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I wanted to touch back on this because I'm still thinking about ways to better organize my install files. I don't want to keep doubles of something, but I really hate when people embed the actual DIM file down inside the zip. Like for instance, with Olympia 8 Bundle, there is the zip file with the product name, then the folder with the product name, then under that a bunch of photos and the DIM zip file. Isn't the rest unnecessary? I feel like I should just keep the DIM files and the template files and rezip them, just for ease if I reinstall them down the road, but maybe I'm just over complicating things. It's just a pain when you are reinstalling everything.
I definitely overthink though, because then I wonder should I extract all the DIM files and zip them by category rather than product to make installing faster (like putting all hair together) lol.
Well, this is the fundamental issue.
My format for organisation may not suit you.I don't use DIM at all, if I can avoid it, sticking to manual install to keep control over what gets fired where in the runtime.
What I have found though, is that sticking to my strict file nomenclature is really worthwhile.
As long as I know who made it, what base model it was for & the actual product name I will be able to find it in my archive, if I have it; and I will know if I have it installed & where it will be.
🙂
I got so tired of trying to keep poser files organized andvin the right place. Became one of the reasons i just wiped my poser content from my harddrive. Its all Daz from here on and I dont have to try and hunt cracked upgrades.
When I DL something I usually redo the archive to eliminate all those nested zips, especially as windows 10 allows you to open zips like folders so having everything in the root level of the zip makes installing stuff so much easier.
I have a DAZ content directory on a drive, and then I keep a separate directory with all my installers, and a separate directory I download DAZ content into so I know what i've installed or is waiting for install.
What I hate about DAZ is how the software has no tolerance for missing files, with all these vendors having their own directories and such, I just want to make a 'prop' directory with... props in it, and a location directory, and etc. without having to load all the content and manually update all its links.
What I've been doing with my archived products is keep the base zip as it is for Daz but adding a prefix to the title, so "RO-[SKU]" for Renderosity, "RE" for Renderotica, "SCG" for shareCG and so on. Then I wrap up all the zips for that individual product, along with the readme/pdf and all the promo images into a rar, so that even if the product is NLA, you have all you need. Then I title the rar exactly as the product name and for Daz files I just add the sku, e.g. "17001 - Desert Outpost". For other vendors I carry on the same sku naming scheme I used for the zip but add the author name in square brackets, e.g. "RO-112014 [Sveva] SV's Shimmer and Shine Iray Fabrics". Then I've been organising all the rar's into author folders and for any items that have an add-on, like a texture, I nest it within it's own folder so they are grouped together. For a Bundle I also nest all the individual products together in rar's and this way I can find a product easily if I need to, even just using the sku.
It's a bit labour intensive but if I don't do it then I continually get a little itch because it's not organised properly. I've painted myself into a corner with my OCD tendencies.
Nah seems like a pro strat, particularly with how awful some of these archives are 😀
I like to have everything from one product in one root directory so I can just copy it to my content folder in one go.... I don't understand those renderosity archives that have the texture folder in one zip, and maybe people and props in another... maybe that's a poser thing ? I repack all those.
Then there's those ancient .exe files you need to install into a directory and zip up to make an simple archive out of.... i still have a folder on my content drive full of those things I can't be bothered processing.
@silverboax, yeah I look at the exe files and just want to extract them into simple file structure but it's so much effort.... So they languish for a while at least. I like to keep all the origin files as Vanilla as I can though, so I try not to mess with the base zips. Partly so they can be compared against the source, Rendo for example has a small data block on each product page containing the number of files and file sizes for that product.
Product Files
ReadMe File
Exclusive Product
Digital Product
File (1): 241.6 KB
File (2): 21.94 MBI use this to confirm it's the correct product quickly rather than examining file structure while archiving and cleaning up. I try to keep the files as they come from the vendor for sharing purposes because not everyone uses the files the same or needs the full files. If I'm missing part of the product, say "obj" or poser files, then I note it on the archive and if I'm missing DS files (because there are some products out there where only the poser files are shared) then I keep it on my list to look out for and file it to be sorted.
Having issues with this forum...a new topic didn't show up and neither did my reply, but I actually fixed my one problem.
I had opened another product that had nested files of a bundle all in rar instead of zip, so I had extracted them and tried rezipping one, naming it correctly, and it worked!
So, I went back, completely extracted the original Urban5 zip (not the OBJ one) and rezipped it with the correct file name. It came up in DIM as an update, go figure. Anyway, I ran it, and now the metadata is there.
Now the odd thing is now the original manifest file that was there (the one with OBJ incorrectly named with a 01 instead of 02, is gone, replaced by what I created - however, both parts of the product now show up in smart content! No idea why it worked, but it does so yay.
Ok, now I’m lost again lol. So I’m installing everything in my new runtime folder (with all the runtime subfolders) PP2018. My previous install that I copied from the other computer is under PP2017.
So it seemed like up until now, everything that I was installing into PP2018 was what was showing up under smart content as being installed (I can access the stuff in PP2017 but under content library only).
So I installed some of the figures – under smart content (figures>people), G3M is showing up not G3F. Now I have all my base figures installed directly in runtime directory PP2018 (I’ve done that in case there are issues with scripts etc. the other characters like Victoria 7, Olympia 7, etc. all go under PP2018/G3F. I know it works since I installed Lilith 7 there.
Is there a file I’m missing? I installed G3 starter bundles (and this is from my account I own). It shows up under content library not not smart content.
The trick here is don't use smart content 😀 Anything you buy legit will show up properly because it has metadata from the store, anything you add manually will only have metadata if you manually create it (which isn't worth the hassle)
but what I'm wondering is if I have a setting wrong, because smart content is showing some of the same products I am looking for but in the old run time folder. Then it shows a lot without pictures and exclamation points.
Can I not use categories under content library then either? it seems to have the same problem. I don't understand why the smart content library worked on my other install or why it seems to be registering the other runtime. Did I add it in the wrong place? The other products I was talking about did so I am just so confused. It's like randomly some do and some don't.
I don't understand how do use DS without using the categories or smart content, otherwise how do you known where everything for a product is without looking up its readme product info to find the name of the file.
Why can't Poser just have Iray? That is the only reason I switched to trying DS in the first place...
I can't win. So now when I find the files below (using Laguna mermaid stuff) it can't find the files, because it's looking in my DS directory rather than the correct runtime. I correct the one, but instead of doing what poser does, keep asking or understanding the runtime is there, it just now gives me a list of missing files, and they are under that runtime, I checked! So something with my settings I think are wrong I just don't know what.
@merlina
Well, life is never as simple as you would wish it to be.
I can sympathise with your confusion.
I used to be like that until I really bit the bullet & dumped Poser, starting afresh with my approach & thinking.The trouble is that in a way Daz Studio is too accomodating, in that it allows several approaches to it's use.
Connect is fine if all your content is legit & you don't mind handing over control of what goes where, at the whim of the vendor.
DIM is similar, but doesn't have the online issues that Connect does.
Smart content only works for Daz products.It is worth going back to look at my manual install thread & also taking note of what goes where in a typical IM zip file.
The file structure isn't that bad once you get your head around it & is actually more straight forward than Poser.🙂
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