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Kev914
Posts: 1,115
Are you allowed to combine content folders? My DAZ content is kind of messy. I have never created any folders on my own. All folders were created by various installers. I am sure I probably answered a question wrong a time or two which probably contributed to the "mess." But like I said I never created a folder on my own.
There are content folders within content folders. There are two Daz 3D folders. They look the same to me but the computer thinks they are different. (I looked for an extra space, but couldn't located it. There isn't much in the one folder.
I have had various version of Daz Studio too. I've had it from the beginning.
Will you mess any thing up or break anything if you combine the folders and eliminate the content folders within the content folders, etc? I know you need to keep the folder structure. And what about the runtime folders within the content folder. (Yes. I have more than one of those.)
If you have Poser too, are you suppose to install the Poser content into the runtime folder in the Content folder? Or should you install it into the Poser runtime?
I just got the new version of Cararra and I think it created a new content folder called My Daz3d library. Or maybe it was that Daz3d installer that created that one.
Thanks.
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Comments
To each of your questions
Yes you can break scenes and content by moving stuff around.
Generally though you won't by consolidating.
As far as the Content folders, you can actually dump them out into a runtime.
This folder is actually a hold over from earlier versions of daz to differentiate it from poser content.
It's superfluous now.
Although sometimes certain content requires it. but that you won't know unless you find content broken, and then either you have to edit the respective cr2/pz2 etc to find it properly(notepad)
The new folder probably was created by the latest version of daz(4.6)
here's a post i did on another forum regarding runtimes structure and hopefully will help.
Everything goes in a runtime folder.
Whether the runtime is a sub folder or just put on a drive doesn't matter.
And the programs don't care if parts of content are in one runtime or another.
As long as the directories are mapped.
Here's the basic layout of what a runtime should look like
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Geometries
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Textures
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Camera
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Character*
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Face*
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Hair
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Hand
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Light
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Materials
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Pose
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Props
x:\{Mapped directory}\Runtime\Libraries\Scene
*these two folders actually get renamed to Figures and Expressions, respectively, inside daz and poser
As you can see, there are three primary directories within a runtime folder.
Geometries: Where all the OBJ files should be.
Textures:Where all the Shaders should be(poser materials are seperate)
Libraries:where all the clickable stuff goes.
Folders within textures and geometries should never be moved any where but to a rutime\textures, or runtime\geometries folder respectively.
The libraries sub folders should have the following:
CAMERA: CM2
*CHARACTER:CR2
*FACE:FC2
HAIR:HR2
HAND:HD2
LIGHT:LT2
MATERIALS:mt5 and mc6 predominately. These are poser material files, and generally don’t work in daz.
POSE:PZ2
PROP:PP2
SCENE:PZ3
*The two directories get renamed to Figures and Expressions respectively within the programs.
Now here's the rub.
Any of those file formats can be in any of the directories, including the base Libraries folder.
And you may have duplicate named files in multiple folders.
Such as hairs appearing in hair, character or prop.
They are generally different items.
One is an HR2, the next a cr2 and the other is a pp2. and may function differently.
You'll literally have to test each accordingly.
Basically as long as the content is visible in daz or poser, and it works, the companies don't seem to care how it's placed.
Moving things around....
As i said any of the file types within the libraries sub folders, can generally be placed any where within the libraries folder. including the libraries folder itself.
The exception is when there is actually a named folder beyond the basic ten.
Such as the Morphs folder you noted.
In most cases those are additional information for certain content.
It may be a script for adding morph dials to a corset, or python scripting or or or.
For the most part you want to maintain the relative placement.
That is, wherever it falls within the runtime, it needs to stay there.
Doesn't matter if it's in another runtime, as long as that runtime is mapped.
Such as the morphs folder may be in runtime.
It needs to stay in runtime, and not be placed in a sub directory.
If it's in Runtime\libraries, it needs to stay within the libraries sub directory.
Currently i'm working on consolidating the Geometries, textures, and the random folders into parent folders.
Geometries is in Objects, textures are in textures, and the random folders is in crazy freaking content creators folder.
Each maintains the required structure as far as it needs, with nothing more there.
Now as far as putting the content in the correct place, hair in hair etc, that is completely up to you where to place it.
What i'd recommend is to start with a desktop folder to put the exe, zip, dim file into.
once there, restructure accordingly, but don't move anything to your working directories.
Save it as a new zip/rar etc so you don't have to use the Exe later, or go through the work again.
This is something else i've been doing as i clean out a failing drive.
There is one last thing to keep in mind.
Uninstallers usually don't work after this kind of customization.
so you'll have to manually uninstall the content.
That is where the readme's come in, as most have a file list.
If you significantly change the layout, you may want to make your own file list to refer back to in the event of needing to remove it.
And lastly if you are feeling rather ambitious, you can always edit the cr2 files and change where it draws the files from.
If you do decide to start messing with this, always make a back up of the initial file first, then edit in any text editor.
I've found that notepad++ works the best for this.
hope this helps
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On the contrary, you might fix some of your problems. Content folders inside content folders are pretty much guaranteed to cause Weird Stuff™ to happen. The easiest fix is to open both Content folders in separate windows (don't try this while DAZ|Studio, Carrara or Poser are running) then drag the contents of the "inside" Content folder and merge them with the contents of the "outer" Content folder. Take care doing this, it's easy to accidentally drag the Content folder itself instead of the stuff inside it. When that's done — with luck you should only have merged folders, there shouldn't be any (well, not too many) exact duplicate files for you to accept an overwrite — check the preferences in your content-using programs to make sure you delete the content-inside-content paths that you've just fixed.
This doesn't cause any problems with unfindable files, because all file paths in your content are relative; as long as, say, D|S knows where all your Content folders are, the only thing that's important is where the files are inside these Content folders.
The same thing goes for your Runtime folders, since these must always be directly inside a Content folder, not inside a subfolder of Content, merging the Content folders will also merge the Runtime folders. If you have any Runtime-inside-Runtime folders, though, these will need to be merged in exactly the same way as you did for the Content folders.
(Vitally important sanity note — when I say "Content folder" above, that doesn't mean "a folder named Content", it means "a folder containing D|S or Poser or Carrara files". The actual name of the Content folder was actually "Content" up to D|S3, then it was "My Library", now a default installation using DIM will call it "My DAZ3D Library". They're all just content. Getting this mixed up can and does cause massive confusion.)
Thanks for your response. Yes, I have also seen a folder called My Library which contains Daz and Poser content as well.