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Help! Installing DAZ 3D gone horribly wrong...

gtt21gtt21 Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in New Users

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with some problems I am having getting Daz 4.6 up and running.

At the moment, when I load the program, it cannot find the genesis base. The starting scene does not appear. It tells me that it cannot find genesis.dsf - I know I have the file on my computer. Also I have loaded/installed all the starting packs using the install manager. Is the program looking in the wrong place? How do I get it to look in the right place? What is the logic behind where it looks?

Furthermore, the program doesn't seem able to load anything from my library - either from the smart content manager or from the standard content pane on the right hand side. It just doesn't seem to know where my library is, for a start.

Can anyone help me to fix the program so that it can find content? At the moment, it's just completely useless.

Comments

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,982
    edited December 1969

    It does sound like there is a 'break' between where your content is (as placed by DIM) and where the Daz Studio program is looking for it. I am in the middle of downloainf with DIM at the moment, so answers may not be exact!

    Probably the easiest way of dealing with this is to start DIM and using the Options 'button' - the cog in the top right make a note of where it will be installing to (probaly a path ending in something like "My Daz Library"). With that path in mind, start up Daz Studio amnd press F2 (to get up the preferences window) and look for where it lists the Daz Studio content and edit that to match the path in DIM.

  • gtt21gtt21 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yes, the problem seems to be that DAZ is looking in the wrong place.

    I have fixed some of the problems by going into Daz Studio/Preferences/Content Library and then using the Content Directory Manager to add a new directory, under "DAZ Studio Formats".

    That seems to make my content work together again, when I load it from the content library pane.

    However:

    1) It still does not open the basic scene on startup - so I need to fix that!

    2) None of the images are loading in the smart content panel (although the names are appearing) and I cannot load figures from the smart content panel.

    Thanks for your help!

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    You can set Daz Studio to load a figure or scene at startup. It sometimes defaults to the Genesis figure, but not always. To do this manually look under Preferences -> Startup and choose Genesis in the 'Load File' option. I prefer to open on a blank canvas, but you can change it to load in any scene or figure you want including the new Genesis 2 Female if you wish.

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited December 1969

    For your startup scene, if you're using DS4.6 and the latest version of the Genesis Starter Essentials, then the startup file should be "genesis.duf" not "genesis.dsf."

    For your Smart Content problem, I ran into something similar when I first started using the Install Manager. You could try this process:

    1. I clicked the Active Pane Menu icon, selected “Content Database Management,” then re-imported all metadata and removed orphaned file references

    At this point, in Smart Content, I could see a bunch of functional icons and a bunch with those exclamation-point-in-a-yellow-triangle error icons.

    2. I went back to the Content Directory Manager and removed the old “My Library” mapped location

    Now Smart Content was working fine…but of course, the non-DAZ stuff I had kept was no longer accessible through the Content Library.

    3. I added the old “My Library” location again (in the Content Directory Manager).

  • gtt21gtt21 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Just a quick update: I have now used the "preferences" tab to load genesis.duf on startup and it seems to work fine.

    Are .duf files the ones for DAZ 4.6?

    I will try fixing the Smart Content pane next, when I have a moment.

    Thank you everyone for all the help! I feel like I am getting somewhere at least.

  • gtt21gtt21 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    Okay, so - in the Content pane, there is a button called "Display the Active Pane Options" - is this the one you mean? Because when you click on it a menu appears, with a few options that sound a bit like the one you mentioned but nothing with exactly the same name.

    Also, what is metadata and what is an orphaned file? (Perhaps I need to do some more reading).

    Do I need to make sure that everything in the program is pointed towards the same/right "My Library" set of files? If so, am I missing anything? (I added a directory in Preferences, remember, which helped quite a bit, but I haven't changed anything else).

    Do I need to point my Smart Content pane/library at the right "My Library" set of files, for example?

    Thank you again for all the help.

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,583
    edited December 1969

    Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager is the only place you need to specify where your content is -- make sure you list the same folder under both "DAZ Studio Formats" and "Poser Formats".

    Orphaned file references are what happens when the database has a certain file listed as being in a certain location, but the file isn't really there.

    Metadata is the information that comes with some products (items from the last couple of years will nearly always have it; older items are still in the process of being updated to include it). When you look in the Smart Content tab, you only see items that have metadata. In the Content Library tab under "DAZ Studio Formats" and "Poser Formats" you can see all items, whether they have metadata or not.

    .duf is the standard file format for DS4.5 and up, for "user-facing files" -- that is, files that the user sees in the Smart Content and Content Library. You'll also see the older file formats, but .duf is the preferred format, and is also the format that works in other applications like Carrara 8.5 and Poser 9+.

  • gtt21gtt21 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thanks guys. This has been hugely helpful and I really appreciate everyone for chipping in with advice.

    I ran a fairly complete "Content DB Management" - I opened this function using the button on the Smart Content Pane, then ticked almost everything and told it to run - when it finished, all my content was back in the Smart Content library as it should be.

    I tried loading it and that worked fine. I think I may now be back to where I wanted to be, in terms of just being able to get on with making basic scenes.

    Thank you all again!

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