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Content management blues

deeahr2169deeahr2169 Posts: 451
edited December 1969 in New Users

Hi
I hesitated to post this because of late i seem to be finding a lot of things that i thought i knew about have slipped my mind and i feel quite a nuisance to pester people with these somewhat trivial requests. However here goes.
First. I keep trying to search the forums for help on subjects and i dont seem able to get much in the way of responses. For example of i type in say.... organising content.... i get your search did not produce any results. I dont know what, but obviously i am doing wrong so some advice on how to search the forums would be great.
Second. Where is there a pdf manual for DS4 pro, i cant find it, which may be resolved by answers to question one... I recall being able to set up the user interface so that i could have to camera view and the perspective view side by side, as an example, but i cant remember how to do it.
Third. In question two i used user interface instead of UI. There are lots of acronyms used in 3d graphics, many of which are beyond my limited brain power. But lots like UI are important to know, be nice to have access to a list of acronyms and their translations.
Fourth. When i got myself a brand new shiny Mac a few weeks back, i looked forward to playing around with Daz anew. Unfortunately while i managed to migrate much of my old stuff, i managed to screw up my Daz content. I lost all the installers i had and have just finished the exhaustive business of acquiring everything i purchased for Daz, lots of stuff! once more and now have it all safely backed up on an external hard drive. What i now have to do is organise my content into a new runtime, one that i can build while i use the shambles that passes for a runtime. I need to find some advice in the form of tutorials, preferably PDF format, on content organisation and management.
Phew, thats lots of questions, hope some of you who read this can provide some, if not all the answers
Thanks in anticipation

Comments

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited August 2012

    Firstly, the search function on Forum posts does not work correctly. When two or more words are used as a search term, they are not used properly. If you put one word in like 'Organising' or 'Content' you should at least get some results. I opened a bug report on this a few days ago.

    There is no PDF manual for DS4P. There is a documents area which is a work in progress, and I'll see if I can find a link for you.

    There was a list of 3D Graphics acronyms on the old forum, and I think chohole dug it up again recently or posted a link. I'll see if I can find that too.

    Adamr001 has a few tutorials on Content Management, but I think they mostly refer to using the Content Database. There is no real problem with installing anything to DS4P, it ALL goes into the My Library folder. My Library must be the last part of the install path, not any sub-folder below it. This applies to Poser content as well as DAZ Studio content. There is a folder called 'Runtime' inside the My Library folder which is used to hold Poser content.

    I have loads of Runtime folders. I have one for Buildings, Transport, Vegetation, Sadie Toon, Victoria 4, Michael 4 etc etc etc. I have them all listed in Edit > Preferences as Poser Formats, and I list the folder that 'holds' the runtime, and NOT the runtime folder itself. In other words, I have a folder called Poser Runtimes inside that I have one called Michael 4, then inside that I have Runtime. I list Michael 4 as the Poser runtime in Preferences, and DS4 picks up the runtime folder from there, and displays it in the Content Library tab as a Poser Formats folder.

    See if that helps any, and I will look for these links for you.

    EDIT:

    Documentation link : http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/userguide/getting_started/start

    Post edited by JimmyC_2009 on
  • deeahr2169deeahr2169 Posts: 451
    edited December 1969

    Many thanks for your help. Hope this does not sound churlish but one of the few things i dont have a problem with is installing the content, i have ven begun to master how to install things from sources other than Daz itself. Where my brain starts to go into meltdown is the file structure, i get quite confused between libraries and runtime and so on. If have it correctly in my documents folder there is a Daz folder and inside that is the My Library folder and then the runtime folder that contains Poser content and the People folder that contains DS content. So far so good.... i think.
    In the runtime folder if i follow the libraries path i can actually access all the poser content that i have? If i wish to organise this content into something similar to the way you have organised your own content, for example showing specific item, lets call it EXAMPLE, then presumably i could create a new folder within this library folder called EXAMPLE and move all the relevant content into it. Not totally sure this is correct. Seems to make sense to me but in fact the folder EXAMPLE does not show at all. So how to get it to show is confusing me. I kind of think i am on the brink of eureka moment here, thanks to your help, and i kind of think it must involve the content management thing somehow. But i am struggling to put this all together.
    Some screen shots might help perhaps so have included some

  • deeahr2169deeahr2169 Posts: 451
    edited December 1969

    Forgot the screen shots, sorry.

    Screen_Shot_2012-08-16_at_12.05_.47_.png
    1502 x 1061 - 252K
    Screen_Shot_2012-08-16_at_12.22_.42_.png
    1048 x 537 - 55K
    Screen_Shot_2012-08-16_at_12.18_.34_.png
    1277 x 682 - 110K
  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    You do not want to create another runtime folder inside the My Library folder. The reason that Poser content shows up in DAZ Studio at all, is because the folder which holds the runtime (My Library) is declared as a Poser Formats folder in Preferences as well.

    There is already a runtime folder inside My Library, so create another folder at the My Library level in Studio, or better still, create one called Poser Runtimes somwhere in your Documents folder, and then put your runtime in there. In my poser runtimes I have Michael, Victoria, Sadie, Buildings folders, and each one of them contains a folder called Runtime. In Preferences in DAZ Studio, I list Michael and Victoria etc etc as Poser Format folders, then they show up inside DAZ Studio.

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    Here is a link to the Glossary of Terms which may help you :)

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46/

  • deeahr2169deeahr2169 Posts: 451
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for the link, much appreciated. Back to content chaos now.
    Okay eureka moment still to come. I am sorry but i am truly struggling to make sense of this. In part my problem is that i need things to be called something other than runtime to be able to differentiate between them. However, what began this for me, is that over a period of time, in part because i have changed computers three times, my content has become quite confused. Is it possible to start with a totally virgin runtime for DS4, into which i can selectively install the content i have purchased. At the same time i would want to keep my existing, even if confused runtime, so that i can use DS while i create a new and hopefully ( unbridled optimism here ) uncluttered runtime.

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    davidahr said:
    Thanks for the link, much appreciated. Back to content chaos now.
    Okay eureka moment still to come. I am sorry but i am truly struggling to make sense of this. In part my problem is that i need things to be called something other than runtime to be able to differentiate between them. However, what began this for me, is that over a period of time, in part because i have changed computers three times, my content has become quite confused. Is it possible to start with a totally virgin runtime for DS4, into which i can selectively install the content i have purchased. At the same time i would want to keep my existing, even if confused runtime, so that i can use DS while i create a new and hopefully ( unbridled optimism here ) uncluttered runtime.

    The word 'Runtime' neveer appears in DAZ Studio. When you create a new runtime, it is contained inside another folder, and it is that name which appears in DS4. In other words, you would create a folder with a name like 'Michael', and inside it will be a folder called Runtime. You give DS4 the path to 'Michael', and it picks up the runtime folder, and creates Figures, Props, poses, Hair etc etc without using the word runtime.

    Yes, you can create a new Runtime any time you like, I have about 20. Just create a folder, say 'New Runtime', and then install all Poser content into it. The installer will create a folder called Runtime, and all the necessary sub-folders, you don't have to do anything but point the installer to 'New Runtime'. Then add the folder 'New Runtime' into DAZ Studio, and any content it contains will appear under Poser Formats > New Runtime (depending on where you put the folder.) Each time you create a new runtime, there must be a folder to hold it, and it is the folder which 'holds' the runtime that appears in DS4P.

    Hope that makes more sense now?

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    edited December 1969

    Sorry, but I can't read any of the posts in this thread. The screenshot pics are way too wide and smash out through the side of the forum layout, letting the dark grey text in every other post dribble out onto a section of dark grey background that's normally not visible. I think the current limit is 800 pixels wide (to be changed to unlimited — within reason — as soon as the forum's image auto-resizing is put back in). Could you edit that one post and re-link to shrunken versions of the pics, please?

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    I couldn't read it either. I just clicked the 'QUOTE' button, and was able to read it that way.

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