Trouble with Dresses Moved Over from Rendo
Fae3D
Posts: 2,568
I just purchased D-Force Costume Dress for G8F and G8.1F, D-Force Long T-Shirt Dress for Genesis 9/V9 and Diverse for D-Force Long Tshirt Dress, all by the same two vendors. Since they came in the big crowd of Rendo items that came here, I was not expecting them to work with Smart Content, which is ok, though not great. However, I DID expect them to show up under the alphabetical Products section of my Content Library, like everything else I've ever bought from Daz. But they don't! I looked everywhere for them, and tried uninstalling and reinstalling. The only place I could finally find them was under Daz Studio Formats, which is a huge pain to find anything in. Am I missing something? Has anyone else purchased these items and used them? The T-Shirt Dress and textures work fine once you find them (I haven't tried the Costume Dress yet). Is this common for Rendo imports? If so, I don't think I'll be purchasing any more unless it's something I REALLY need to have. Please share your experiences with items like these, maybe I just got some particularly difficult ones?
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Unfortunately the "Products" and "Categories" sections within the Content Library tab are still technically "Smart Content" because they use the Database/CMS (note the little database-icon to the left of those).
So, you'd have to manually create products for them and add the assets yourself :(
Strictly it is the other way round, these are all Content Management System-driven views and so they are all affected, though it is true that some (e.g. Smart Content, which requires category, compatibility, and type) require more than others (e.g. Products, which requires only that the file belong to a product).
As Richard said, Products section is under the management of Content Library... but you can see it shows an icon of "Database" which means it reads products' metadata from cms database. Because those products you bought have no metadata (in fact Daz didn't make metadata for them), so you have no way to find these 3 products under Products section.
For instance, if you locate the IM package of one of them in your Package Archive folder, open it and drill down into "Runtime\Support" folder, you'll find no metadata files (even you won't find the support folder...), which means DIM has no metadata to import into cms database when installing the product.
So you may have options of: 1) install the products with Content Wizard (if you own it); 2) install the products manually by using the function "Create a Product from..." in Content Library, and add Content Type / Categories accordingly. Then send a ticket as you wish (though I don't think you'll get any response) ~~~
Finally, suggest you install a browser add-on "Daz-Deals", then you can see the link of Readme on the product page (ss1). Click it... if it brings you to "Page Not Found" (ss2), it means that this product 99.9%+ has no metadata as well as support info. (risky products...IMHO ~~)
So, under such circumstances, normally there's a no-go for me to buy the product(s) unless I really need them.
Great. So I guess that they'll mostly all be like that. I guess it's time to do a wishlist purge... it's a shame, a lot of those products looked really nice, but if they're hidden away I'll never remember that they're there, thus I'll never use them. I'm not going to bother with a return, I got them super cheap and they triggered other things in the cart order.
I want to pick up Content Wizard, but it's really expensive (though I'm sure totally worth it, I just have a really tight budget lol), so it'll have to wait for an amazing sale.
Thanks for the info, everyone, now I'm wiser for the next sale.
When installing content with no supplied metadata, DIM will create a basic version in the Runtime/Support folder (.dsx only) that includes all of the user-facing files in a valid Product entry in the database. It is a stripped-down version that does not have any Content Type, Default Categories or Compatibilities. Most of the older Poser products are processed that way, and they all show up in the Products view. The products in question will have a Supplement file in the root folder, with the Product name used inside it. There might be some quirk in parsing the Product name from the entry, like the way "A", "An" and "The" are skipped over and the next word used to alphabetize the entry.
Right ~ I missed that point and I think that might be the reason as you said.
Yea, better wait for a while. Content Wizard is still a good tool though the author won't update it anymore ~~
If you're on Windows and use DIM you can try this, it will be availlable for free soon:
https://3dcontentmanagers.com/products/pm-daz/
It makes it easy to find any product installed with DIM, in DAZ Studio, see video:
https://www.screencast.com/t/ofZEsVpkwyN
Waiting is probably pointless as few months ago we were told here on the forum that it's very unlikely these products will ever get metadata. Made "shopping" for those migrating artists very easy for me. (I do check, every now and then, whether someone migrated some older products that were once available in the store here, so that they have meta data and readme, but mostly I don't bother. There's a limit to DIY via Daz, lol.)
Ah ~~ what I meant was I suggested OP wait for the discount for Content Wizard rather than wait for the updated product with metadata. And yeah, I knew what you mentioned. So if I really need some of them, I'll still go for buying...then install them with CW rather than DIM.
I misread your post then :). And you're kinder than me when it comes to shopping then. If I pay, I expect a working product, and without metadata and smart content it's not really working from my perspective.
In fact, I'm just like you 'cause I very much rely on metadta / Smart Content... only nowadays I may tolerate some cases coming from my favorite PAs and the product per se ('cause I know the fault comes from Daz rather than them...)
I used to be a very disgruntled customer when encountering this sort of cases, haha ~
I completely agree. I won't be buying much anymore, except for established vendors here that know what they're doing. Mousso, VYK, bluejaunte, Sickleyield, chevybabe, Stonemason and a handful of others can be counted on to ship products that work and show up in my library and Smart Content correctly. I have recently-purchased products that, despite reinstallation, simply cannot be found or loaded.
It's crazy.
Everyone has her/his level of comfort in any undertaking. Creating a Product in Daz Studio after manually installing content is not difficult nor is adding some metadata afterwards. Once you’ve created a Daz Studio Product, it shows up in Smart Content and in the Products listing. I’m a dabbler at this stuff (admittedly for a long time now); I’ve retired so I have time to give to this stuff as desired. But manually installing content, creating a Product in Daz Studio, adding some basic metadata, and importing/creating a thumbnail image for the product does not take a long time. If you’re comfortable exploring it, give it a try. I have done this for the many hundreds of products that I have gotten over the years from third-party sources (Poser, Renderosity, ShareCG, etc.) and manually installed in Daz Studio.
Note that the vendors are not responsible for creating the metadata, so they have nothing to do with the functionality of the Smart content, that is up to DAZ
While I understand, I'd ask: did vendors also have no choice but had to upload and make available all the items at once? Did Daz forced them to? Because all actual new releases do get metadata, so if they were uploaded gradually, perhaps they would have gotten it? So while I understand that metadata is on Daz's side of responsibility, those items came en masse back in May, and there seems to be another wave now, so I can't help but asking whether it's Daz ditching the process to put products in the store ASAP, or it's the PAs wanting those items in the store ASAP knowing that it would cause no metadata being created.
Either way, from my perspective as a customer, this process hurts the PAs, because I'm pretty much uninterested in their products from the get go and bad first impressions do not create trust into future products, and ultimately, as a customer, I don't care whose fault it is. If I was buying a new car and it came without a steering wheel (but hey, I can buy one and install it myself!), I wouldn't care whether it's the manufacturer or the dealer who's at fault. I just don't want a car without a steering wheel.
Hear, hear. Some of the newer migrating artists are getting meta with their stuff. Easiest way to know before you buy is, if you have Daz Deals, click on the Read Me on the product page. If it has documentation there, it as meta. If it says Page Not Found, it doesn't. But letting one batch of people do that en masse completely destroys trust in other migrating artists, especially since quite a few are also available on at least one other site. The main advantage the Daz store has is smart content integration. If it doesn't have that, then the only advantage to buying it from Daz would be maybe a cheaper sale. But then you'd either have to shove it through Content Manager or keep the install zip off to the side and install it wherever you have your third-party products, because DIM will bury it worse than your manual install will.
Honestly, as my library is now split across multiple drives, I find it easier to just use the create categories feature, as that lets me place items from the same product in several places (as when, say, divinding an outfit into seperate shoes/hats/etc.) and I can have more specialized categories for things that I tend to always use together gathered in under names that make more sense... cats like "Posing scripts", "Skin Shaders & Resources," "Ropes & Chains," "Roman/Ancientworld", etc., while the actual product files remain where the PA put originally put them, should I have to track something down from a filelist or using DIM.
I know I can do that, but I'm opposed to shopping being hard work for the person spending money. I could browse the incoming artist, look for items that I might be interested in on the off chance they have meta data (some older items have it too, because it seems they were migrated back and forth), and be disappointed more times than not. Or I could just look at the banner saying "Daz Welcomes Whoever" and move on. There's plenty of other opportunities to spend my money on, on Daz store and elsewhere as well. If I have to work to spend my money (and it's not something exciting like cart jenga), I'll, as simple as that. From my perspective, working is for earning money, not spending it.
I understand some people are willing to go the extra mile (checking readmes, installing manually, using Content Wizard, and what else is there), and that's great that it works for them. I, as I said, prefer to have my car assembled for me before I buy it ;).
Don't doubt your diligence at all. I'm exactly the same way, if I think there's going to be yet another stupid caveat to my purchase beyond just the fuzzy math, I won't even bother to go to the product page unless I REALLY want it. I was more addressing the public as a whole with that statement, general knowledge since no one else has suggested checking the readmes in this thread. So far, if I've bought it and it should have meta and doesn't, I've promptly refunded it. In general, I find myself shopping less here because of stuff like that, my trust is eroded. If I didn't already have so much money wrapped up in this hobby, I'd abandon it completely.
Personally, with the amount of products I already have, I could probably stop shopping here and not shop anywhere else and still enjoy rendering for a long while.
And yes, I agree on shopping less when it becomes inconvenient (between frustrating editorial license products, no meta data for migrated products, and the usual and frequent sales glitches with bad wording/rules changing, there's enough to make me less enthusiastic about shopping). But this also allows me to sit out all the sales and wait for better deals or for something that I really want or that gets me excited about shopping. Good for my wallet and my time, but not so good for people who are trying to get my money. On the other hand, when the other day Daz honored Daz+ releases being included in the new releases for buy-ins (rather than remove them), I was happy to go an spend money with the deals being just "good" to me (vs. some crazy 95% off). I felt valued as a customer then. I don't feel valued when I have to do my own metadata.
I assume that this problem has probably been brought up to customer service numerous times, so I don't think I'll waste my time reporting it. The dress I've tried looks and simulates great, now that I know where it is. I feel bad for the migrated vendors, if this was a choice made by Daz and not them, which I imagine is the case. From the comments here, it sounds like it has cost them customers. I know I'll be wary of buying anything by those vendors, because I don't have the Daz Deals plugin to check easily for dates and Readmes. I keep careful records of all my non-Daz webstore purchases so that I can find them, I guess I'll have to do the same for these items. Oh well, at least I didn't pay much for them.
just wanted to say, any new product released in the store (that releases the normal way as in featured in a daily email, shown in one of the daily promos OR that appears in "New Arrivials" WILL have the meta data included, stuff that I and other vendors brought over were just copy/pastes from our other stores so to speak, and no other marketplace does / includes meta data. so none of our migrated products had it.
I can not remember 100% but I THINK it was mentioned that eventually they would be adding meta data to the migrated products, again I can't remember so please don't hold me to that lol.
So like take me for example, Blossom for Genesis 9 DOES have meta data but anything prior to her in my catalog will not have it at this time.
For people saying they won't buy anything that was brought over because of no meta data I will again say only Daz sells products with meta data included, so if you buy from other marketplaces there's really no reason to skip the migrated products ;)
Loki
Sorry to be blunt, but that copy/paste shown and shown badly.
Most people here know that the new releases do have metadata. Most migrated products weren't new releases, though.
I can't remember either, but in a thread back in May we were told (one of the mods, but since I don't remember who, and don't care enough to try to dig it out, I'm not naming any names) that these products will not get metadata. I think the reasoning was "too much work", but again, that would require digging through the forum and finding the exact wording.
If you were promised updated metadata, there's hope, but from my perspective, the damage is done. I hope you got some sales from people who care less about the metadata.
And that's why I shop only at Daz. Because Daz sells products with metadata. They also have products with (mostly) proper descriptions containing detailed information about the product like morphs, maps (so many of the migrated products didn't, that I stoppped checking if any live up to that standard; as I said, the "copy paste" did show in a bad way) and promotional images that feel more professional or at least clear/visible. So, to me, the rushed migration left very bad first impression. I'm not saying that I'll never buy anything from the "migrated artists", but after the faux pas of the migration, they'll really have to step up their game to match the standards shopping Daz has gotten me used to. Lack of metadata and one line descriptions are not it.
In practice, we were told not to expect metadata for the migrated products due to the huge volume of those products.
So being short-staffed on Daz side sounds like a truth ~~ ...
Unless a company is grossly overstaffed, or very large, coping with a sudden flood of activity is going to be challenging at best.
Hmm ~~ understood. So I further wonder if there's any need for volunteers while facing such a flood ... We can sign NDA, haha ~
And will work for store credit?
I buy from other stores, and I don't care about metadata. I do like a populated readme page and especially included files list. Then again, readme doesn't give download size. That's a bother! Been getting some comically large downloads lately.