One More Noob Question
Geoffrey_Woodget
Posts: 98
The Help Desk tells me that if I load DS4 products from Rendo, or DNA, I should install that to the "Other Content" folder.
My question is why? Why can't I just manually drop them into my 'Regular DS4 Library? That way I'd just have to navigate 1 DAZ & 1 Poser set.
Oh! I have 'Delete Package After Install", and I have the manifest files moved by editing the .ini in DIM. They are the same(?) Manifest Files installed in the DS4 Library. Why am I saving dupes?
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But I specifically said it wasn't Poser.
There are several reasons to keep non DIM installed content separate from DIM installed content. Let me give you a reason why.
Bad morphs! Many free or even commerical morphs are buggy, the install replaces the original files instead of adding morphs. If you suddenly get wonky figures when loading for example Genesis 2 Male, disable the third party runtime and see if it is solved.
And why do you edit the DIM .ini file, that is asking for trouble. Manifest files are saved as they are used for example for meta data reinstallions.
That's true. Most content on Rendo and Runtime DNA is either Poser only or Poser and DAZ Studio. Even the stuff that is D/S compatible still wants that Poser file structure. Now that I am back home (I had answered your question via my smartphone), I can show you a screen print of my file structure. I'm using Windows 10.
My computer is set up so that all my graphics go on my SSD, which is my G drive. My C drive is a regular hard drive. I had to force DIM to point to my G drive. The other difference is that D/S is set up for Poser content to go into the Documents which is on my C drive. So I created a duplicate of that file structure onto my G Drive.
The first two pics show my DIM setup.
The third pic is my C drive where they want me to install the 3rd Party content, in the Documents folder. I put an X next to My Library (to remind myself not to put stuff here... hence the reminder text file and a shortcut to my preferred location).
The forth pic is where I actually download my third party items. This is the same folder as my regular D/S stuff.
They allow a max of 5 pics in the forum, so see Part 2.
Part 2.
The first pic shows Content Library, DAZ Studio Formats. Note that the top two with the arrows is where the content is actually located. The bottom two are pointing to the C Drive Documents folder. Since it's empty, they don't go anywhere.
The last pic shows where all the 3rd party content goes. The top two folders point to C:\Documents and are empty. The bottom folder is on my G SSD Drive.
So there's my file setup. To force everything to go into DAZ Studio Formats would require me to rearrange all the contents of the downloaded 3rd party content before I install it. As I said before, I didn't want to go through that much trouble.
My system files and everything else is installed on my C drive, leaving my SSD drive exclusively for graphic content.
Because I needed them saved to another drive. But my original question stasnds, The meta Data is in the installed file under Runtime/Support. Why do I need it stored externally too?
Now that I was thinking about the duplicates...
When DIM loads all my stuff, I see the D/S items and the PS items. I just hide the Poser Stuff in DIM and don't install them.
Pic 1 shows all my hidden stuff when I check the box "Show Hidden."
Pic 2 shows how to hide an item. Just right click on it and the drop down shows up. You can check the boxes for multiple items and choose Hide Selected.
As far as your duplicates, go to the Installed tab and put a check next to all the PS stuff you want to remove and click uninstall. These items will show up again in the Ready to Download tab. Just hide them.
By the way, there are some older "legacy" items (M4, V4 stuff) that require you to install the poser version to get the item. Otherwise all you see are the material files. So if you run into that situation, you may need both the Poser and D/S versions, but that isn't too common.
Hope this answers all your questions.
Sooo...what you're saying is that when an established (usually Poser till now) artist makes a Generation 3 product sold at Rendo, it's (maybe) not the right DS4 formatt??
Poser stuff is V4/M4 stuff. everyhting Genesis is for DAZ Studio, but sometimes non DAZ Stuff is broken (depends really on who made it, and freebees tend to be broken more often).
But keeping a separate content library for 3rd party (non DAZ content) is a good idea. I didn't in the beginning, and reinstalled all after a few years, was not very fun...
Manifests are also used by DIM to know what it did install, so when you remove something with DIM, it's reversing using that.
No, sorry for the confusion. I was speaking of items that were originally designed for Poser (V4/M4 content). It has been my experience that items designed for DAZ Studio (G2 and I assume G3 but haven't bought any yet) are in the right file structure. For example, Bridgette Hair for G2F will load into my DAZ Studio Formats.
I saw your other post and now understand more clearly what you want to do. I unfortunately have never used Poser, so if there is a way to keep your Poser content in the same Runtime, and not have 2 Runtimes, I will need to defer to someone who has that experience.
I'm really not arguing, honest; I'm just trying to understand.
Rhiannon, i13, among others. are starting to make products for Generation 3. Yes, for years it was V4, M4, G4, S4 etc. Totally different ballgame.
So basically what you're saying is that IF the product is not made to Generation 3 specs it will screw-up the whole Library folder (if it's a morph or file that other products depend on)? That would hold true for another Library too wouldn't it?
Technically, you don't need to...but like Totte mentioned there are reasons you would want to keep them separate. Stuff from the Daz store has been or is being updated to the latest file structure standard. Other content from other stores may not be following the latest standard (not really broken, but liable to introduce all sorts of extra folders/confusion).
Also, from a support (and updating viewpoint), it is much easier to deal with. That's the whole idea behind a database driven content structure.
And the manifest files...while you (and most other humans) would think they are duplicated, the programs that need them do not. They end up in those places because that is where the program needs them. And yes, DIM and Studio do not actually communicate in a way that sharing the manifest files is possible. It is one of the quirks of this software...partially a design choice (to keep them less integrated) and partially a need to keep several thousand items for previous generations able to still be used.
Ah! Got it! Great explaination. Thanks!
...and thanks to all!
I've never heard any DAZ_Person tell anyone here on the forums to use "Other Content" for this. What I do remember is that it's intended for anything that isn't D|S format or Poser format files — almost always this means straightforward bare .obj mesh files that would otherwise need to be imported. Using Other Content means it's right there and immediately loadable in your Content Library tab.
I have an old content folder that's been carried along for years as I upgrade to newer D|S versions, it's in the old D|S default location of the My Documents folder, which means it's attached to my account on this computer. DIM uses a content location in your computer's Public folder, and everything you buy from the DAZ store that's installable with DIM should go in here. We've been repeatedly advised that all non-DIM and non-DAZ content should be installed to the My Documents location, to keep it separate from the DIM-only content in Public.
I've seen it as My Daz 3D Library (that's the DIM default) for DIM/store content and My Library for everything else...
Here is a simple questions: How do I apply Shaders to objects. I want to buy some Shaders to add more versatility to my renders
but I am clueless on how to apply them to different objects in the scene.
Thanks
Select the object (or objects) in the Scene tab, select the surface (or surfaces) in the Surface tab, double click shader to apply. A word of warn through, trying to apply a shader to multiple surfaces at once can sometimes cause the tdlmakers to crash and hang the program.