A simple save and organize character utility?

cdpro_2831bbd990

Someone might have already done this.  But, here's what I'd like.

I make a lot of characters from various merchant resources and my own photo textures...etc.  When I make these characters, I end up grabbing from various folders where the pieces were generated when I import them into Daz.  I know that Daz can make a lot of cool presets from these items by saving them as a character, material asset, morph asset, etc.

What I'd like is a "save as package" command that would automatically make copies of all (and only) the resources used in my finished character, and place them in a finished package folder with that character's info along with my artist info, copyright..etc.  This would be great for both backing up my finished characters and creating distribution packages for sale.  The idea is that then I can transfer them back and forth between computers without needing to have the same asset folders on both machines.  The character package would be complete unto itself in the same way that Daz Store distributes a character.

I looked at "Content Assist."  But, it seems more geared to taking existing packages and pushing them through DIM.  I want something that takes all the character and material info from the scene and copies and packages it into a new complete item.

Is there something already available like this?  Or, does Daz already perform this function and I'm not seeing it?

Thanks for any help!

Richard Haseltine

You can't distribute others' content - morphs etc. Even the Merchant resource moprh sets don't, at least for the most part, allow you to nclude the original morph files. For your own content (and morphs baked from MR moprhs) make sure you use the Author field, and Product field, when saving assets and that you place your textures in the \Runtime\Textures\Author\Set folder before applying them to the model in DS - I would recommend creating a content directory for each current project, placing the textures in that, and using to save the user and asset files so that everything is in ne place - once done you can add a readme and zip it up, then merge it into your real content directory and remove the product-specific dierctory (at least until you need to do updates or bug fixes).

cdpro_2831bbd990

Richard Haseltine said:

You can't distribute others' content - morphs etc. Even the Merchant resource moprh sets don't, at least for the most part, allow you to nclude the original morph files. For your own content (and morphs baked from MR moprhs) make sure you use the Author field, and Product field, when saving assets and that you place your textures in the \Runtime\Textures\Author\Set folder before applying them to the model in DS - I would recommend creating a content directory for each current project, placing the textures in that, and using to save the user and asset files so that everything is in ne place - once done you can add a readme and zip it up, then merge it into your real content directory and remove the product-specific dierctory (at least until you need to do updates or bug fixes).

Let's make this clear.  Redistributing other's content isn't what I'm suggesting.  It might have been confusing since I used the word "resources" in two different ways.  What I'm talking about packaging my own content that is derived from my own and merchant resources, not the original files.  These are baked geometries and textures. 

When I create a character, the textures might be redone several times until I get a satisfactory version.  The same goes for the morph objects that have been generated for the face and body.  I can end up with dozens of files in several folders across my desktop and laptop.  For instance, I might make up a texture for my "Mandy" character one week and decide to use that texture in altered form on a different model.  I might use the body  geometry from one of my other creations.  I keep several folders of my original body and head obj's for G2F, G2M, G3F, G3M...and so on.  So, that's in another folder.  You see where I'm going with this.

When I've finished a character to my liking, Daz Studio already knows from the scene that I've created where all those pieces are located on my hard drive.

What I am asking for is a product - perhaps a script - that essentially does the process that you've just outlined (so I don't have to) and creates a new directory with the character's name and my artist info, and places all of the textures (that I've created or derived from MRs)  from the working folder along with my new morphs and creates the various asset files to go along with them in the same directory.  So, when I want to move "Mandy" to my laptop, I can just grab the new  Mandy package folder and everything is together and ready for installation.  As it is right now, I have to do exactly what you outlined.  It is not terribly difficult. But, it does take time to trace it all back and copy it over.  I'm just thinking that since the software already knows where all the pieces are located, it might just as easily copy and organize it for me into a neat package.  If Studio can already do this, by all means someone point me to the tutorial. :)