- This topic has 7 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 1 month, 1 week ago by
.
-
Posts
-
So I've flown too close to the sun (as I do with digital hording) and now have too many Daz assets and my libraries are huge and my manual install collection is especially a hot mess.
The best answer would have been to start at the front end cataloging everything and being intentional with storage and slowing down on manual installs to make sure they're clean and I know where they are, and more of that cataloging, but unfortunately that horse has left the barn, ran to the other coast, jumped on a private jet and is now partying in the Maldives with a Kardashian and whatever equally thirsty boyfriend they're currently dragging about (it sends smug postcards from time to time)
Any advice for post-mess cleanup? I'm willing to invest in a tool, it just needs to work for Daz6 since I have a blackwell card and too single-focused to bounce betweeen 4 and 6. Or would love to hear about any other methods fellow asset dragons are using!
There does suddenly seem to be products being released to assist. I have tried the EZTV easy finder v1.03. There is supposed to be an update being pushed out soon with improvements. It works on a virtual folder system so is flexible in terms of how you categorise but its a manual process to add your content to the desired virtual folders. From the app you can "inject" thr asset into Daz but its a couple of extra button presses compared to smart content. There is also this pending release https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/763256/coming-soon-content-catalog-windows-macos-commercial. Which will be interested to see and also BJshelf (on daz store but not tried). There is also the universal installer plug in (daz 4 only at the moment) which does a better job compared to the old content package assist to to get your non daz bought stuff into smart content. It can also take an archive with multiple DIMs and install them all each as a separate product which is helpful
Thats only really half the story as those only work with installed stuff. Trying to keep track of stuff you have ut not yet installed is another nightmare. I tried crwating an app with Delphi that could scrape the stores and track what you owned but it broke after website changesThank you this is incredibly useful! I saw EzFinder but was worried it was out of date, it has great features so really happy to hear they're updating it!
Agreed, the NON-installed and stored stuff is its own struggle!
TBH I find that rather than trying to sort out a hot mess, it is better to transfer over to a new better organised library & work in an organised, disciplined manner on a piecemeal basis.
See my manual install sticky if you haven't read it.
🙂
Agree with eelgoo. Trying to make a badly managed system work requires much more time, effort, and headache than simply moving to a more organized system over a period of time. All the DAZ products that supposedly allow you to find content are simply band-aids that will struggle to keep up if you keep making the same choices.
Unfortunately, I am speaking from experience. I've moved from everything being in one massive content library (plus Poser content) to 2 libraries, and now, I'm up to 10. And I have taken the time to separate the content in my offline storage drives so all assets are somewhat easily findable by category (clothing, props, poses, people, etc) and version of genesis figure. And I never put anything in the archive without an image with the same name as the zip/rar file so I can find things by scanning the pics (since I can't remember the names). And each category folder further divides the content into subfolders based on genesis characters and then sub-subfolders to further refine the delineation. So a hair for a G8.1 figure would be in the folder DAZ/Hair/G88.1/Shoulder/. It's a little bit of a pain to manage, but it's made finding assets 100x easier and I no longer download the same items over and over because I can't remember if I downloaded it before or where I put it.
Agreed agreed - have come to the same conclusion, even with a tool, I'll definitely need to clean up what I have for a peaceful, well-organized future or the clutter and disorder just compounds upon itself.
TY, I'll check it out!
Argh and that's exactly where I'm heading!
TY, yeah definitely started last night slowly cleaning things up and using AI to create a catalog of my DIM items, and will then sort out my manual installs, and then look at a tool.
LOL.
Just take a leisurely read of my Manual Install Sticky before you head out on this fresh project. 🙂
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
