Manual Install to DS

[eelgoo]

OK, I have been asked to put up basic information on how I install content manually.

To start with, I had better explain why I always do a manual install.

Each vendor has their own ideas of what should be where & the file nomenclature used.
Unfortunately, none can be trusted to organise or name content the same way twice.
If you go with any automated content install you have very limited control of what is installed & where.

Automated file delivery systems historically have been exe based, and then latterly DIM & most recently Connect.
The upside of this is 'ease of use.'....well, in the short term anyway.
Very quickly though you will be struggling with a bloated & chaotic runtime.
Some folk love smart content & with a manual install you are probably going to lose that,
but if you get conversant with navigating a Content Library it will be much easier provided you stick to a system of file heirarchy & file nomenclature.

If you trust automated install, content will be fired anywhere the vendor has defined & called whatever they please.
What I do with an exe file is firstly right click & check with anti-virus.
I have an 'Extract' folder which is empty except for a single DS exe file.

Usually this is enough to fool the exe installer into thinking it is a legit DS installation.
Click Custom install during the extract process & point it to the 'Extract' folder.
When it is finished the process, it will be then clear as to which files are part of the install
( basically everything in the 'Extract' folder except the DS exe )

Now, look at what you have.
With a typical DS installation there are three important folders 'Data' 'People' & 'Runtime'
These are located in the 'My Library' folder.

'Data' is the home for the morph files.
If it is a dial spun character using native Daz morphs there may not be a 'Data' folder included.
It is best to install the Data file as is, unless you really know what you are doing with it.

'People' has a user facing nested file structure which you can edit to suit your personal preferences once you know what they are.
For example it might be My Library/People/Genesis 8 Female/Characters

As I tend to have a lot of characters installed at once, I make a point of having a folder in Characters for each Vendor

'Runtime' folder is where the 'Textures' files go.
Daz typically have their support files in this folder, but they are of very limited use so I don't install them.

That will do for this post....More to follow 🙂

[eelgoo]

There are an infinite number of ways to organise your content.
Over time & with familiarity you will no doubt devise your own.
Any system though has to be maintained, so be sure to keep on with structured nomenclature & organisation.
If you decide to tweak it, make sure to be consistent throughout the runtime.

The success of any runtime or file archive is shown by its ease of use.
Make life easier for yourself by setting up your folder structure in a way that makes sense to you.

The core of devising the system is file nomenclature.
The way I do it is to name each file folder in this format:

Vendor : Base Character (if applicable) : Character or Prop Name : Product ID if available

eg Aquarius V8 Jenna [DZ47421]

Now I know that strictly speaking V8 will probably be G8F & files that I tag V7 will probably be G3F,
but I stick with the V# designation as it then sorts all the characters into base character order,
with the oldest at the start of the folder.

By sticking rigidly to this file nomenclature, despite having an embarassingly large archive,
I can quickly find what I am looking for if I have it. 🙂

[Corbeau]

@Eelgoo
Good remarks Eelgoo, as usual
I may add that you can install the support data for Daz, most of the time it is useless BUT if you absoluteley need to know if you have a precise product installed (sometimes very hard to know for obscure rarely used stuff) you can find it conveniently by looking at the contents of data in a file/folder browser (I remember this trick helped me verifying the various morphs package resources for G3f, I discovered that one was lacking by checking the ID number).
And for the sake of completeness I have an excel file manually listing each installation (and even with that sometimes I have doubts).
In fact most of my DAZ time is tracking new stuff, downloading and administration....
That may be worrying....

[Beezlebubb]

Excellent information, eelgoo! I'm primarily a Poser user but am looking to get much more into DS, so I really appreciate the tips on organizing content.

[eelgoo]

I should add, that further down the line it is a time & patience saver if when you extract the zipped IM# file, you place it in a seperate installation folder.
Edit the file nomenclature & heirarchy as you want it.
Copy it across to your DS installation, ensuring that you dump it to My Library at the correct level otherwise you will have a real mess to sort out! :00
Yes that is the voice of experience! :0/
Zip the modified files in the product sub folder, I put an 'Inst' suffix on it for clarity.
If you do this there are two benefits.
Firstly if you wish to uninstall at any point, you have information as to which files they are & where they are.
Secondly, if you wish to re-install at any point, you need only unzip the installation file & copy it across to your DS installation.

Now there are wrinkles to Poser format installation, which I will cover in the next posting.

🙂

[eelgoo]

@corbeau

I wouldn't get too concerned about that. I find that prepping & installing content helps feed & pacify my OCD 🙂

[Merlina]

I need to eventually do this, I'm used to poser and get cool confused with the DS file structure. I have so much installed already though. My solution is usually just to run a search in DS lol. Not the best way, I know.

I just have everything separated by figure or category and use the DIM, because I found it easier to keep track of what I have installed (like V4 or GF3 or animals, etc). This was fine when I exclusively used Poser but with G3 I've had to start learning DS (Poser needs to be compatible! But that's a whole other discussion lol).

I'm thinking of redoing the structure. I have separated all my install files and/or dims by category so I know where everything is, but I wonder if it's worth starting over. I spend so much time installing I don't get to use it.

[Merlina]

One question;I wanted to keep this as a separate post, because it's a different issue.

I can't be the only one who has a bunch of older stuff installed that I don't have the old installers or know exactly what everything is (from torrents etc from
years ago). Now it becomes easier and easier to autofit etc old clothes and things that I might want to use some of the old. What's the best solution? I stupidly just copied the runtime they were installed with and added to it but that's bad for backup. Obviously none of it is in new runtimes though (like it would all be V2,3,4.

Anybody have a suggestion? Should I just make an "old stuff" runtime to keep it in? Or should I try to find the install files? Or try to figure out what I have and rearrange it?

Suggestions?

[eelgoo]

TBH if I were you I would start out again.
Getting familiar with new software is challenging enough without the bug bear of not being able to locate content! 😉

[eelgoo]

As regards the older stuff, I would gradually migrate the content as you wish to use it from the old runtime to a properly structured new runtime.

[Mars]

I have an old runtime like this archived. As eelgoo mentions, it is probably easier to organize and re-install the products, especially if you're doing custom installs.

For items that are no longer available as install files, I reconstitute the package from the item lists provided in the read me files. You can find the read me file pretty easily on Renderosity, but you'll need to search "doc daz + product name" for Daz products. It's pretty tedious, but you'll have the installer ready to go for whenever you need it again.

[eelgoo]

I think it would be pertinent at this point to cover the installation of Poser structured content within DS.

In your Content Library at the extreme left you have DAZ Studio Formats & beneath it Poser Formats.

The use of these is important because DS does not 'see' Poser content in Daz Studio Format tree & vice versa

Poser is particularly pernickety about where things are placed.
DS is less fussy & as long as you show it where things are it usually bimbles along with it quite happily.
There is however no real excuse for Poser's frankly slovenly use of the Character folder
to have things in there that are not characters.
Notoriously Hair products slap files in Character when they really should be in Hair.
With DS's more laid back approach to file accessing, now is a good time to reorganise the file structure
& for instance, actually put the MATs in the same folder as the model of the product!

Let's start at the begining though.
You need to know where to put the poser files, because there is a confusion of Runtimes within the Daz Studio heirarchy.

Do not confuse it with My Library / Runtime as this is where Daz Studio likes its texture files installed.

Typically with Poser format items your main file is called 'Runtime'
Now this needs to be installed in My Library/ Poser Runtime /

So after your first Poser product installation you would see this file structure

My Library/ Poser Runtime / Runtime /

Subsequent Poser installations you just copy the Runtime folder over the existing 3rd level Runtime shown above.

OK So you have installed your first Poser item in DS & you navigate to Poser Runtime
from the Content Library & you see nothing there.

Don't panic!

Go to the left & highlight Poser Formats & follow that tree down.
You will then see a familiar Poserish menu with Camera / Figures ( Yes that confusing Characters folder :0E )
Hair, Hands etc.

From this folder tree you should see all your installed Poser content.

A little further down the line, if you are anything like me, you will be altering surfaces & wanting to save them as mat files.
You can do this, but despite physically being in the same location as the Poser Mats the saved file will not show up.
It doesn't show up because that file tree only sees Poser content not DS duf files.
To access your saved mat file you will need to go to the Daz Studio format tree & navigate to the Poser Runtime folder
& then they will show up, but nothing else, because that is all Poser format :0/

Anyway that is enough for now....

[Merlina]

Re: Mars

I never thought to do that to know what files are what that's a good idea. Not sure how long it would take though.

[Merlina]

Eelgoo: are you saying you should also have a separate install of all the runtimes under DS library or just the DS files?

[eelgoo]

What I am refering to there is a custom folder holding the files I am going to install in the heirarchy I am using in my custom runtime.

So say I am installing " A V8 Name " which I have archived in a folder with that name.

I will extract the files from the exe / IM#
Then rename this extracted folder to " A V8 Name Inst "
I will then rename & reorganise to suit my custom runtime.
Copy across the files to the live My Library.
Zip & archive the " A V8 Name Inst "
I will then be able to see what files I have installed, should I wish to uninstall at any point & also have the custom installation available to re-install quickly, should I wish to do so.

🙂

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