Since Genesis, 8.5 maybe and confusion I find my purchasing models has dropped
Milo
Posts: 511
Its probably just me.
Two areas are really hampering me. First part is probably a bit of a gripe and not much to be done, the second perhaps some insite in how you are doing this might get me going again.
First part: Ignore its mostly me griping
I don't know if its the confusions with Genesis and the new Content manager stepping in (just after I spend half a year on and off reorganizing everything after reading some tutorials to make things make more sense and easier to find).
Or if its how I can no longer add to my history/Library program of purchases to find what I have installed, or even to my spreadsheet in a convenient way has been removed from me. No duplicate checking. I used Excel and the Orca Scripts, I stopped using Excel because of how excellent the database with 3dLibrarian worked. Makes me reluctant to purchase, duplicates etc.
Or if its how it seems like near indifference to Carrara from Daz as Studio moves ahead.
Or if the posting to the Bug list requesting a feature that isn't their responsibility I know, but its similar to GoZ and one of the PA's even said that it would require direct Daz Involvement because they looked into it and the API's aren't there to make it happen. When this is pointed out simply silence.
Second Part:
My content purchasing enthusiasm has been much dampened. I think mostly by confusion or perhaps paralyzed on how to move forward.
Part of it is the whole 8.5 is it.. is it not.. is it passing.. in limbo land feeling
The other is content management itself.
My current Runtime directory for my Daz is about 39 Gigs.
I have still about 40 Gigs of Uninstalled Purchased Daz Content
about 28 Gigs of Uninstalled Freebies
about 12 Gigs of Uninstalled Purchases from other Sellers outside of Daz.
I reorganized after discovering I had a hard time remembering what went to what, clothing, accessories, the link. This system I switched to was shaping up well. I knew where all the V4 clothing, morphs, shoes, expression etc were at. It was a bit manual creating folders pointing to ones that supported multiple figures. The Idea of the content management is nice but of course that doesn't work with what I have installed now. If I install without re-organizing then I break the system in place.
- Do I simply re-download everything and start over, using the Content management system? Right now everything is installed in one directory. I think there are about 1000 in the Itemized list.
- Use content management but Break it down into different directories say into Male, Female, Creatures, Buildings, Sets, etc.
- Forget the content management (DSION??) and continue as before. Or Forget the Content Management and break it down as above Male, Female, Creatures, Buildings, Sets, Things etc.
- Start over but Don't install anything but leave the installers broken up into categories and hope you can remember to find what you have (now that the database ability I have is kaput). Not fond of this one
What do you do about all those that don't have the content management files that list what/where they are. The Freebies, the ones purchased from other places. Taking into account the solution come up with Above do you put them in the same place with The Daz3d Items, in their own directories but still classified? Is this a sign to me to stop buying premade content ;)
Your thoughts would be appreciated as I realized why even if I see something I go OoOoo over I don't want to buy it due to this. I would like to start rendering again but this whole thought process comes up even when I fireup Carrara. If there is too much 'Whine' in this post please forgive me in advance.
The only thing that has really kept me going is I want to create some image myself, some of images from some of the Carrara users that posted on Renderosity gallaries and I don't want to give up what I have invested. I also enjoy working with Carrara in general.
I must admit the Community film project has also peeked my interest.
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Comments
I will admit the opposite, doubled my itemized order history the last few months
yes lots of Genesis stuff, mostly to use in iClone
but
bogo bonanza grab anything I could disgustingly cheap, lots of G2 & 3 stuff!
had IOH open inseperate window to check what went in my cart so less chance of duplicates but a couple I know slipped through, but at 33c each did not worry too much.
I do use Genesis with some tantrums in C8.5Beta, loosing smart content in browser except as files improved it's performance actually, smart content seems to cause most my Carrara issues with Genesis, straight import of .duf works best for me.
still have far less if any issues not using Genesis though, like other features of the beta and want it for those.
I think I put too much in this upper thread.. that being said
How are you doing your content.
Are people reinstalling their content and working on the content management system?
Just dealing with the second part of my post above.
Should I re-write that first post and get a little more specific to just dealing with content in my question
Organizing your content can be very important with all the stuff we can accumulate over the years. While I don't have Carrara installed right now, perhaps some of the basic principles I use for DS may help you come up with a system for yourself.
I start organizing my content as soon as I download it. I have folders and subfolders for all of my installers and zip files which are organized by the type of content. The top layer looks something like this:
Poser Files
- Software [DS, Carrara, plugins, text file with serial numbers, etc]
- Animals
- Genesis
- Hair
- MFD, Hooded Cloak, & Tunic textures
- Millennium Kids [Daz figures, characters, clothes, morphs, and poses]
- Millennium Men
- Millennium Women
- Other Characters [Sadie, troll, low res, etc]
- Props [divided into buildings, vehicles, furniture, weapons, landscape//background, etc]
- Textures [texture resources and templates]
- Tutorials [divided by program]
- Utility Programs
I have subfolders within thesee folders to further organize the files. With this system, if I want a clothing item for Aiko 3 I know that it will be in my Poser Files\Millennium Women\Aiko 3\Clothes folder. Equally, I know that everything in that folder will be clothes for A3 and I won't find any Mil Dragon files there.
The next step is organizing the files as I install them. As I understand it Carrara 8.5 can read DS files from a DS runtime, so this might work for you. For newer Genesis and DS files I let the installer place them in the default runtime, then I go in and organize it to my taste. A good example is my Genesis files. The default placement looks something like this:
People
- Genesis
- - Characters
- - Clothes
- - Hair
- - Materials
I will go into the Clothes folder and start renaming folders, i.e. Male - Morphing Business Suit or YT - Tre. Then I will place all the texture and addon file folders within that clothing items folder. You will find that some vendors place all of their items in a folder with their name on it. I tend to pull the item folders out of these vendor name folders, then delete the name folders.
Poser runtimes can be even worse. While items will generally be placed in the correct first level folder in Runtime\Library, it gets chaotic below that point. An example of the system I use for Poser files would be how I organize one character in the Figures folder.
- Runtime
- - Library
- - - Figures
- - - - People
- - - - - Aiko 3
- - - - - - !MATs
- - - - - - !Morphs
- - - - - - Characters
- - - - - - Clothes
- - - - - - - MFD
- - - - - - - - Textures
- - - - - - - ShadowDancer
- - - - - - Hair [CR2 & HR2 files for Aiko}
- - - - - - Poses [A3 specific]
- - - - - - Props [A3 specific]
If you actually use Poser, you do not want to put the HR2 hair, poses, and props in the Figure folder. I hope that this gives you some ideas on how to organize your content.
That's very detailed, thank you. What I found was alot of old models had bad file refedrences and other problems, and even after fixing them, some I cannot open in Carrara 8.5. in 8.1, I got warnings and I was able to bypass them, but 8.5 is just hanging. So now I am deleting the problematic objects and trying to transfer my existing models.
I got Dimension3D's tool for fixing libraries, and I organized everything into 10 runtimes containing about 1000 instances each. I ran the tool repeatedly over several months to do the global changes. I think my next puyrchase will be its tool to fix individual models. I don't know about buying more stuff. I only just understood recently how to do the old stuff )
It sounds more like a case of too many toys and no idea what to play with next. I will grant however that we could all do with a clear cut structure pertaining content. I was just getting used to the way things were organised and they went and changed it again (DS4.5). As for Carrara, I'm with Wendy. Stay clear of the CMT. It's not well at all. I just use the plain content folders.
I do want to say that this whole mess is not just DAZ' fault though. A lot of vendors seem to take extreme joy from the agony caused by using some way-out naming and folder convention that goes against everything everyone else is doing.
The method I use is very similar to Zylox.
I was concerned with how much the smart content will be used. This was my concern. Is this the future of things, If I install to my regular temp runtime then move to where I want to go of course the smart content is going to be really messed up later. Sounds like as nice as it could be its going to be more of a pain.
I hadn't separated out my installers. So keeping all the installers local in addition to installing everything? Do you install everything or keep it as installers until you need it?
Currently I have everything in one massive runtime. Is it better to start separating things into their own runtimes? Like Male, Female, Creatures, Etc? Does it really matter in the end?
I don't use DS though I have it installed, I only use Carrara. For Genesis stuff should I just install into the default or can it be installed and moved like the poser files? again CMS comes into question.
I have structures for Carrara setup as well.
Multiple runtimes are useful in Carrara but not required.
Here's my list of runtimes. I originally split any free items out to avoid licensing issues (listed here as V4, M4, A3 etc).
Then, as looking for items became more cumbersome, I started using runtimes for each character. Eventually Victoria got her own wardrobe.
The DS4 runtime is the one at the bottom, simply because it's the last one added. (DS3 is at the top funnily enough). Genesis characters go into 'My Library' but I still install other items into their own runtimes and Studio handles them fine.
I actually share some of the same concerns as the OP. I was a Platinum Club member since about 2004 or 2005; this year I've let my membership lapse. I only use Carrara. I don't use Poser anymore, and I can't stand Daz Studio. I currently have installed version 8.1.1.12. While I really like the idea of Genesis and have drooled over some of the stuff folks have done with it, I don't like the fact that I have to install Daz Studio to use it. Until Carrara 8.5 is out of beta I'm not going to mess with it, which means that I won't be using any Genesis stuff until then, either. I'm not going to buy Genesis stuff if I can't use it, which eliminates half of what Daz produces.
However, there's a second problem. The new store doesn't check to see if you've already purchased something! It was annoying when I'd purchase the same thing twice in the old store (usually once bundled and once separately); now, however, the only way to be sure that I'm not buying the exact same thing over again is to open up my purchase history (~2,000 items) and manually check for every single thing I want to find. It wouldn't be so bad if I could search the history, or at least put a limit on the starting letter (everything that started with 'D', for example), but right now I have to simply open up the history, pick a page at random, and hope that I end up close.
Either one of these wouldn't be a deal breaker. If I could use Genesis the value added would be enough to offset the annoyance of the store; if the store weren't so annoying I'd probably find enough non-Genesis stuff in the Platinum Club to make the payments worth it. The two of them together, however, have tipped the scales. I still look at the PA stuff, but even then I have to consider whether it's worth the hassle.
I share most of your opinions. I have only ~600 DAZ purchases, and have not (yet) stopped my PC membership, but its getting hard to find items I want (I don't consider Genesis items).
>:(
But as has been pointed out, Carrara 8.1 still works, and the Poser style items still load nicely, so I can create short animations happily for a long time without any new PC items.
:cheese:
I share most of your opinions. I have only ~600 DAZ purchases, and have not (yet) stopped my PC membership, but its getting hard to find items I want (I don't consider Genesis items).
>:(
But as has been pointed out, Carrara 8.1 still works, and the Poser style items still load nicely, so I can create short animations happily for a long time without any new PC items.
:cheese:
Carrara 8.1 is the bomb! I absolutely love it! Last year I got to show some of my artwork at a local art gallery; the newspaper picked it up and ran a story on it. :coolsmile: There are a lot of people who are down on Carrara in general, but I honestly think it's a great resource at an awesome price. I just wanted the OP to know that he's not the only one who's having the issues he brought up.