/back up the My Daz 3D Library folder on to an external hardrive? Will it be enough for me to reinstall all that, even if I change machines, upgrade to a newer Daz 3D version, and so on?
1. Maybe. A semi-good guide is whether the DS zip has a Data folder (if the freebie includes actual models) and a \Runtime\Textures folder - if not, and the Poser version has a \Runtime\Geometries folder and a \Runtime\Textures folder then you probably need both.
2. Those files are used by Install Manager, and will usually come only in items from the daz store. If you are manually installing you can ignore them.
3. The database is, be default, in C:\Users\YOU\AppData\Roaming\Daz 3D\cms so back that up too.
Two notes about backing up the database:
1) in the options menu for the Content Library or Smart Content pane, use "Content DB Maintenance" > "Export User Data" to backup any custom categories, tags, or metadata you've created. The file(s) are saved in the Runtime/Support folder of the first DS-format content folder and are plain-text XML files.
2) if you do want to back up the actual database files, make sure PostgreSQL isn't running when you do so.