Daz Studio 4.9 Beta Now Available..
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There is no DRM after the fact. All content currently available will remain available in unencrypted DIM and zip form, and DS4.9 will continue to be able to work with this content.
Earlier in the thread one of the "DAZ_" authors mentioned something about existing content being migrated into DS 4.9. And, as part of that migration, the content would be encrypted.
What the person did not detail was if this happened locally or the first time the previous content was downloaded / updated from the server down to a local 4.9.
Is this not actually the case?
My understanding...
DIM content = not encrypted.
Connect content = encrypted.
They talked about adding a tool to migrate your existing DIM-installed content into the Daz Connect setup to avoid having to redownload. It won't do that automatically, only if you ask to.
That is what I am trying to figure out. I am getting conflicting information as to the relationship between the DIM installs and the Connect installs.
Are older files, installed by Connect, now going to be encrypted at download?
Are DIM installs, when accessed by 4.9, now going to be encrypted?
If I install with DIM, will 4.9 update those? Or does all the content need to be deleted and reinstalled with Connect?
If you install something with Daz Connect, old or new, the .duf/.dsf files will be encrypted. If you install manually or with DIM they remain untouched. Accessing them using 4.9 does not cause them to be encrypted. In the current beta, if you want to convert an item to Daz Connect it needs to be redownloaded; in the future there will be a tool to migrate DIM-installed content into Daz Connect without needing to uninstall and redownload, but that will not happen automatically.
Even if you did migrate it over, the original zips are still going to be available to you unencrypted (unless that changes but there is no indication of it being so) and you can back them up yourself at any time and install them the same way you do now.
There's a massive amount of sky is falling over the last few pages, mostly because of people not understanding the changes. I'm not a fan of the concept of DRM either but all that is happening here is that they are adding a new way to get your files on top of the existing ones that encrypts dsf and duf files, which most users don't even know how to edit let alone regularly do. It's basically the same as them introducing dsf files in the first place, except this time them being encrypted, as many many file are for many programs.
Everything that Daz Connect installs is encrypted.
Nothing that DIM installes will be encrypted. Every product that you currently own will continue to be available unencrypted through DIM and the product library.
Unless a DIM install product is converted to a Daz Connect managed product (not implemented in the current beta) Daz Connect will not be able to update it. DIM product updates will continue to update at the same pace that they are now.
+1 I'll be right there along side him.
Thank you for the information.
I will table my concerns until the point where DIM is no longer supported and packages are no longer updated through it.
Though I don't honestly understand the logic of having the same items available encrypted and unecrypted at the same time.
What would be a great advantage is making the file structure of DS obligatory, so that users are not obligated to clean up their DS file structure every time a zip file isn't named correctly, etc. (not to mention spelling errors and the likes) Too often this is needed because a vendor doesn't spell a folder correctly (ie landscapes vs landscape) so that we get a load of extra folders that aren't supposed to be there.
As soon as you make DIM, DRM or this DAZ Connect an obligatory thing, I'll simply stop shopping here.
Nice to have it confirmed thanks.
Folks are paranoid (or at least I am).
Quick question in relation to Categories, since they're becoming more important or at least likely to be the main way a lot of people start organising their DS folders: Is there a way in 4.9 or earlier to back up a copy of your Category DB?
I've looked through what documentation I could find but it all seems very vague and haphazard. With its growing importance maybe organising files should become one of the properly documented features in the main manual?
p.s. I'm sure this is known but creating Categories via folders and subfolders doesn't seem to work in 4.9 (it does in 4.8.) I assume it just hasn't been implemented but since a lot of us are just starting to use it for the first time I thought it might be helpful to note that usually it does work fine and is a much faster way of creating a category system of your own.
For your own Categories, go to the Content Library drop-down menu, select Content DB Maintenance, and then 'Export User Data' that will export your data, and it can be imported again via 'Re-Import Metadata' (it is the first option on that screen)
Excellent, thank you.
On a side note, you can actually organise things by dragging and dropping from the content library right into your categories. I thought it only worked within categories.
Maybe I'm completely wrong here, but it's looking more and more like Categories already do everything people have been asking for out of an organisation system: it's simply not very well known about by many users. Highlight more of these features please, Daz - they're really good and I'm only stumbling over them by complete accident. You have pages and pages of people upset about organising their content here, so it's clearly not a waste of time to make the great options you've created more obvious.
Ok... so is DB Maintenance not working at the moment?
I'm dipping my toe in here because I have mixed feelings about Smart Content (I want it to work, I like it when it works... I don't really care for the haphazard structure and inconsistent categorization, and the lack of depth that it required for properly handling most products). I picked one product: It Boy expressions for Jayden. Uninstalled the DIM content (DS and PS files) and installed via DAZ Connect. Got 3 icons for almost every item in the set (I hate that, I have always hated that, which is part of why I don't always use Smart Content and sometimes don't bother installing companion files). Ran the DB cleanup to no affect. I still have 3 icons for everything!
Could you explain this? Not understanding. Anything to help with organizing decades worth of content...
Oh... and maybe I missed something in this... but does DAZ Connect content NOT show up in the Content Library in the regular view?
Okay so I'll try and explain what I know, just keep in mind I'm solely going off what I've stumbled over. I'm by no means an authority on this.
- I don't know of any way to make Daz Connect content appear in the Content Library. Anything installed via Daz Connect is meant to appear within Smart Content in whatever section it's preset to.
- In the Content Library tab, there's a Categories tab beneath your usual library. You can either use the default categories that come with many products (I believe this is how Smart Content is organised) or make your own base Category from scratch (which is what I do.) You can then either use the usual Content Library but via your Categories instead of the usual library folders, or you can use Smart Content and select your category name instead of Default.
- Categories have the advantage of being able to be named and arranged any way you want, drag and dropped within each other, as well as the ability for an item to be in more place than one without physically duplicating that file. Thanks to information above, you can back up the categories in case you're scared of losing them.
To add items to a category:
- Right click an entire folder and select Create Category From... and then this folder or this folder and subfolders. This is super useful for getting huge loads of content into your own category system to organise later on. It is currently BROKEN in 4.9 Beta (it does nothing.) It works in 4.8 now. Trying to create a complete category system in the current beta is really not recommended.
- In Content Library, right click an item and select Categorize... This will make you have to open each tree of your categories every single time and will only let you categorise one thing at a time. This is the first (and sometimes only) command people tend to stumble across. It sucks and it made me hate categories until I stumbled across the above commands by accident. This is most likely the reason why people complain that making categories takes weeks, and then they don't know about the backup function and get mad when they lose it. These features really need to be more obvious to users.
- You can also select an item in either Content Library or a Category and drag it to the category you want it in. This will COPY the select items (may currently have issues copying entire folders in the beta, or from content library) so if you're rearranging your categories this way, you will need to delete the references in the old location (make sure they did actually copy first.) I find this really useful for organising things once they're in a category system, and not so useful but less irritating than going through the Categorize function over and over and over.
Hope that helps, and hopefully others can shed some more light on things I've missed.
So....what exactly are the benefits to using 4.9? So far I've been wading through what seems to be 27 pages of DRM related stuff, and no actuall benefits. If Daz connect is meant for smart content, that's pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. I never use it.
I think there are some improvements in speed with Iray and a 3delight update.
i didn't see much benefit and uninstalled
3DL and Iray have supposedly been updated. If I recall, it's a new version of 3DL and Iray has had changed to how shaders and SSS are handled. People have reported speeds being improved. I'm not seeing it but that's only because if a render takes an hour or 45 minutes I don't generally notice. LOL
As far as Connect... you don't have to use it! When you open the beta the first time you get a Welcome screen. At the top are 2 choices. First says "work offline" and second says use Daz Connect (or something like that) and asks you to enter your account info. I said "OH HELL NO", put 2 fingers up in a cross (this part is not really needed LOL) and clicked "work offline" then near the bottom "don't remind me again" and OK.
From there on in it just becomes a simple benign Beta.
Hope that helps :)
It doesn't show up in the regular content library where you see the files as they are stored on your hard drive, only in Products, Categories or Smart Content.
At least that's the case in this beta. Since a lot of people complained about this (myself included ;)) apparently they're looking at ways to add this back.
Thanks for mentioning this in this thread, as I have come across it as well. FWIW, it showed up for me on some world sphere geometry thathad been created in 4.6.1.33 (I believe).
Negative values (flipping the texture horizontally, for example) causes the issue, as well as any tiling greater than 1. It may be worth noting that in both cases, it appears correct in the texture shaded preview and only shows up in the render.
- Greg
The main interest of Daz connect (IMO) is the fact that it makes updates simpler and quicker to release as you can update only one file instead of the whole product package. The drawbacks (for me) are DRM and having to use smart content or categories, so right now I have no plans to use it.
If you forget DAZ Connect or smart content (which was apparently updated), there are actual benefits to 4.9: both render engines have been updated, and it includes some stability fixes.
There were some other fixes listed, too.
This is much earlier in the thread, but I'm compelled to respond. The worry for me is never any specific Studio update, but it's where it's all leading and I'm pretty, no make that very, sure I don't like where we're being taken. Right now we have flexibility. One can use Smart Content and fight with Categories, use the Content Library either as is as a supplement to Smart Content or rearranged to one's liking, use DIM or not. Heck, I've actually found it more convenient sometimes to drag and drop into scenes from Explorer.
It doesn't matter that for this build and perhaps a few more we can simply ignore Connect because you're going to remove our flexibility and rid us of that 'clunky' program called DIM that I consider an absolutely brilliant piece of very useful coding. Eventually we'll be stuck with only Connect.
That's it, right? The Cloud (da Plane! da Plane!). What should come next, though, MIGHT be something I'd go along with: filling your scene directly from da Cloud--no installation necessary. Oh the bandwidth, right? But only if I can browse through my licensed content instead of relying on categories and keywords. I really hate that. But that will never happen so forget it. 'Cloud' is now a swear word to me.
We're artists and more like cats than sheep. I like browsing content for inspiration. Sometimes I may look for something specific but usually I toodle through folders looking for that something that will talk to me in this specific scene and I haven't a clue what it will be until I stumble across it. You are in the process of removing that ability completely! .I can do trite like anyone else, but you're making it so much easier by forcing us to be keyword dependent. Not good.
It started with DIM and I sensed the direction but I really love that program. Now you're phasing out updates and heading towards its elimination.
Categories, keywords, metadata. Isn't it odd that a content company spends so much time on database work.
For how long?
I thought I was the only one who stumbled on surprise/perfect for the scene content, while I was looking for something entirely different! :-) Just kidding.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall, in the corporate office. As long as there was no fly swat nearby.