Looking to manage (and cleanup) the Daz Studio Database (it's a mess)
kgreggain
Posts: 24
I find that many artists use various naming conventions, and I have purchased a large number of Daz models. At this point, my model list is like blended spaghetti.
I am interested if there is any way to clean this up. I'm very savvy about folder structures. Can I just move things around in the directory or will that blow things up? Finding decent documentation is difficult I find, but at this point, finding things has become an onerous chore I wish to try and optimize.
For example, in People, I have - Genesis 8 Female, Genesis 8 Females, Gensis 8 Female, Genesys 8 Female, Genesis8 Female -- Ugh
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Comments
As a sub-note, I don't use the DIM when I buy models, I download them and copy them into the content folder. I like having a copy of the model I bought on the drive as an archive, just in case.
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If you only install manually and don't use any of the database driven virtual views, you can pretty much do what you like with the files in folders that contain "User Facing files", ie files that you are shown in "Content Library"
Geometry (in "...\Data\") and textures (in "...\Runtime\Textures\" or Texture or Texturen) should be placed exactly as they were in the downloaded file.
If you aren't using an installer and don't import metadata then yes, you can generally move the user-facing files with impunity. There may be a few script-based products which would have issues.
The only "issue" that I have seen, has been that when loading the base G8F, it is looking for the eyelash material in ...\People\Genesis 8 Female\Materials\Base_Materials\, which I think it shouldn't
You can move things around as you like, IF you are not interested in metadata and are installing manually. The only folders you can't disturb are /data and /Runtime (and anything under them). All the other folders are pretty arbitrary, any name is pretty much fair game, which ends up cluttering the library.
DIM can keep the downloaded files if you tell it not to delete them after installing, but if you use that to install the products, then you cannot move it after, or else the uninstalling and updating processes will be broken, not to mention the metadata. DIM really does add some under-appreciated functionality.
You can categorize everything and then move the custom categories around as you wish, and duplicate and rename folders at will without touching the original file structure, retaining full metadata functionality. I work exclusively with custom categories and have retained my sanity, for the most part.
To categorize, you can do as little or as much at a time as you want. Entire trees, or single items. Best to make a new tree under Categories (like, say, MyCategories), and not add it to the Default categories. If you copied from the product zips "as-is" into the library without any "adjustments", you could categorize the whole library in one shot and then organize the categories afterwards. That way you would not miss any products, and any redundancies could be simply deleted from the new categorization. Just add new products as you go, it will take only a few minutes at a time.
That is using a script.
Wow, I did not expect so many responses! I'm so used to getting blank stares when asking Daz Questions. Thanks to each and every one of you --