Linking Content
s_j_gregory
Posts: 103
I cannot imagine this is a new question but for the life of me I cannot find a thread. For as long as I can remember content creators have created content for others' creations. The most common example likely is MAT sets for clothing. A large number of these addons follow the path of the originator and are well placed; a large number do not and could be found in a completely unrelated location. If you are using DIM, you might decide to reinstall the clothing and MATs together. But is there a way to create a link/pointer from the clothing to the MATs in your content library. Similarly you might have a pose set that includes separate expressions. Sometimes the expressions are placed with the poses and sometimes they are with the expressions. You could duplicate the expressions and place them in both locations by using DIM. But is there a way to point to the expressions from the poses. Someone with a huge brain might not see this as a problem, but for us smaller brained folk there is no chance of remembering if a clothing set has additional MATs and what their location might be or if a pose set had expressions stored elsewhere.
Thanks in advance
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You can do individual files or sets of files, or use a script to do entire folder structrues.
This should answer your questions: How to create link(djl) files for all directories in DS?(solved, there's a script in the wiki)
It adds links, which can be moved, to the original installed files.
Thanks for the prompt reply. I think I have seen this over the years and was a bit intimidated. I gave it a try. It was not initially obvious what was going on. I checked in the Help Log to determine it was running but I had no idea what it was doing and where it was doing it. After I learned that I had, I think, created links to a good chunk of my runtime I can say, I think, that it is not quite what I had hoped for. I had been hoping to have something like a shortcut that would take me to that area of my content where the MATs were saved, rather than producing links to each of the MATs to place them in the content with the clothing. I hope this is clear, even if not possible.
See http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log_4_15_0_30#4_15_0_17
Well, you can navigate to the folder you want to use, and just apply the script to that one, i.e., a texture folder for a particular clothing product. You would have everything in one place. Flipping back and forth might be less rewarding. There are a few of third-party products that can configure access to your content ( I do not use any of them, so I can not speak to their usefullness or applicability).
VisualMenus
MF Content Bookmarks
Turbo Content
Content Wizard
Smart Collections
I believe Richard was referring to the Create Custom Action, which will create a shortcut in a menu to content or a folder of your choice.
Thanks all/both for your assistance. I may have this wrong, as some of your assistance is over my head, but I think I see four camps. Camp one might be Custom Actions - but that might require remembering to look and it might develop its own overhead and confusion in exchange for 'navigating' directly to a folder or script. Camp two might be Create Link for Asset - that would seem to create a link, (initially with the original path) for each asset and stored in a location of your selection. It doesn't actually take you to the content but rather links to the individual scripts. Reportedly this creates no overhead. Camp three-a might be to use an installer like DIM to direct the installs or blend content (clothing and MAT sets as an example) so content intended to work together ends up stored 'together'. Camp three-b builds on three-a using an installer like DIM to install content with general and specific use in more than one place. This might see using DIM to place the Expressions (or Shape(s)) that come with pose set with the Poses AND with the Expressions (or Shape(s)).
Likely each appraoch has their own pros and cons. But none are all that slick. And given prior to using DIM, I was using a version of three-a to keep MAT sets with the clothing (likely a Poser holdover in my case) so I suspect I will continue to do some version of three until there is something better. Perhaps Smart Conent is the answer but I suspect that is not an option for me.
Thanks again.
Well, when a product is too mangled to deal with as-is, I repackage it how I want (see Content Package Assist), fix up the metadata to match and install the new package with DIM (use a new part, like IM000xxxxx-02_ProductName.zip, so you can access it anytime, online or offline, with no interference from the official package). Everything is in place, and Smart Content (if I choose to use it) is intact. I can uninstall, or re-install as I please. If, by chance, an update corrects the mis-aligned folders, great, but I would not hold my breath.
I've never tried, but I am told that using an IM prefix for a custom package is not a good idea.
Other stores get RM and HW for a prefix for DIM-compatible packages I make, but with an offline account, since there is no reason to try to connect. I use IM prefix for DAZ products that I repackage, but maybe that's why now DIM seems to ...hesitate... more often. It was never a concern before, and it has been several years that I have been doing it that way.
The potential (probable) hazard is that the prefix is reserved, see http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/install_manager/referenceguide/tech_articles/package_naming/start , so it is quite possible that DIM will overwrite it without notice.
Perhaps brute force and ignorance has gotten me unwittingly to the best option at the moment. I use Content Package Assist (CPA) to prepare every package (now). This preparation tranges from the trivial (G8FWAR: my prefix for Genesis 8 Female Wardrobe items) to the more complex of blending packages (MATs with clothing) or forcing something to install where I think it should. From time to time there is an issue with the .zip and it doesn't load properly via DIM although everthing appears as it should. In that case either unzipping and rezipping solves the issue or in particularly bad cases I use DAZ IM Creator. In a few years of using this approach, I have not had an instance of not being able to eventually get an item to install via DIM. As NorthOf45 mentions this offers control and frlexibility but is a bit labour intensive - hence my thought there might be something easier. On the down side, I have had very rare cases of two products with the same number. My workflow unfortunately allows DIM to overwrite and can be a trick to find and fix. And I have years of older content manually installed without the use of DIM which needs to be cleaned up: a work in progress. With 14 Runtimes over multiple drives, the combination of CPA and DIM offers enormous value to content management - I just wish I had seen the light sooner.
PS. If you might be wondering about my own Prefix strategy, somewhere along the way, in an effort to resolve issues with load speed etc, I decided to have a Runtime of just G8F clothing, as an example. It is now over 200 GB and has over 3400 DIM managed G8F clothing items. Similarly I have G8FCAR, G3FWAR etc etc with Download and Manifest folders for DIM to read depending on 'account' selection.