Content Library

kathrynloch

Okay now I'm really confused. I read a reply to my post about getting frustrated with trying to search. I'm sorry but I don't remember the person's name. But he(?) very kindly offered to help but ask that I address one question at a time. I completely understand, but I had so many running through my head that I didn't reply right away so I could get them all sorted because it was like one big knot of questions.

But now I can't find my post, so I guess a moderator deleted it, but I tried to send a message to the forum mods to double check but got an error saying I'm not allowed to do that. So I guess I'm in trouble over that one. My apologies, but this does get frustrating at times when you spend good money on stuff only to discover you can't use it but were unable to learn that knowledge before hand. I know customer service is pretty good about refunding stuff, but I'd rather avoid the refund situation entirely if at all possible, if you know what I mean.

A side note - the store had Animate2 discounted 70%, so I snapped that one up quick.

But my big thing is my content library and I see posts "where is my stuff", Organization is getting a little hairy. One thing I was trying to figure out is why the stuff I got for M4 didn't work on M4 - clothes and stuff don't fit even using the the Fit ability. There seemed to be a constant problem with the stuff for Michael. Now, I originally got DAZ toward the end of last year, but because of the holiday season didn't have a chance to really look at it. But I picked up a couple of bundles to start out with - one was M4 Pro and another was Gianni Pro, plus some odds and ends here and there and of course freebies. Now that I've joined the PC+ club, I've snapped up some great wardrobe items for $1.99 - some really nice medieval stuff.

But it was getting it to fit that was the problem. Everything in Smart Content wouldn't apply for nothing on M5. Gianni stuff has always been good and I prefer working with that package. But Michael was the only one who was set up to work in Mimic (there's another can of worms right there - but I figured out how to get the lip sync from Michael to Gianni - YAY! But because all of the stuff I'm using for audio is pre recorded, it turns out that I don't need Mimic but Animate2 and Lip Sync in the 32bit version.)

On the content library, I saw where the content has to be on a mapped drive. But I had a My DAZ3D Library and a My Library - twice. Then I started really getting lost and realized I had the stuff 4 times.

Could that be the libraries under my Documents folder, and the one under the Public folder? ( I so have to figure out how to change that public thing - I don't use it and I'm not networking with this stuff on my laptop) I got to thinking maybe the 4 is because I have both the 64 and the 32 bit installed?

Would I bring on the zombie apocalypse if I deleted stuff? Of course I'd probably delete something that wasn't copied in the other directories knowing my luck. I started categorizing stuff and telling it to show up in certain categories - files and whatnot, but apparently I did something wrong because it didn't take and I can't find the stuff I categorized. Found a couple of items, but I categorized like two full outfits of medieval clothing. Only one shows up and not all the items. Plus nothing I categorized that was Michael's stuff shows up for him. I have to go back into content library and either search or go to the alphabetical list and look for the times one at a time because I don't always remember the names. Was that a tunic or a vest I was looking for?

Again my apologies for getting frustrated and thanks to the kind soul who responded so politely to my post, I'm sorry I don't remember your name. But thank you very much.

mark128

You asked a lot of different questions. Let me see if I can help you try to understand one of these better. The content libraries are very confusing part of the DAZ.

By default DAZ Studio creates libraries in two locations. One is in your My Documents directory and the other is in the Public Documents directory. The one in the Public Documents directory is where DIM installs all the purchased content from the DAZ store. The one in your My Documents directory is the default location where files you save go. For example, if do a File -> Save As -> Pose Preset, the default location you will be offered to save that pose preset will be in the library in my My Documents directory.

I believe the reason for putting the content installed by DIM in the Public Documents is so it would be accessible by all accounts on your machine, assuming you had multiple accounts. Everyone with an account on the computer has access to the DAZ purchased content. The content you created goes into the library in My Documents and only you have access to it.

I think this is the way DAZ intended these libraries to be used, but you don't need to use them this way or even have the two libraries. You can set up DIM and your DAZ Studio to use only one of the libraries, but this will take some work to change DAZ Studio and DIM from the default setup.

I have retained the two libraries. I leave the one in Public Documents to be managed by DIM. The one in My Documents I use for content I create and content I get for sources other than DAZ, freebies and other stores.

mark128

DAZ Studio itself has two different panels for searching for content. One is the "Smart Content" panel. The other is the "Content Library".

The Smart Content panel only shows content that has smart content data, usually called meta data. Not all products sold through the DAZ store have meta data. Most older content in the DAZ store does not have meta data. Unfortunately that includes most of the M4 and V4 content, although a few M4/V4 items have smart content.

Also 100% of the products you buy at other stores or free items you find on various other sites will not have meta data, so they will never appear in Smart Content. Most Genesis and Genesis 2 content from the DAZ Store will have smart content.

I think Smart Content is a nice idea to hide some of the complexity of the content libraries and help you find things that work together when you are first starting out with DAZ Studio using the Genesis and Genesis 2 starter content packages. When you start to get more content and especially M4/V4 content, you need to learn how to find things in the Content library.

mark128

There are two kinds of content libraries. The Poser Format libraries and DAZ Format libraries. A Poser Format library is contained in a Runtime folder and is sometime referred to as a runtime. These are historical and were established originally by Poser. DAZ Studio uses Poser Format libraries for compatibility with Poser. Most M4/V4 content will be in Poser Format library. Most Genesis and Genesis 2 content will be in the DAZ Format Library.

When trying to find out where some content you bought is, the place to start is in DIM. Towards the right hand side there is the letter 'i' with a circle around it. Clicking on this will bring up the DAZ documentation for this product in a web browser. This web page will usually tell if the product is installed in the Poser Format or DAZ format libraries. Below is the info off of the Michael 4 Base documentation page.

When it says you can find the content in Poser Libraries, you should look under Poser Formats -> My DAZ 3D Libary in the folders mentioned, "Figures", "Materials, "Pose", ...

When it says you can find the content in DAZ Studio Categories, it is talking about meta data, and not actual libraries. This data can be found under "Categories" in the content Library.

When is says you can find the content in DAZ Studio Folders, you should look under DAZ Studio Formats -> My DAZ 3D Library for the content.

Michael 4 Base (Core)

You can find new icons for loading this product in the following Poser Libraries:

Figures: “DAZ People”
Materials: “DAZ's Michael 4:MATerials SMPL-Res”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:General Poses”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:MATerials SMPL-Res”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:1_Eyebrows”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:2_Eyes”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:3_Nose”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:4_Cheeks”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:5_Lips”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:6_Mouth”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:7_Tongue”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:8_Jaw”
Pose: “DAZ's Michael 4:Morph Injections:Base:9_Visemes”

You can find new icons for this product in the following DAZ Studio Categories:
“Figures:People:Male:Real World”
“Materials:Masculine:Michael 4 Base:Skin”
“Poses:By Function:Jumping”
“Poses:By Function:Kneeling”
“Poses:By Function:Running”
“Poses:By Function:Sitting”
“Poses:By Function:Standing”
“Poses:By Region:Full Body”
“Poses:By Region:Partial Body:Torso”
“Poses:Other:Reset”
“Shaping:Inject”
“Shaping:Remove”
Michael 4 Base StudioCF

You can find new icons for loading this product in the following DAZ Studio Folders:
“People:Michael 4:Materials:M4 Sample-Res”
Michael 4 Base Puppeteer

You can find new icons for loading this product in the following DAZ Studio Folders:
“People:Michael 4:Puppeteer Presets”

Now sometimes the DAZ documentation page is just a place holder page and occasionally it is missing. In this case you need to righ click on the item in DIM and go the the "Show Installed Files ..." menu. This brings up a box with a list of all the files installed. Now many of these files are not user visible, but if you look through the list, usually you can find a HTML format "ReadMe" file. Most old products that have only placeholder doc pages will have an old format readme in the installed files. Click on that file and it will bring up a windows explorer window with the readme html selected. Just click on the html file and it will open in browser. These old readme's usually contain similar information about where to find the product.

In the worse case, there is no old format readme, and you have to figure out how to find the product from the list of installed files.

kathrynloch

mark128 said:

You asked a lot of different questions. Let me see if I can help you try to understand one of these better. The content libraries are very confusing part of the DAZ.

By default DAZ Studio creates libraries in two locations. One is in your My Documents directory and the other is in the Public Documents directory. The one in the Public Documents directory is where DIM installs all the purchased content from the DAZ store. The one in your My Documents directory is the default location where files you save go. For example, if do a File -> Save As -> Pose Preset, the default location you will be offered to save that pose preset will be in the library in my My Documents directory.

I believe the reason for putting the content installed by DIM in the Public Documents is so it would be accessible by all accounts on your machine, assuming you had multiple accounts. Everyone with an account on the computer has access to the DAZ purchased content. The content you created goes into the library in My Documents and only you have access to it.

I think this is the way DAZ intended these libraries to be used, but you don't need to use them this way or even have the two libraries. You can set up DIM and your DAZ Studio to use only one of the libraries, but this will take some work to change DAZ Studio and DIM from the default setup.

I have retained the two libraries. I leave the one in Public Documents to be managed by DIM. The one in My Documents I use for content I create and content I get for sources other than DAZ, freebies and other stores.

Oh wow, Mark, thank you so much! I really appreciate all the information. Sorry about the multiple questions there - I was doing good to keep it on basically one subject. lol! But thank you so much for taking the time to address each one.

Okay, regard to Public Documents, what you said here makes sense and that's what I was thinking. If I was doing this stuff at work or on a network with other artists, then yes, that public makes sense. But I really try to keep my stuff not only tidy (I usually fail miserably at that but that's beside the point) but where I can kinda keep an eye on it. I don't like when too much stuff is out of sight out of mind in folders I don't use.

Now, up until a few days ago, the only place where I got DAZ content was the shop here. I don't download things I'm not certain of and I don't launch any type of executable attached to emails, I don't care how well I know the person who sent it, it's one of my rules and the one time I broke that rule, got hit with a virus. So I'm really wary of downloading DAZ content outside of the shop, unless it comes from folks here who have been here for a spell and have something of a posting record.

In the newbie contest WIP thread a couple of members made great suggestions and gave me very handy links to downloadable content, so that type of thing I'll trust. So that was the first time I downloaded anything not from the actual shop. I put it in my DAZ library under Documents as per the small read me. But you mentioned runtimes in one of your posts below, so I'm going to jump to the next one in a hopefully logical progression. :)

PS - it's crazy late here so I'm going to do that tomorrow - so I can come at this with half a brain in my head. Thanks again Mark, this is really getting interesting the more I dig.