Centralising Content

3Ddreamer

I've just got a new laptop and think this is the time to centralise things.

I'm planning to move my DIM Downloads and Content onto my NAS to stop moving things back and forth with an external drive between computers.

I just want to check if there is any way to have two computers working from one database, perferably on the NAS as well. I used my own Catagories but it gets bit messy if I forget to copy the database files over when I swap computers. I know others work with two computers and I wonder how they keep things in line. I don't find Smart Content very smart so I wont be using that. Another wrinkle is I currently work with Valentina as I still have 155 days to run on my 2 year ZoneAlarm license, but I am planning to move my desktop over to whichever Antivirus I pick when the new laptops free 30 days offer runs out. (suggestions of what works well it PostgreSQL accepted)

I am still tinkering and declawing Windows 10 so I don't think I will do the bulk of this until I have a holiday in 2 weeks time. Just trying to get prepared.

Thanks

nicstt

Just use one Install Manager to be sure files remain the same for installation.

Using the library from more than one computer shouldn't be an issue, although I've not tried over a NAS, always wondered if it would be fast enough. Although, as it is possible to screen movies, they should be.

3Ddreamer

Thanks for that nicstt, the DIM side and the library isn't the bit I'm wondering about, but if I can work two computers from one Valentina/PostgreSQL database with my catagories so I only have to catagories new items once

nicstt

Don't see why it shouldn't work, as long as files the program needs to update, are only in one location; or at least it can access all the locations they are stored in.

3Ddreamer

Thanks nicstt I'll give it a go. I just don't remember an option to change where the Database is stored the last time I installed DS and I don't see any setting in Properties I can change in my current installs. So I am wondering it the database location is hard coded and I'll just have to keep sync-ing the two databases.

mtl1

The database isn't really hard coded; you can change the database paths within DIM and DAZ Studio itself. However, to make things as seemless as possible, I usually backup all the Install Manager downloads before I install them. That way, I can easily restore my downloads when I rebuild my systems.

However, there may be something involved with the manifest files inside DIM. Not sure if they record which files have been downloaded or installed and whether they need agreement between them and the installed content directories. You may want to send a ticket to tech support to inquire as to the purpose of the manifest files.

3Ddreamer

I still don't think I am making myself clear. I am okay with moving the DIM Downloads and Studio Content and changing that path in DIM and DS, and the need to edit the manifest files to reflect the new locations. What I am trying to establish is I can move the ProgramData\DAZ 3D\Content Management Service\Database  files (which currently contains the files ContentDB.blb, ContentDB.dat, ContentDB.ind, ContentDB.vdb, master.vdb) and have 2 computers accessing one set of files, so that I can Catagorise things once and not have one database on each pc which can get out of sync.

Thanks for trying to help, I think I will raise a ticket and see what sypport says.

mtl1

3Ddreamer said:

I still don't think I am making myself clear. I am okay with moving the DIM Downloads and Studio Content and changing that path in DIM and DS, and the need to edit the manifest files to reflect the new locations. What I am trying to establish is I can move the ProgramData\DAZ 3D\Content Management Service\Database  files (which currently contains the files ContentDB.blb, ContentDB.dat, ContentDB.ind, ContentDB.vdb, master.vdb) and have 2 computers accessing one set of files, so that I can Catagorise things once and not have one database on each pc which can get out of sync.

Thanks for trying to help, I think I will raise a ticket and see what sypport says.

Oh, I see what you're trying to do here: two working installations working off the same set of files. It should be fine I suppose, but yes a ticket to support would be the best bet.

Ken OBanion

I've been doing something similar to what you're describing (only with three PCs, all of which are laptops), and I haven't had too many problems.  The only issue I've ever encountered is that I tend to get a bit lax in syncing up my content libraries.  Yeah, I'm lazy; what's your point?

What I'm doing is...

All my content is installed into one of several runtime libraries: one for DAZ Studio-specific content, one for DSON content (Genesis 2 content, which is shared between DAZ Studio and Poser), and several Poser-mostly libraries (Gen 3, Gen 4, Animals, non-human creatures, scenes (environments), props, and similar really broad categories - which DAZ Studio is also made aware of, through the 'Content Directory Manager' option on the 'Content Library' tab).  All of these libraries are gathered into two top-level folders (named DAZ Studio Content and Poser Content, respectively) on the machine I most frequently use for 3D work.  I then copied those two top-level folders onto an external USB drive, which I can then attach to whatever computer I feel like carrying around with me, which is usually a 'day-job-related' decision.  Then I periodically use a Microsoft product called SyncToy to keep those two folders in sync with the content folders on my "primary" 3D system.

The reason I went the external-device route is because I'm frequently away from my home network (like, for example, the bar at my neighborhood Applebee's!), and I can carry my content libraries with me, no matter which system I'm hauling around at the time; I just need to remember to slip it into the case.  But there is nothing that would prevent you - or me, for that matter, other than the fact that I'm too damn lazy to move it all to a network-accessible device (it's close to 600GB of content!) and re-map everything (but I'm probably going to have to do that eventually - I'm running out of disk space!) - from putting your content on a NAS, mapping a network drive to that device that's accessible from any computer on your network, and then mapping that network drive to the content libraries in DAZ Studio.  (Or Poser, which I also use quite a lot.)

The only issue you might encounter would be that the metadata might get out of sync between the various systems, as new content is installed; this sounds like the potential problem you're seeking to address.  Unfortunately, I really don't see a way around that; as near as I've been able to determine, the content-management service runs locally on each machine, so that's where the metadata is.  So unless you're running the content-management service on a network-attached server, and pointing each instance of DAZ Studio to that common CMS....  I'm sure there's a way to do that, but I don't know what it is.  I haven't been inclined to hack the CMS installation scripts to figure out a way to override the default installation paths, nor have I found a way to tell each instance of DAZ Studio that the CMS it needs to connect to is 'over there'.   (Mostly because I've never looked; I've never had any compelling need to do so, and several really good reasons not to want to.  I can see how a serious 3D animation studio might want to be able to leverage its assets to that extent, but for an individual...?)

In any case, I really don't see a problem here; as long as the CMS knows where the actual content is located, it's a fairly simple matter to 'Re-import metadata' whenever you install new content, to let each machine know that there's new stuff to play with.