3rd party content, smart content, and extra hard drives

thistledownsname

So, I've probably made things harder than I need to, but it's sort-of working. Just got Daz4.7 a couple weeks ago. Set up the install manager on windows 8, everything there works fine. Anything I've gotten through Daz website, I send strait to the DIM, never have any problems with it.

Then I went on a binge at Renderosity and ShareCG.

Now, my main hard drive is a fairly small solid state drive, and I've got tons of room on the other hard drive, so I've been putting all this extra 3rd party stuff on the secondary. It's got it's own directory there, with Data, People, Props, Runtime, etc.

Actually running this third party stuff, has some issues.

First the smart content panel. All of this stuff is showing up in the content library ok, but I can't figure out how to make the second drive show up in smart content. I understand that a lot of it is old stuff without metadata, so in theory those items wouldn't show up in smart content anyways, but some of the stuff should be there, right?

Second, about a third of the stuff just doesn't work. I click on the icon, and nothing happens.

Third, many of the icons only have a gray daz logo, instead of sample pictures. Is that just bad packaging from the 3rd party creator?

Fourth, it has a hard time tracking textures. Most things (when they work), it has me do a file hunt to track down the texture that goes with it, because it still thinks I'm using the C drive. I can track it down on the drive I'm using (most of the time), but it's annoying to do every time I load the item. Is there a way to change the default location or should I just bite the bullet and move the textures onto the small C drive?

Fifth, re-arranging things. From browsing around, I've come to two conclusions I'd like verified: 1. In the runtime directory, there are Libraries, Geometries, and Textures - and many other directories or misspellings of those three. As long as I keep things inside those 3 directories, I can move them around as much as I like. So I can go from

Libraries
Creator 1
Creator 2
Creator 3

to

Libraries
Pants
Shoes
Gloves

What about all the rest of the junk in runtime? I've come across things such as Library, Libaries, etc. and moved them all into Libraries - was that correct?

Other conclusion - As long as I don't touch the Data folder, and arrange Runtime as above, I can mess with the rest of the file locations as much as I like. People, Materials, etc.

Which reminds me of another thing. There's a materials folder inside runtime and another one in just content. Should they be merged somehow? Where?

Ok, let's start with that, and I'll see if I can think of anything else on file management.

fixmypcmike

The folders under Runtime and similar folders outside of Runtime can't be combined -- the former are for Poser file formats, the latter for DAZ Studio formats (there are certain ways you can have DS-format content under Runtime, but that's why there can be folders with the same name in both locations).

You can move the files/folders that are inside
Runtime:Libraries:Character
Runtime:Libraries:Camera
Runtime:Libraries:Face
Runtime:Libraries:Hair
Runtime:Libraries:Hand
Runtime:Libraries:Light
Runtime:Libraries:Materials
Runtime:Libraries:Pose
Runtime:Libraries:Props
Runtime:Libraries:Scene
Do not mess with any other folders under Runtime.

Outside of Runtime, do not mess with folders under Data. Other folders are usually safe to rearrange.

bitwelder

In case it might be of interest:

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/entries/24220245-Moving-Content-Files-on-the-Hard-Drive

fixmypcmike

On the other points:

Most items you get elsewhere won't have metadata, even new items, so they won't show up in Smart Content.

Items that don't work may be packed incorrectly, or it may be that you are trying to load a material or pose -- to use those you need to load the item first (usually in Character, Props, or Hair, where Character is called Figures in the inside DAZ Studio), then make sure the item is selected, then apply the material or pose.

Missing items may be bad packaging (the name of the .png or .rsr image doesn't match the name of the file) or there may not be images provided with the item.

For textures that aren't in the right place, there are several ways to fix things. The easiest is to save a new scene or preset after you've gotten it to load with the correct locations. You can also edit the file to correct the bad paths.

BTW, instead of rearranging folders, I just use categories. That way I can name things whatever I like and mix the DAZ Studio format and Poser format files, without having to worry about breaking something by moving the wrong files.

thistledownsname

If I find something that came in runtime/libraries/poses, I should merge it into runtime/libraries/pose - correct?

fixmypcmike

thistledownsname said:

If I find something that came in runtime/libraries/poses, I should merge it into runtime/libraries/pose - correct?

Yes, that's usually the error.