Time To Say Goodbye
ledhead
Posts: 1,586
I wanted to share with the community on how I feel about my experience with the digital art world and in particular Digital Art Zone. First and foremost I think the community itself is full of fantastic people who seem to have no problem in sharing their experience and knowledge in helping others in any way they can. You guys are what have kept me coming back to DAZ for the past year and a half. Your wit and charm makes a person feel as though they are part of something unique that so many others are missing out on. I honestly appreciate each and every one of you, well almost all of you.
Now to the point of writing this which is I have wasted so much money at this site it makes me want to cry. I have spent over 10 grand in the short time period I have been interested in digital art. Now maybe to some people that is nothing more than a drop in the bucket, but for me being a newbie and not really having that much money because of the economy, which by the way seems to finally be picking back up this year, it has been a significant amount that feels like I completely just threw it away. The reason I say this is because of all the time I have wasted in trying to organize a complete disaster into something workable has gotten me so fed up. I have no time to learn the program because of all the time put into keeping content in order so I can find it and to make sure I don’t purchase it again. I read in a forum somewhere where DAZ itself is not going to pursue another way of organizing content other than the way the community has given input on (I hope you understand what I just said because I sure as hell didn’t). I guess what I am saying is the way the content is organized out of the box is the best it’s ever going to get, and according to DAZ it seems the way it is organized is the way the community thought was best. Well even if the entire list of PA’s followed it to the letter, it is unworkable for me and it seems unworkable for many of you, except for those that have been in the community for a lengthy period of time who are used to it and accept it for what it is. I have compared the way I organize my content with many of you who have shared the way they do it and there are so many similarities it’s uncanny. But it seems nowhere near the same as DAZ does it or prefers it done. I hear many people say they are not going to change something because they have their runtime a certain way and are not going to change it at this point in their lifetime. These are the people who understand what I am talking about. They have put so much of their time and effort categorizing content, they in no way want to start that process all over again. So what I am saying is I have gotten to the point of aggravation because DAZ continues to not listen to the community about the way things are organized. They keep pushing out new product which is still in a disorganized mess that we as artists have to reorganize because their sense of organization is complete crap. Is this all because of the way Poser started it? I honestly have no idea. What I do know is as soon as I finally was getting the content into a manageable working order, DAZ came out with new software and I had to start all over again, for the third time. So up to this point I have spent all of my time trying to keep things in order rather than using all of it for the reason I purchased it, to create art, or at least some semblance of art.
I have at this point categorized less than one fourth of all my content. It is such a long process. I organize it using the category window and creating my own folders as I go. There has got to be a better way than this. I guess by accepting the way it is already done for you would certainly be the best way if you accept the fact you may never find it. I have grown tired of installing content and then organizing it so I know where it is. In other words, I am through with this. I just don’t have the time nor do I want to waste any more time on it. I guess it is another lesson learned and a loss of some money, but no more. I’m sure I will continue to tinker with it, but as far as making it a part of my life, not any longer. If only DAZ had made a separate piece of software that was set up for organizing content that Studio accessed, wow that would have been so much better than the way it is. So guys, I will try to stop in and say hello every so often, but this guy is through with this charade of wasting my money on something that takes way too long trying to make sense of it. Thank you for all your time and all your laughs that we have shared. Also thank you for putting up with my bitching and moaning I have done over this period of time. I can be a difficult person at times, but very lovable also. So long DAZ community, I’ve really enjoyed you.
Roy aka “Ledhead”
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I am sorry to see you go Ledhead. Your posts have always been good ones.
I too understand the problem with categorizing. I find it very frustrating too to try to organize content one item at a time. It is very hard to do, and sometimes makes my machine freeze. I wish daz would implement a multiple select or drag and drop feature. l. I am still halfway through categorizing my daz library wardrobe and it is very time consuming. Without doing so though I lose content.
I wish you well.
I'm sorry to here about your experience. I agree content organization is a mess and thats why I don't even bother with using categories. I don't want to spend all my time managing my runtime. I've got many gigs of content yet to be installed, so I've slowed down my spending a lot.
Wish you the best.
Thank you SereneNight. It is people like you that make leaving a difficult choice. AFAIK you can select multiple items. Just use the control button for selecting one item at a time and the shift button for many items in a row.
TY larsmidnatt. You have given some helpful comments over the short period of time I've been here and I appreciate that.
I'm looking forward to your frequent stop-ins. Don't be a stranger.
Thank you Anne and thank you for remembering me when I was letting people know about my sickness.
Posts like this confuse me...
Of all the reasons to 'quit', content management should be amongst the tiniest of them. The Smart Content adequately categorizes items based on their compatibility with selected objects, and the Content Library allows you to search for items simply by typing the name. Poser users have to use the equivalent of the Content Library for everything since there is no smart content option.
It's not as if your content isn't there. It's just a case of knowing where to look. For someone who's apparently invested so much money, you'd think keeping on top of what you've bought would be at least something of a priority. Not to mention that the idea of 'quitting' would be to effectively throw that money spent away.
What confuses me isn't your reasons though as much as the question of what response you're trying to achieve here? If it's to make a statement to Daz, you're both doing it in the wrong place and in the wrong manner. Primarily because content management is an issue which everyone has to deal with in some form or other, no matter which program or systems they use, but also because Daz doesn't really respond to forum posts very often.
It's a shame that you've decided to leave, but all the best to you anyway. Don't take my post as criticism as much as it is a head-scratching moment on my part trying to figure out the core reason why you decided on this. As someone with an equally large investment and tons of content, free and otherwise, I've rarely found content management to be a big enough issue to concern myself with.
And it's people like you is why I am glad to go. You couldn't just accept my decision but had to make an argument about it. No matter what you think, that was not my intention. If any one else thinks I am doing this for any reason other than being tired and fed up, then I will not respond to it. I will say Herald of Fire that you have a very good knowledge of digital art, but your approach towards people is a bit offish IMO.
I can actually understand how the content can be a reason, my content is only slightly more than 300 items at this point, and it's a damn mess truth to be told. I have two different folders in my documents which DIM installs to, Folders that I did not create myself but that Daz/DIM did create and yeah.. it's messy as h***. I badly need to try to sort and make the content into somethign that is easier for me to find, but I am also seriously afraid of making a mistake and moving something that should nto be moved and so on, so I have yet to start my sorting. But i will, preferable before I start having even bigger problems finding my things *smiles*
Ledhead, I am sad to see you go.. even if we didn't talk I've read some of your posts (havent' read all ofc, as I still haven't read all of the forum *smiles*) As AtticAnn said, don't be a stranger Cowboy *tip hat*
I can understand the "done with this" feeling. I've been there. Never lasted more than a month, but getting away from it all for a bit can be good.
As time passes a bit, perhaps you will have the urge to come back and take some time to work on creating and not organizing. Instead of buying new stuff you can use what you have, and instead of installing everything you have maybe you just set up a few pieces of content you need to complete a single image.
Even with what you have installed it may be plenty to work with and it would give you a chance to use the tools and get better with them.
A small project may be satisfying. While you may always have a bit of apprehension that everything isn't installed and things aren't perfect you may be able to live with it (begrudgingly) . I know I still look back at how much I have not installed and cringe, but I don't want to spend the hours it requires either.
I am to the point now I usually only install stuff i need RIGHT NOW. it works pretty well. But I have accepted there is content I have purchased that I will never used because I'll never get around to installing it. So I don't buy as much as I used to. Almost nothing. I save money by not shopping, and I save time by not shopping as well.
I totally get what Ledhead is saying. The smart content tab doesn't work for what I want, which is to see more than just the article of clothing compatible with Genesis, or whatever figure I have selected. I want to see all of the shirts, so I categorize by type of shirt, etc. It takes so long to do, though, that I've pretty much stopped all buying of content till I get caught up, which seems like it will never happen. I get tired of spending all of my time organizing instead of creating. Of course, when I finally almost get to the point I get caught up, the database gets corrupted and I have to start over from my most recent backup. (I'm looking into a separate backup program that will run automatically once a day so this doesn't happen again, but that doesn't change all the time lost re-organizing the corrupt database.)
Yeah I have over 2000 items, and that's just from DAZ, not counting form the other stores.
Thank you once again Lars. You may be right. I probably should take some time off and then just try and learn the software. Then maybe it wouldn't seem so tedious. We'll see what life bring me.
My apologies. It was not my intent to judge, merely to understand. However, it's clear I overstepped myself here and I will simply say farewell.
It can get frustrating. I think if I had taken advice from someone like Lars in the beginning, maybe I wouldn't be doing this. Too bad I didn't bring this up a long time ago before my frustration brought me to this point.
I hope I'm right *smiles* Enjoy the break.
My apologies. It was not my intent to judge, merely to understand. However, it's clear I overstepped myself here and I will simply say farewell.
Thank you and I apologize for basically jumping on your ass even if you had it coming. Maybe we'll understand each other better sometime down the road.
but but wait there's a render that needs you. the dude holding the lantern - you know which one !
Thank you for putting a smile on my face Misty. You have been wonderful for the short time I've been here and I will certainly miss your comments. Hopefully I come back just to get a smile from something you say :)
I'm off to work so I'll get back with everyone else later.
What I read between the lines is frustration at the lack of response/concern for a long standing issue that effects a lot more people then just himself combined with the realization he's spent a relatively obscene amount of money on 3D content in a short period of time. I also get the sense that he's given up on Daz responding to him and showing any signs they care about his problem. That this message isn't so much for Daz other then maybe a wake up call to say, "Hey you inaction is costing you a customer that just dropped 10k in your pockets during rough economic times". I think his message other then that is to say goodbye to the people he's gotten close to so it doesn't seem like he dropped off the face of the earth.
The whole thing is so sad because while this should be one of the least reasons for someone to leave it should also be the one of the easiest to fix. When PA's and/or Daz build a runtime for a new product, it's as simple as saying, "Okay I'm not going to put this in a folder that promotes my name, is an unrecognizable abbreviation or has a whole bunch of !!!! or ++++ in the name". For Daz it's also as simple as setting a solid standard that was worked out with community input (not just PA's but also ordinary customers) and then holding PA's to that standard when they submit items and if it's not right make the PA's fix it.
While I'm sorry to see you go, I understand your frustration.
I started with Poser 4 in 1999 and came to DAZ when V3 came out in 2003, so I've got 10 years of content build up. When Poser 6 came out they introduced the notion of multiple runtimes. That's when it became easier to get organized; one runtime for Clothing, one for base figures, one for Animals, etc.. So that's how I've been accustomed to working. When D|S 3 came out my computer wasn't powerful enough to run it, so I payed no attention.. As the years went by though I became more and more frustrated with my Platinum Club membership as so many products were useless to me.
lol, someone made a comment on one of my images recently saying it was nice to see someone giving love to M3 and D3.. Until a couple of months ago they were the best I could use. Then when I upgraded to D|S 4, I too was disgusted by the DIM.. to go from being able to peruse my library by my own categories to having every product lumped together in a random list was disappointing to say the least.
But I make do, because in the end, art isn't something I do because I want to, it's something I do because it wants to be done.
I don't know how it is for native studio content as I've yet to try to organize studio. Although that's largely because I don't use Studio that much. In Poser however, most any folder that goes into the Pose Folder can be renamed without breaking it, anything that goes into the Prop folder, the lights folder, the camera folder, face, hands, materials, character/figure folders. What you can't mess with though without breaking things is changing where a geometry or texture is as the paths for those things are referenced inside of the things we click on and so if those things get moved or renamed Poser won't find them because the .cr2 or the .pp2, etc sent it looking in the place it used to be before you changed it. If you can think of a way to rename the folders of the things you click on that makes sense to you and gives you more help identifying what's inside without changing the locations of the things you shouldn't change then nothing should break. Alternatively you could move the things you shouldn't and then edit all the .cr2's and what not that access them but that would really be tedious. Also there are folders that get created and dropped within the libraries folder but not inside any of the specific library folders like Figure, Pose, Props, etc. Those folders should also be left alone and pretty much only contain information needed by Poser for loading morphs specific to the item it was made for.
mann, manual installs forever, lol. 6 poser\runtime, 1 content\runtime.
if anyone is interested, i'll type out my install to poser method. it's fairly ridiculous.
it starts with 2 folders on my desktop. \1007 and \55. shortcut link to p7 library and to pp12 library
3 folders in the root of C: \1, \2, \4, \12
1 folder in the root of E: \1
I try not to organize anything at all.
I don't even keep a single runtime with lots of stuff in it.
I have a folder called "Runtimes" with many hundreds of individual runtime folders (one for each product) I add to my program individually and as needed.
I do keep a folder of reference images to refresh my memory of what I have, but that's it.
I suppose it has to do with my love of Fractals. I thrive in Chaos.
If you must have Order, I can easily see why you gave up.
If you want, feel free to embrace Chaos! It's better than wasting all that money.
Good luck whichever way you go.
Couldn't have said it better myself...
I read through it all and just wanted to say:
I believe I understand. Personally I feel like about 60 percent of my time in DS I spend organizing content, about 20 percent figuring out how things work and only 20 percent of my time is left to actually create some images.
If there was any "better" alternative to DAZ content I would leave immediately. I also would not give a second thought about all the money I allready spent in the store if there was an alternative that would provide me with a stable content environment in which content management and full integration with other software would be a priorities.
What is the point of buying content if you cannot find it when you want to use it?
What is the point of buying content if it can only be used with all functionallity in a single software?
And sometimes I have days on which I really think about just dropping the whole computer graphics part of my life completly.
The whole issue is bigger than just DAZ. The whole industry would need to work together, support each other by agreeing on some common standards, creating plugins and file formats so content can be categorized and used in all kind of software.
My reason for starting was to be able to realize any idea that came up. But is the effort I have to put into it really worth any possible reward?
Nevertheless I do not want to "missuse" this thread for my own agendas by going into further detail.
- - -
Roy,
I just wanted to let you know that I fully understand your reasons for saying goodbye.
I hope you can look at the bright side of the experience.
You have now a better understanding of image composition, lighting and camera settings.
Maybe you can find some joy in picking up photography or film making in a real environment with real people?
In any way I wish you a great journey and hope you can enjoy the new gained time with something that really makes you happy!
- - -
simply, if you are not enjoying it
you should not be doing it
I was a heavy drinker until last year
now I am a teetotaler
not because I am an alcoholic, I have tried drinking an few times
I just no longer enjoy it.
that simple,
on holiday I practically forced myself to drink a small 4pack of 5% alcohol Bacardi rum fruit premix over a space of a week
yes it took me a week to drink 4 250ml bottles with my evening meal.
and I sipped each for over an hour thinking, I really don't want this
maybe one day again I might.
same with you
as for organizing content
I never have.
some like an orderly life
they fold their sheets, file their documents etc
I live a shambles and my computer files are like that too.
posting on this forum is I admit an addiction!!
(as the title suggests)
3D can be but like all my hobbies, I do it in spurts
maybe you just overloaded for now.
Yes indeed I can understand this. You can add Content Management to the every growing list of things Daz should have been spending their time on instead of Genesis 2. ;-P
There used to be a tutorial by Judee3D in which she explained how the folders are set up for Daz Studio (this also works for Poser as well) and which ones can be organized and which ones you need to leave alone. This tutorial really, really helped me understand the Daz Studio folder structure and how to set up my runtime. I tried to find a link but I can't find her site anymore. It was made for DS/2 and DS/3 but the "meat" of the tutorial is still valid even today. If anyone knows if the tutorial is still around, please post a link and perhaps it will help everyone.