Navigating DAZ Studio assets / files like a pro!

Dark-Madness

So I have used DAZ Studio for over a decade. One would assume that makes me something of an expert. But the fact is I barely know what I am doing in a lot of the program. One area in particular that has become a glaring problem is navigating the assets.  You see, for the first 10 or so years I navigated DAZ Studio the same way one would in the original "Poser" software. Files by file in clearly marked and generally accurate locations (much like the smart content tab arranges things.) This worked well enough but it took literal hours just to find the content I wanted to use. I wasn't a fan but I got comfortable with it that. So much so, I would force DAZ to install things in the same manner and just navigate my files in that way. But. then Smart Content came along and changed everything for me. I was able to load my model and quickly find things specific to it with minimal time. If I needed something not specific, I just unclicked "Filter by Context". Many computers later I changed my ways and let DAZ Install Manager install things how it wanted to, thus making Smart Content work even better! I don't know if it helped, I just know I liked it more. To the point, I recently figured out after spending entirely too much on assets, that I cannot find a lot of what I have purchased. This led me to step out of my comfort zone of the 'Smart Content' tab and into the 'Content Library' I have begun finding a whole ton of assets I thought were not installed correctly, or flat-out forgot I purchased because they simply would not show up in the smart content and I generally buy too much at a time to remember all of it.

I am now on a mission to stay out of the smart content tab and navigate things like a pro, but I'll be honest, I spent hours just looking through each folder and extension of folders. I cannot for the life of me remember where anything I saw yesterday is today. How on earth do you pros find anything in this software?  According to Install Manager, I have 1TB of content installed. Trying to find anything specific, seems like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.  Add the joys of ADHD to this and I have on multiple occasions gone from looking for one specific thing to losing hours just clicking folders to see what's there, no longer remembering how I got here or what I was looking for. How on earth do you pros navigate through your Content Library? Or is there a better way I am oblivious to?

I am open to all tips/tutorials you think would help as this change makes it like I am diving into a whole new program and I'm in a hurry to get up to speed!

Richard Haseltine

Use a mixture - find the product (in the Products tab of Smart Content or in the Products list in the Content Library), then you can use the right-click>Show Assets In menu to navigate to the main content folder under daz Studio Formats or Poser Formats if you need to see the way the files are arranged (if the product doesn't have proper categories, or for things that needs to be applied ina certain order - such as base shader, then various setting groups - which the categories do not reflect). Or just browse through the top level Content Library folders for your figure. Or look in a hopeful category. Smart Content already supports some fairly sophisticated search methods, and the public beta is adding many of them to the Content Library.

PerttiA

The problem with the content libraries, starting from the way Poser did it, is that they all work fine when one doesn't have too much but that's where the "working fine" stops (all too common problem with whatever program)

I install my content manually and use only the Content Library.
During installation, I place the user facing files into a folder of my own choosing, unless the creator/Daz has followed the "established" standard in choosing the location.

I use the existing tree structure as a base, and when a folder for some assets gets too crowded, I split it into sub-folders like
...\People\Genesis 8 Female\Clothing\_Lingerie
...\People\Genesis 8 Female\Clothing\_Uniforms
...\People\Genesis 8 Female\Clothing\_Winter

Or
...\Environments\_Interiors Private\_Abandoned
...\Environments\_Interiors Private\_Bedroom
...\Environments\_Interiors Private\_LivingRoom

My main content library is split over 6 drives, taking some 10TB's at the moment and I can find what I'm looking for pretty fast.
If I don't know what I'm looking for, I use the search function but I search in files instead of the (default) database. It takes some time, but finds stuff better.

jjoyner

Keeping track of assets is a never ending task.  Each user, though, has to establish a way that works for him or her. What seems natural and works for one may not work well for someone else.  If you wish, you can assign an asset to a different category that already exist if you think that is a better assignment. Sometimes you can remove the ill-working category assignment and sometimes not.  You can also delete existing categories or create new categories to your liking and assign content accordingly.  Category assignment does not move asset files; it just assigns category labels.

I add tag keywords to assets to help me find them using the key:: filter in the search field of Smart Content or the COntent Library.  So, for example, I can find any science fiction asset to which I have added the tag scifi, by searching for key::scifi.  I use this example because some science fiction assets have a name and/or tag of SciFi, while some have Sci Fi, while others have Sci-Fi.

jim_doria

Similarly, I still never use the Smart Content pane. From what I understand, it's selective and won't show non-DAZ content like freebies etc. I've always just used the Content Library pane.

HOWEVER, I long ago passed the point where I found it at all fun to search through all those hierarchical folders (more all the time!) to find the right pair of shoes. I came up with a "semi-automatic" way to organize my content on my own terms.

I created a separate runtime called the ARMOIRE, organized it according to figure and asset type (tops, bottoms, shoes, accessories) and then used that to categorize all my assets. Since I'm on Windows, I was able to use a nifty trick called symbolic links so I don't have to actually duplicate the files, I just create pointers to them. I wrote a utility to make this all a drag and drop affair.

Initial setup took a while but since then it's just maintenance when I install new clothing. It's not perfect and it's some work but at least I have control over what goes in it and how.

I'm probably being an idiot for not using Smart Content but this works for me. Plus I built it so I'm biased. Everyone thinks their kids are better than other kids. :-)

crosswind

1) Stick to using Smart Content as the 1st priority... Never give up eating for fear of choking.

2) Why you cannot find what you've bought in Smart Content ? Because Daz gave no or wrong metadata in the product packages (IM Packages), especially in the past 3 months when lots of emigrees from Rendo rushed in this store... It is never Smart Content's fault.

3) So be cautious, after you install newly-bought products, check one by one if they appeare in your Smart Content, sort by Last Update : Recent First, beforehand.

4) There're quite a few tricks and tips of how to well use Smart Content, creating / fixing Products as well as metadata no matter in IM package or in Smart Content after installation.

5) One day, when you had 2 Mil asset items in your Libraries... direct dumping files as well as searching in Content Library would definitely turn into a nightmare... esp. probably you'd already wasted a great deal of your valuable time before you realized that... 

jjoyner

jim_doria said:

• Similarly, I still never use the Smart Content pane. From what I understand, it's selective and won't show non-DAZ content like freebies etc. I've always just used the Content Library pane.

Piggybacking on what @crosswind offered, it’s very easy to create a Daz Studio Product from anything in your Content Library.  I’ve done this hundreds of times for content manually installed from Renderosity and other third-party sites.  A Product can have assets from one content item or from several different items.  For example, you could create a Product just from the items in Content A, or from items in Content A, Content B, and Content C, etc.

Once created, a Product appears in Smart Content.  You’ll need to add metadata (not difficult) via the Content Library and assign Categories to items and create a thumbnail to store in the  Runtime/Support folder.

I'd attach a screen capture of an example from my Content Library but the forums are not taking attachments at present.

Edit - Image now attached.