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I've been shopping at DAZ for well over 20 years. Very few products use "vanity" folders. That means the products are easy to find. I've never found any products with "duplicate" file or folder names.
It makes me wonder if we're talking about the same products? It appears we have two different experiences?
Cute3D, Ironman13, PandyGirl, 3D Universe, Aeon Soul, Linday, EmmaandJordi, Lyoness, Mytilus are just a few people who have those "vanity folders" . If you never bought their stuff, maybe we do have different experiences. Some people do put their initials in the product name. But it should be at the end of the folder name instead of the beginning.
Re, finding products. I keep a Pinterest board for all my DAZ clothes with sub-boards sorted by category. So I can go straight to my Victorian/Steampunk board when I need that sort of outfit, get the name from there and then search it in DAZ studio. The Pinterest method is also useful since I do commissions and can easily put together outfit choices for clients.
I wanted to post a screenshot of my DAZ library. But I discovered my DAZ installation was gone! I spent the day installing a new default DAZ installation.
Here is a screenshot of part of my DAZ installation. You can see the distinctive names of folders It is very easy to identify each product. There are no duplicate names for folders.
Ty3DArt! I can relate to much of what you wrote.
My few gallery posts received barely enough responses to count on one hand. That's why I lost interest in posting there. But I was aiming for humor in those images, and have realized since then that my sort of humor requires the viewer to know me and my personality. Otherwise, some context is lost. I've had a strange life and to some degree I incorporate it into my hobby.
As to the forums, I, too, have problems communicating here. In both our cases, it may have something to do with our age. I'm in my mid-70s and have never felt at ease with forums. Email is fine, because I know who I'm in touch with. People with histories similar to mine. I'm also poor as hell, but this "Premiere Artist Sale" right now, yahoo! It's got my creative juices flowing again! Sorry, I digress...
I write well-crafted, detailed and fun emails to people I know. I've made it an art, and my friends enjoy them (They're honest when they don't). But forums are bizarre to me. People from anywhere on Earth may read these posts. I've had a lot of experience with Filipinos because I have several long-term friends from there. But communicating in either language with them requires very careful thinking about issues of context and life-experiences. I feel like it's the same here.
I like to joke & be irreverent here, as I am in most things in life, because I live in a world now that I don't recognize, and frankly, I don't like. I feel SO sorry for young people who have to deal with this degrading world. No one listened to me when it was developing:-/ My world, even though I have the same hobby as folks here, is not their world.
So, don't worry about how you're received in forums, or how well you are able to find answers to questions here. It's "natural" that it'll be this way, because this system, free software, buy the products, learn on your own, is basically a mess. Collect every tutorial you can find in the well-organized train-wreck called the Internet, and categorize them so you can refer to them quickly when needed. Download youtube tutorials but dump the amateurs who are just showing off. Fight for your self by providing these resources for yourself. That way when you ask questions, you'll have references from which you can demonstrate how answers to your problem are not easily found. People here don't seem to like it if you accidentally ask a question that is readily avaiable online if you'd only done research when you were in the middle of a crisis that had your thinking so boggled that you couldn't figure out what to search for online... Sorry, I digress.
Sorry, I also ramble. It's my right. I'm old. Young people will understand when their time comes. Good luck to you! Just enjoy your hobby. It's getting better all the time, even if the various systems around it are a P.I.T.A!
I've made 130+ products since 2010 and they're mostly all in one folder, to help keep things organized. I think it makes it easier to find stuff. DzFire has a folder, Stonemason has a folder, Predatron has a folder. It's not vanity, it is just practical.
Having 3 or 4 letters at the front of product works too. OOT, MMX, MSO, 1stB, RSSY for examples
FirstBastion, I love your products. The term "vanity" folder is unfortunate. I couldn't think of a better term. I respect you and all PA's. You have the courage and skills to make money From Art.
If I'm filing paperwork, I will use the alphabet. "Adams" will be found under the "A," etc. I expect my DAZ content to work the same way. It's much harder if you file under the name of the PA's,
If you purchase from 100 PA's, you have 100 places to look for your alphabet. I don't like the extra trouble. That's why I don't patronize many PA's.
But this is a matter of taste - persoanlly I am, generally, less bothered by having the PA name attached (most PAs have a style, so it can be useful to group their products) than I am by sticking dForce in front of every name (which means that Products>D is now over half of my installed items) - which seems to be the reverse of you. Categories and/or links allow us to set up an organisation to suit ourseleves without needing Daz or PAs to change their approach.
Richard, it's always good to hear from you. I don't reorganize anything. The dForce folders came that way.
I refuse to spend time working with categories. I find the "default way most content is installed to be fine,
I hate props in Environments
a single room is not an environment, it's a set
I think an exterior and if it has it, an interior should be in Environments Architecture
full landscapes, scenes, sets of things etc in the other sections of environment, it should not need anything else to finish the scene for a render
Apart from useful tagging not there everywhere, the searches do not even find what's actually written somewhere. So i'd say, there still is some headroom for improvements on the software and web interface side...
(I know there are some advanced search features, but i think the basics should be rock solid, to start with.)
@WendyLuvsCatz Maybe some day, there will be alternative views, where you have a category for the type of view, meaning the view determines where things are sorted in. Default is default, but PA's could agree on some alternate models of sorting, and add the info to their products, and there could be a community effort too. So i select "community-basic-sanity" for instance, and categories are chosen based on that virtual view. Layers upon layers of repair, very maybe :p...
I believe DAZ Studio should be a way to Make Art. I totally rebel against the idea of categories, organzing, whatever. If I buy a pound jar of peanut butter, it better have the words Peanut Butter on the jar.
I don't want to argue about "Vanity" folders or "PA" folders. But sometimes it seems people just don't understand what I am saying. That is why I included a screenshot above. All those folders came directly from a DIM installaton. I don't move folders or categorize anything.
In my older, more wise years, I intend to avoid any arguments or misunderstanding. With that in mind, it's a good time to gracefully leave this thread. I wish everyone the best
I'm in a similar position. If the prices for DAZ content were similar to, lets say, TurboSquid, I would not even be in the game. As it is, DAZ gets all of my meagre spending allowence and I never buy new, never buy full price and mainly buy at discounts over 70%. Still, it's amazing how much of a conent library you can accumulate even with those spending restrictions.
I sure agree with that. Sticking dForce at the beginning of hundreds of folder names makes products very difficult to locate. Why didn't they just define a dForce category or assign a dForce keyword. If I'm trying to find something like the Bristol Ridge Outfit, I'm going to look under B, not D, even though the product does contain some items with dForce.
Hi, sorry to repsond so late, I hadn't seen your reply until just now.
I don't have a tutorial handy, but I'll describe how I do it. Maybe that'll give you ideas.
Long story short:
1) Find the product in your normal runtime library.
2) Right click on the product.
3) Select the "categorize" option from the resulting right click menu, which will pop up a subwindow with your categories.
4) Assign the product to a category (or sub category) by checking the box next to the category name.
If your categories are empty, or you want to create a new one, you can right click in that categories pane and select "create category" from the resulting menu popup (which will also have other useful category related actions like rename, delete, etc.). This is one way establish your categories (through right clicking on a product).
You can also create subcategories, which allow you to really refine your organization into ways that make the most sense to you. When you're in the category pane, you can right click on a category and select "create subcategory".
You can also, instead of assigning an individual product item to a category, assign a product folder and/all its subfolders to a category. In this case you'd right click the product folder and select "categorize" or "categorize folder and all subfolders" (I'm going off memory here as I'm not in front of Studio at the moment - the language may be slightly different), and then select the category / subcategory you want them assigned to.
You can assign things to multiple categories as well using this process. Check next to whatever categories / sub categories you want for an item. For folders, unfortunatey you have to assign them to one category per action, but you can do that multiple times, each time assigning the folder to another category - it will end up attached to all of them.
You can also access the categories and subcategories and work with them directly via the "Categories" item in the content pane. "Categories" appears at the bottom of the content pane items (for me anyway). There you can use your items (add them to the scene, run scripts, whatever), move your subcategories around, create new categories/subcategories, browse what's in your categories, remove items from categories, move items to other categories, etc. You can't assign products to categories from here (unless they're already in some category) as you need to establish an initial reference from the product to a category (via the right click on the product).
I find the whole capability pretty simple, intuitve, and helpful. As long as I'm dilligent about categorizing when I get a product, I have no problems finding what I want, when I want it.
In general, after installing a product, I'll find it in the default location (which may be different for each person, depending on how they set up their runtimes) and categorize it.
For instance, let's say I have a have a "Genesis 9" runtime, which is where I install all my Genesis 9 related products.
Let's say I buy "dForce Every Day Club Mini Dress for Genesis 9 Feminine", I use DIM to install it into my Genesis 9 runtime (I use multiple runtimes, so when installing I have to be sure to set the right runtime as the install location for DIM prior to installing). When using DIM, I'll go to the Installed tab, find the line for that product package there, click on the item specific submenu and select "Show Installed Files." That will show you exactly where the product files landed (including at the top it'll show you the runtime it ended up in). I use that information to find the parts of the product I want to categorize in Studio, navigate to them and categorize them. So in this case it'd be in the Genesis 9 runtime, People->Genesis 9->Clothing->dForce Every Day Club Mini Dress for Genesis 9 Feminine (I'm guessing, I don't own this product, I just chose it from the top of the shop right now). I'd right click the dress item and categorize it in my People->Genesis 9->Clothes->Female->Dresses subcategory (the main category I've created is People, the rest of the chain are subcategories I've created from there). I do it that way so when I'm looking for a dress for my character I can see all the dresses in one place.
For items you get from other sources it's the same. Let's say I buy "Jucy Lucy's Sweet Sexy Denim Dungarees with dForce for G9" from the Rendorama store. The product is packaged as a .zip. I use 7zip to work with .zip files. So I extract the content of the .zip to my Genesis 9 runtime. In 7zip I drill down the folder chain to find where the products I want to categorize are, then go to that location in Studio. In this case that would be something like, in my Genesis 9 runtime, People->Genesis 9->Clothing->Jucy Lucy->dForce Sweet Sexy Denim Dungarees. I right click on the Dungarees item and categorize it in my People->Genesis 9->Clothes->Female->Pants->Jeans subcategory. I do it this way so when I'm looking for jeans for my character I can see all my jeans for them in once place (as opposed to Sweats, Slacks, etc.).
Categorizing things like this means I just go to my categories when I'm looking for / using my content - I never go back to the default runtime tree or "smart content" unless I mistakenly deleted a reference, or I botched my categorization in some way.
Hopefully that makes sense (if you stuck with it that long). Again, once you find the categories entry points (the right click menu on a product / product folder and the Categories section in the content pane), it's really easy and intuitive to work with. You figure out your own categorization scheme that works for you, and your content organization will suit your workflow. It's definitely worth the couple of minutes spent doing the initial categorization on product acquisition to eliminate later minutes of frustration trying to find stuff when you want it, particularly if you've got a lot of stuff.
I have a mental flow chart I go through when I am shopping here. It goes something like this:
Do I already own something similar? If I do, is this an improvement on what I already have?
If not, is it something I have wanted or have an immediate use for? If yes and it's affordable - buy
If not, is it by a vendor I want to support, like someone who makes good quality content for male characters? If yes and it's affordable - buy
If not, wishlist
interesting discussion. I am with you @WendyLuvsCatz..hehe DAZ is my addiction vs any external substances minus bbqs and coffee..
I think DAZ has fantastic prices - and have really enjoyed this PA sale... I wonder how the PAs make a living, but because I am on a fixed income can't always get what I want here so i wait until I can. Sometimes that doesn't work out and items are no longer available... I noticed some of Stonemason's items like that.. specifically his "Streets of the Mediterranean"
I have long puzzled over ways to organize and catagorize art-including my own. Due to licensing I have a lot of items catagorized by the artist's name. Whenever I download from one of the sites I use, the item has a very long name.. like a string of tags and this runs into issues when archiving the item somewhere because it "breaks" the file ..too long of a path plus the name of it. I have spent hours using renaming software and have found using the artist name useful as when I use their items, its easy to credit where credit is due. Then I catagorize items by my own catagories.. such as "summer fun" etc. Ok, I am rambling, but I suppose I am fascinated with the best way to organize stuff because I basically am unorganized by default lol...
With AI on the horizon..wait, its already here, I can see where it would come in useful.. Maybe something like Alexa or Siri could help me find my art, etc although she doesn't always understand the movie I am telling her to pull up. I normally like doing things old fashioned way.
In all honesty I have not bought a thing here since genesis 9 came out & its not that I am against g9. in fact i love the looks of the products. My issue is I hate having to buy a new graphic card every year, or keep having to upgrade my computer. to keep pace using the new released daz studio versions every 6 months For my needs all the new product that are being release require a newer version of daz studio than I am using and are not really compatible with the older 4.12 & 4.16 versions products and tools& shader I am using now. So my buying days are done here, other than what I am buy in my wishlist which I am down to 6 products now.
I do look around for older products time to time when there a good sale. so far this seasons sale has nothing to offer me.
So in conclusion I am happy with what I have now for my use and 3d needs, the best version of daz studio for me is 4.12.03, it renders very quick the deforce is not buggy and all my animation tools i have gathered over the 15 years work in it flawlessly. I am not giving up those investment for new shiny program . So not worht it. I've been sticking with the 4.12 version and 4.16 for the volumetric and what I have already invested in daz products in the last 15 plus years.
Please understand I love daz studio. I love creating animation and art work and will continue use the 10 plus different daz studio versions I have in the 3 computers, with the 7 2tb hard drives full of content i own and be very happy with what I have. Plus with open-Ai I can always post-work my renders & animations with Ai. So if the 3d stores want my money now days maybe think about making products that are backward compatible for the daz studio app like Poser or Blender & other 3d programs I have. My 2008 animator plugin tool & my 2018 walk-it plugin still work great in my 2023 poser pro13. but not work in daz studio after 4.12. I am just tired of chasing after the same familiar products just so they work in a new programs.
thanks for reading my rant.
Yes, I am back. I just want to be careful not to push anything too far. I am probably going to repeat myself.
I was excited at the introduction of Genesis 9. I got a DAZ+ membership. I bought a few products to help get started. I installed the products, and couldn't find them. They were stored in a folder called DAZ Originals.
That was the end of my Genesis 9 enthusiasm. I have not bought anything else, and let my PC+ subscription end. And now I find very little male clothing for Genesis 9.
That sounds like a logical, well thought out decision. I also found 4.16 to be running well on my system.
The last time I bought anything from the store was a couple weeks ago, and that was mainly to get the G9 Bone Minion and some poses, because I still heavily use G8 everything yet on occasion will use G9 if absolutely necessary.
Before that, my only previous monetary purchase was in January.
Suffice to say, I've largely stopped spending here because Genesis 9 has proven to be a huge wet fart of a disappointment for me, personally speaking (example: DarioFish has long left the DS world for tabletop games and left a huge void behind with no HFS alien/monster shapes for it) and everything has gotten so expensive that even I'm taking pause at how much even a simple pose or prop is. Also have been learning more about Blender, which at this point absolutely runs circles upon circles around DS when it comes to everything else outside of dressing a model up. Why bother spending the money on lighting, cameras, textures, etc. that are proprietary only to DS when I can find universal alternatives for Blender at a fraction of the cost?
Basically, DS5 is going to have to offer a whole heck of a lot in order to win my wallet back to the store... same thing with Rendo and RenderHub, if I'm being bluntly honest.
I hate to be that way really. But over the many years of collecting Daz & poser 3d content I believe i reached my limit when everything new seems to be similar to what I already have, The best content for me are the ones that come with the .Obj files. I can decimate them and manipulate the obj files, assign new shaders channels etc.. & use them in all my older 3d apps. even importing obj to zbrush 2020 easier than using the daz bridge. Plus I have a lot of really great script and animations tools I am not ready to give up yet and still work in my 2 windows 10 machines and a windows7 server render rig. , I do not use daz in my laptop that I upgraded to windows11.it does not work well
I am very happy with everything I have ever bought here. so no regrets. I have no opinion on anything related to new g9 products or any new daz studio version as I do not use them., I still lurk the forums and watch peoples animated videos they post & try not to stir up to much trouble
Oh yeah, that's a good thing to do if one has the knowledge of other 3D mesh editing programs. It's not without its own set of frustrations but also a rewarding sense of satisfaction, too.
Indeed true. For me working with daz studio for as long as I have, (since 2008) It has open many doors to to me using other 3d applications once upon a time most 3d apps played pretty well together, But not so much now days , Plus a lot of people here are very knowledgeable in 3D and are always willing to help & share their opinion with you. which makes this a close nit family
So after 20 years as a somewhat successful graphic artist and using & promoting Daz Studio, & Adobe products I have learned how to use many 3d apps and film editors etc. in my projects.
Now days I been slowly moving into another field of imagery that has proved to be very lucrative with less frustration of having to keep upgrading hardware.
Oh-oh. Prithee tell us more?
I could be wrong but I think the sun is setting on the last days when you can buy a laptop that isn't Windows 11.
On the previous topic of vanity names, I like the ability to sort by artist as well, but I change the product name to tag the PA at the end of the product name, not the beginning. The one that irritates me is iray or dForce at the beginning of product names, especially with the relatively recent habit of breaking outfits down into mutiple products. When one part is dforce and the others aren't, it scatters them around the library instead of keeping them together. So I rename them to "product name, DF, PA name" to make it easy to both search and browse. Beats having clothing A to C, dForce clothing A to Z, clothing E to X-fashion everything, Y to Z
I usually remove the products from their vendor folder and then delete said folder because I want one queue of items all in one column with a little extra clicking as possible. I usually add in a vendor designator so I know who made it, too. But I'm pretty hands-on with my files.
What Daz desperately need is a searchable TAG system. I would even dare to say it should be comminity driven tag system (with mods approving creations of tags etc)
I often look for items by themes, for example "beach", "city", "water", etc. and If the words are nor exacly same in product name they will never show.
In fact when I look for something I will often find it faster when looking in non DAZ pages that give links to daz store....
What is most infuriating is when you find out you already own that product but it never came up when you were looking in studio....
Considering how I have my runtimes and folders set up I have no problem finding them. As for the artists name on folders, I prefer it, then I know who to credit for my renders. Credit is a big thing if you are required to do so for contests, animations, games, you name it. Sadly not many people credit the creators of the products they used.
Some products are named such that they are easy to find in a normal search. Others … not so much. Daz Studio does have the ability to add tags to content, though. It can be done in either the Content Library or Smart Content.
If it's not already showing, click on the very small tab of the Additional Info Divider at the bottom of the Smart Content or Content Library window to expose the additional info window. There you can select the Tags tab and enter whatever keywords (tags) that you wish. For example, many science fiction items have as part of their name, either Sci Fi, Sci-Fi or SciFi. To ease my future searches for science fiction items, I enter scifi (case doesn’t matter) as a tag for one item in a product. You don’t need to tag every item in a product. I only tag one. To find content with a certain tag (keyword) instead of searching for something in the name of the product, search for the tag using key::desired_tag. When searching under Products, for example, in Smart Content, I can search for key::scifi and get all of the products with that tag on a file.
Below are two screen captures of an item that I recently bought called Time Tunnel. I want to be able to find it easily if I am looking for science fiction items or fantasy items. I entered the tags scifi and fantasy as tags.