Daz Studio Pro BETA - version 4.9.0.21!
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Except that in each case the change was addressing issues that users were encountering.
Because they have limited amount of people and hardware doing the tests, in the "real" world you have a gazillion number of combinations of hardware that they can never test, getting it out to the public is a way to finalize the beta testing, you can test software as much as you want, once it get out in the open people always run into problems in the beginning.
Feel free not to download the beta and wait until the final release if this is not your cup of tea.
I'm not entirely sure what you ar saying, but there are clear issues - all versions of Genesis have loaded with SubD applied so in that respect at least you are misunderstanding something. I know in previous discussions people hae had trouble reproducing what you are seeing. It would probably be best to continue to discuss these issues in context in your other threads.
Richard Haseltine, fare enough. The G3F issue is not addressed in 4.9 (yet?), and I have already wasted more time then I planed just to test some renders with the "Staph of render hell" at deferent Bucket sizes in 4.9 regarding render times and CPU usage.
I had other things I wanted to do tonight (oh, it's already morning, wow), and because of the uncertainties regarding NDA vs that 'Web' thing, I'm going to hold off on 4.9 for a day or so (awaiting answers to other questions, plus me finishing some other work).
"How do you create content under the new system?
And how are PA's supposed to have others test that stuff?"
Exactly the same way we always have. I don't know how other people do it but I put it in a zip file and then put it in drop box. I suppose some people use rar files. Files are only encrypted when downloaded via connect so user created files are same as always.
That's under the smart content, I'm talking about actual folders in my harddrive. The problem is that DAZ Connect not respecting my folder system and dump everthing in the same folder. This was to help me move my folders if I have to change harddrives which is what I had to do recently, Its easier to move a small 100GB folder that a 1TB folder.
I'm slowly getting use to the way they are structuring their folder system and it is making sense, especially since each item's runtime and data folder are kept separate. I like that. It will make things easier to move to a new a new harddrive.
Another feature I wish to see in Smart Content is name of folder that the product is in, now that I see that they are numbered instead of named. I should be able to right click and the INFORMATION should be item location and product number folder. I have no interest to being taken to the website to find this information. How about right click, Infomation (Item Location & Product Number); right click, More information (take you to website).
Someone mentioned last night that it would be lovely to have a spare catagory file for "favorites". Think that could be added?
I'll second that, especial given some clothing/hair mats use the same exact name and icon for 3delight and Iray settings. Something that makes a really big difference in a render. Also, if I want to find a mat for a specific figure, smart tab is useless for that as it just brings all mats for that generation up in the one screen, all jumbled up together, and that is just to tedious to figure out what mat is for whom via right click, lol.
When I was new, I hadn't a clue what was anywhere in the content library (I didn't even know where it was on screen, lol). I now have a marginal understanding of what is where in the "Daz Studio Formats" paths. Poser, all I know, is it is NOT in the folder for that, Poses are not in the pose folder, material presets are not in the materials folder, etc. There is content that ended up in the Poser folders, that I have never found a way to load it into Studio. Yes I have found folders with the item names, clicking the contents dose Nothing in studio. The Poser tree is a complete mess.
Was that bit for both? And thanks for the rest, so no worries regarding testing stuff...
assuming that web-thing dose not violate NDA, or try to delete stuff I created (or still making) because I didn't already purchase it from daz, lol.
Seriously tho, If I'm testing something, and something some where has a bad path, I still have doubts about that automated "Go to daz to get the missing content" thing? Under that circumstance, I'd rather Studio Pop up an "I'm an idiot" screen, rather then go looking to daz for a map file I renamed without updating the mat preset duf, lol. Or when I'm just verifying that I got all the correct stuff into the zip, and nothing is missing.
Are you sure you mean NDA? As in non discloure agreement.
If your testing something on your computer it is not going to go look at Daz for a product that isn't going to be there because you didn't download it through Daz. That would be like barns and noble trying to update a book that had not been published yet.
I'm also going to point out that best practice would be for you to have a seperate content folder that only contains products your testing. It shouldn't be the same one that your using with connect. I have three folders under the Daz formats folder. One is the main my Daz 3D Library, another is called creation, and the final one is testing.
It seems to me, however, that the same issues still arise, not because of incompetant users, but because of the constant wrongheaded insistence that these methods are of benefit to the users and the best way of doing things. They are not and this has constantly been proved by users not getting what they want or need from them. The existing methods all worked and still do. Daz Studio functions perfectly without Smart Content, without the DIM and will without Daz Connect. All users want to do is buy content, install content and use it. They don't want automated systems that they can't understand for which there is little or no information. Piling more on only exacerbates things and creates more work and things they have to do before they can get to what Daz Studio was made for. The key things needed are accessibility and ease of use, nothing more, nothing less.
The short version:
The content library is like an old real world library in which you spend hours finding that one book that gives you the answer to your question.
Smart content could be like an internet search engine that lets you find the answer to your question in a few seconds.
The content library lets you only place an item in one place while with Smart Content you can assign multiple categories to one item and make it show up in many different places based on the current task you want to perform.
- - -
The library example:
You work in a library that is shared by 5 researchers.
There is one book shelf with space for exactly 1000 books.
There are 1000 books lying on the ground that need to be put on the shelf with a logical sorting system.
Unfortunately the researchers cannot agree on one system.
Sorting Criteria
- Professor Title wants you to sort all books by the name of the title from A-Z
- Professor Author wants you to sort all books by the name of the person who wrote it from A-Z
- Professor Chronological wants you to sort all books by the date they were published on.
- Professor Language wants you to group the books based on the language they are written in.
- Professor Science wants you to group the books based on the research area they cover.
The limitations of traditional sorting systems
If you are only able to place the books in one fixed place on that one shelf you will not be able to fullfil the requests of all five researchers.
For each specific task there might be one way to sort the books that would be optimal for a specific researcher.
But sorting the books that way may make life more complicated for other researchers.
The benefit of a keyword based system
The "Content Library" is exactly like that old real world library. The files on your computer still need to be placed in one fixed position. Which ever logic you choose to sort the files it will only make sense for a limited number of tasks.
Nevertheless the benefit of a computer is that you can "tag" each file by adding "keywords" to it.
Example for such keywords are: Product Name, Artist, SKU, Publishing Date, Categories, Render engine compatibility, DAZ Originals,
All that data that contains information how the files are sorted is called "metadata".
With the help of software you can now look at all those files trough different "masks" or "windows".
Instead of only looking at the files in the "Content Library" you can:
- look at the "Product Library" to search the items by product name.
- look at the "Categories" to search the items placed in a specific category
- search for any "keywords" or "tags" that have been added to the files
- combine searches with multiple keywords the same way you would in an internet search engine
IF one day Smart Content reaches its full potential it should be possible to enter a number of keywords into the search fields:
"shirt, artistname, Genesis3, DAZ Originals, IRAY, black" would show you all shirts created by your favorite artist for Genesis 3 either male or female that were distributed under the DAZ Originals license which have a black texture with Iray material options.
With a smart content search you have the result in one second. You might spend hours to find the same files manually in your content library if you have 3000+ products installed.
The issues with the old metadata system
So in theory the Smart Content of DAZ Studio could have had a lot of benefits over the old "Content Library" but as DAZ Staff allready explained unfortunately the first (2011) and the second try (2012) to implement metadata fell short of expectations for several reasons:
- the categories need to follow a logical system that can be expanded in the future
The first category system (2011) was too complicated and inconsistent. The second try in 2012 solved a lot of issues in some areas but still lacked detail in a lot of categories. The more products fall in the same category the more the need for sub categories arises.
- creating metadata manually takes a lot of time
As a result instead of actually adding a lot of tags and keywords to each file only the most necessary information was added.
In consequence the search function did not yield any meaningfull results.
Example: In DS 4.8 it is still not possible to actually search for content created for a specific generation of figures like " Genesis 2, & wardrobe: shirts"
- creating metadata manually has the risk that the persons doing it make errors
The lesson I learned after manually sorting 3000+ products from 2012-2014 is that I do not have the time and energy to keep doing that and would rather prefer to trust that the system DAZ3D has in place is working.
- - -
The way I understand it the soluton is now a more automated approach:
It would be interesting to get some more information how that exactly works when the time is ready.
For now I say "THANKS DAZ 3D" that you are working on improving the system.
Yes.
And an empty one for testing zip content completeness before shipping them out. Only one 'My Content' tree selected at a time depending on what I'm doing. Or did before 4.9, or I'm misunderstanding a footnote regarding not being able to moving files around in the content library any more and a new tree using product numbers instead of the Daz category named folders.
Another odd thought. I had made some AltShader Presets for figures I've bought, and for convenience, put them in the folder for the figure (right next to all the makeup, eye, color, and other options). It sounds like this new CL system will at the very least, make those presets I made invisible in studio??? This screen-cap of 4.8 probably shoes why, given the CL directory depth just to get to this figures eye color settings, I chose to put my alt shader for her there, lol.
User generated, DIM installed content (the converter isn't ready yet), Poser content and content currently in the My Library structure is not affected by Connect. So it is still usable/movable as it was in 4.8. And user generated content won't be in the new Connect format, so it won't (not going to say ever, but not very likely) be that way, even after the conversion to the new structure/content format. The same for content from other sites. The Connect (new) format will take precedence over the old format, though.
Sort of on topic. I'm one of those users who organize their files manually. If I'm understanding correctly, it would now be best to organize stuff via Smart Content with categories? Then that organization would transfer correctly to 4.9 and I'd be good to go? Is that correct? If so, can someone point me to good, general instuctions on Smart Content and how to set it up please?
Also, since I have manually moved my files, do I need to reinstall everthing without moving them to prepare for 4.9 and Smart Content?
Thanks.
But it didn't work - people had trouble with content even back in the days before any kind of categories or Smart Content. People had trouble with content even in the Poser libraries. Whether any of the systems have reduced the number of people having trouble I don't know - but Daz does have at least some figures to give it an idea.
Wow, that did indeed solve it! I upped the bucket size to 64, and now it's running smoothly at 100%. Thank you!
Try: http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/smart_content/start
I'm just about to check it out myself, so can't offer an opinion of how helpful I found it.
Thanks for that. Not quite what I am looking for but it's a start.
Though 4.9 won't remove or reorder the files you have installed currently.
Yup, I downloaded them through it the other day; can't say I'm finding it that helpful yet, but, I'll keep checking it out; it would help if more of the pages had info on them though.
Thanks Richard. I would just have to let DS install new stuff where it needs to from here on out and not manually move it correct?
So far at least, and for the so-far planned future, all content is available in DIM and the Product Library. The moving to Connect for new (not previously released) content is not yet imminent.
I believe there is still soem work being done on those pages, so you may want to wait a few days before commiting too heavily to studying them.
So does that mean if I decied to stay with 4.8 (which is working fine for my needs) that at some futrue point in time after 4.9 goes live and new created content is encrypted that I will no longer be purchasing items from DAZ but going elsewhere?
Using DS 4.9+ is not the same as using Connect, and it has been stated that there are no current plans for Connect-only content. But yes, content that is in Connect-format only will not be usable in older versions of DS or in current versions without using Connect.
Are you seriously saying that DAZ has no plans to migrate their premium products to Connect-only format? That you are always going to have zipped files to install or at least DIM files available for every new product? I really find that hard to believe or maybe you are mis-stating. And why in the world would you make these changes if you didn't have plans to protect your products with some sort of DRM, otherwise there is absolutely no reason to encrypt the files.
If your new Connect products and their installation and file management are really that good that people will migrate there without the coersion of not being able to buy new content without DRM then more power to you but that is not the way it has been presented so far. Otherwise I am just watching what happens and not updating to 4.9.
I'm saying that there are apparently no current plans to release Connect-only content - meaning no plans for any content currently queued or scheduled, I would interpret it. I'm sure that there is a more abstract plan for at least some new releases to be Connect-only at some point, at least for a period (one of the comments by, I think, DAZ-RawB did seem to suggest that having items Connect-only for a limited period following release was an option on the table).
As for the coercion - that is intended to slow down warezerer, not to force legitimate users to use Connect; as such it would, in whatever curcumstacnes it may come to be used, have to be Connect-only or there would be no obstacle.
That would be perfect for those who are sloooooooow to buy new stuff but like to tinker with its innards later... like me.
Not true. I can't find it in this big mess of a thread, but it was stated, by DAZ_Jon, I believe (but maybe it was DAZ_Rawb), that new content at some point will be DAZ-Connect only content.
Dana