Merging Daz Libraries
Deke
Posts: 1,631
I realize that my difficulty of having old projects open on a new machine is that there is more than one Daz Library that Daz accessed on the old machine. Slightly different libraries on different hard drives. Is there a way to merge libraries...one library to rule them all?
The alternative is I transfer each library and make sure it's noted in the database manager. This would involve a lot of duplicate files.
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I'm sorry but I have to say that'll be simple to merge two Daz Libraries as one... Since Daz sets a 1:N relationship among cms Database (1) and all Daz Libraries (N) based on relative file paths under the Base Directory, it'll be pretty easy for the users to migrate Daz assets from old PC to the new one. A typical procedure as below (esp. for the one who uses both Content Library and Smart Content) ~:
1) Let's say you two Daz Libraries, A and B. You copy or move the smaller one into the bigger one, e.g. B to A....with the folder where "data, People, Runtime" locate ! Make sure you don't change the Base Directory name of A, i.e the path you configured in Content Directory Manager !
2) Fully close DS on your old PC. Go to %appdata%\DAZ 3D\ , copy "cms" folder to the disk where A locates. Then connect this disk to your new PC.
3) Assuming you've already installed postgreSQL and configured cms Settings correctly on your new PC, copy "cms" folder to %appdata%\DAZ 3D\ on your new PC. Launch DS, configure the path of A in Content Directory Manager. Refresh Smart Content.
Besides, remember to migrate the data of DIM from your old PC to new PC as well...
No need to be sorry at all. Your way is much easier than my way. :)
My way sucks in comparison to your way, haha. My way doesn't involve copying the CMS folder at all, but because of that there's a few other steps involved which end up time consuming at the very least and extremely annoying and time consuming at the worst lol. I actually wasn't aware the cms folder could be copied straight out like that.
Haha, yeah, with replicating cms database, you don't have to re-import metadata or re-install Daz products in new PC, so time-saving a bit
"1) Let's say you two Daz Libraries, A and B. You copy or move the smaller one into the bigger one, e.g. B to A....with the folder where "data, People, Runtime" locate ! Make sure you don't change the Base Directory name of A, i.e the path you configured in Content Directory Manager"
Simple as that? This would result in some duplicate files, but that's a lesser concern and this would prevent the tedium of comparing two "data" folders and two "runtime" folders and trying to add files from one to the other.
Actually it's very simple... Normally there won't be duplicate files unless some files have different versions. A potential issue might be: you've installed the same product in two Libraries, one is old, another is up-to-date. You need to make sure the up-to-date one overwrites the old one... otherwise you have to re-install the up-to-date product when you find the problem later on...
I'm a bit confused, and not clear on the terminology. If I drag one Library into another Library's folder, a lot of files will be duplicated. I could try to merge them, but it would be more difficult. I have been going in to each folder and comparing one to another and trying to make sure the new library has all the possible files.
If they don't merge, with one file ovewriting the other, then at least one set of files will be in the wrong place and will error out on loading.
I think I have put the Daz Library files into order, but I still have the list of missing elements. Those are mostly runtime/textures files and are apparently in another library. I do wish that Daz had a similar feature to Adobe After Effects or Premere where you link one file to the new location and the program automatically syncs up every other needed file at that location.
Genberally if you correct one path for textrues DS should adjust any other references in that operation. Is the path being complained about correct - does it start with Runtime or with Textures?
I don't know how this stuff is organized. There are so many files and they are all one "library" or another: "Connect Library" "My Daz 3D Library" etc. It doesn't help that I'm a Mac person trying to set up a PC for more Iray power.
Now the file structure is c:users/my name/documents/my daz 3d library/runtime/texture (and another textures) file
There is also a "data" file in this same "My daz 3d Library" folder.
Maybe I have to wipe everything and start over. Would re-downloading 10 years worth of content be the best option here?
The My Daz 3D Library folder is the content diectory, everything within that has to be in the root of the new content directory. If you have stuff isntalled through Connect then you will, I think, have trouble copying the database across from the old machine (one or two peoiple have tried and mac to Windows doesn't seem to work, though I can verify that that is a fundamental issue) so you would either need to take everything out of the /data/cloude/1_sku/ folders and merge it into the main content directory or move its data folder (the one that holds the cloud folder) across to your new system in a content directory set as the daz Connect data directory and reinstall through Connect (which should see the existing files and not need to redownload them).
Thanks. I really appreciate you taking the time to write that out, but much of this is over my head. What do you mean by "content directory"? And what if I have more than one "My Daz 3D Library" folder (the old drive was addmitedly a mess, with 3-4 such folders on 2-3 drives, each listed in the Daz Content Manager). What do you mean by "everything within that has to be in the root of the new content directory"? Does this mean, for example, that I should take the files from an existing "My Daz 3D Library" folder and add them to a new "My Daz 3D Library" folder on the new computer's drive?
It seems the Install Manager on the new PC is recommending c: users public/documetns/mydaz3dlibaray. as the place to install new content. I've copied many old files to this new location, but it seems that runtime/textures are still missing when I tried to load a scene created on the older computer.
The content directory is the filder you tell Daz Studio to use, My Daz 3d Library for example. the name doesn't matter, what matters is the location of the files within the folder - that is why it has to be content directory/data/yadayada. (Daz Studio files will store the relative location of files that were in a content directory - starting with the data or Runtime folder - and when you open that file it will stick those realtive paths on the end of all the content directory paths until it finds a match or runs out of content directories). So yes, you want to merge all the my Daz 3d Library folders together (unless you want to keep them separate in a specific instance) so that there is only one data folder, one runtiem folder, and so on.
Thanks again. So one way to do this is to combine the various "My Daz 3D Libraries" into one mega-library. Another way is simply to keep them all separate, but make sure each is noted in the content manager. So I could remain these Libraries as Library 1, Library 2, etc. and have them all in the c: users public/documents/.....mydaz3dlibary(1,2,3,etc.)
Daz would know to search all of these libraries, specifically the data and runtime folders in each libary.
Are all files supposed to be within data or runtime? My Library folders have many many sub folders, among them data and runtime. Should there only be data or runtime with a library...with all other folder placed in one or the other?
Yes, you could keep them separated (and you don't have to call them My Daz 3d Library, use whatever name suits their contents).
The Data and Runtime folders are the ones that are most critical since the .duf (and various poser library) files contain references to them (Data has the figure/prop definitons, morphs, UVs and so on while Runtime has textures and the geometry for Poser files) but they do not contain user-facing files - in fact, if you see the Runtime and Data folders in the Content Library then those products are not installed correctly. Keep the existing folder structure (as long as you don't have something like My Daz 3D Library/Content/Data etc., which would be a nested content directory and a Bad Thing) for everything, but the plaement of the user-facing files is less critical than the placement of the asset files.
Thanks again. I did place the My Daz 3D Content Libarary (I'll call them Libraries for ease of typing) into the public/document location and added them to the Content Director Manager in Daz. I removed any links to the files on the external D; drive. Oddly enough, when loading a scene, Daz still says it can't locate some files....asking me to locate files on the D: drive. Why doesn't it simply search in the Libaries on the C: drive?
Another mystery is that no products appear in Smart Content any longer. It's blank. All Libraries do appear in the Content Library panel.
And there does seem to be some faulty file structure such as: Daz Library/applications/data/Daz 3D/My Daz 3d Library/runtime....
That depends whether they were in a content diectory, and so stored with a reference to the relative path, or outside any content directory, and so stored with an absolute path.
Did you change the Content Cluster (database) path? If so it can't see your previous database.
That looks like a Daz Central install, asking for just a single base folder and placing everything in sub-folders. DIM would initially hafe respected that (and Daz Central would have respected existing DIM folder set-ups) but you may have changed it at a later date.
Thanks for the help. With your advice I'm 80% of the way to getting this new PC set up. I was able to load an existing project and "locate" any missing elements. The result? A frame that previously took 5 min to render at 100 iternations can now be rendered in 2 minutes at 1000 iterations. Game changer.