Creating a database to track Daz content and/or just using the tools inside Daz better
echristopherclark
Posts: 214
Does anyone have any experience in developing a spreadsheet or database to track their Daz purchases? And if so, do you have any tips and/or best practices?
I ask because I'm considering creating a database external to Daz itself. The reasons:
- Search within the app often doesn't turn up what I'm looking for, so I end up going to the store webpage and searching there. And given that I've spent way too much on Daz already over the years and that I'm prone to throwing money at problems (even if it's money I shouldn't be spending), avoiding using the store as my search engine feels like a bad option.
- I've tried several times to use the tips outlined in the Daz Studio Content Library tutorial by Ice Dragon Art but I always stop because I feel I'm going to do all that work and then lose it the next time I have a computer crash or have to move to a new machine. This method also ends up feeling like it doesn't work as well with Smart Content as I'd like, and I use that a lot (though maybe I shouldn't?).
- I've also tried several times to use the tips outlined in Smartening Up the Daz Studio Database, but always stop for similar reasons. I don't have any faith that the work I do will get backed up and survive if I have to re-install. The process also ends up feeling so cumbersome that I end up going back to the Ice Dragon Art tutorial instead.
I guess what it comes down to is that I don't know how to access all 5,000+ items I own in a more efficient manner, especially so that I stop buying stuff and only realizing later that I already own something that would do the trick.
How are you keeping your own Daz content organized? Do you use Smart Content? The content library? Some other organizational setup entirely? What are your best practices?
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This thread has what I wrote up a while back. I never finished this project, of course.
Trying to make a 3d library database - Daz 3D Forums
Oh, thanks. I'm working on a large project myself, similar to what you're describing in that thread, and running into the same issues. How much time do I want to spend on data entry so that I can find the clothing I'm looking for to outfit people in this specific part of the world versus how much time do I want to spend actually writing and illustrating the comic?
Aside from working on a gigantic wall of traditional text vs a comic, that is exactly what my driving purpose was. I have this sprawling story that takes place across vastly different locations so I fell into a habit of buying stuff thinking, 'Oh I could use this and that part of that outfit for the part of the story that takes place at location A..." and then I couldn't find them later. Hence why I had a clear image of each separate garment and a separate searchable record for each part of an outfit.
Ha! I can soooooo relate. That's exactly what I end up doing. I'm thinking that your method of an external database is probably what I need to go with.
That said, I'm an uber-nerd for people's organizational systems, so I'm game to keep hearing from any/all about how you/they organize!
I started with an Excel spreadsheet, but I'm a very visual person, so just seeing the list of names didn't mean much to me. So I switched to a solution that's probably not elegant, but it's working well for me.
I have separate .doc files for various categories, depending on how I need to search for things. For example:
props - food/drink
props - decoration
props - furniture
wearables - footwear
wearables - accessories
wearables - dresses
wearables - separates (fantasy)
wearables - separates (modern)
poses - couples
poses - casual
poses - action/combat
poses - expressions
shaders - fabric
shaders - other
.... you get the drift.
and then each asset listed in the file has:
asset name (title)
relevant keywords (subtitle)
file path to find it in Daz (because let's face it, some of those assets get put in places you'd never look for them)
web url
as many pictures as seem necessary
The files each have a table of contents inserted at the beginning with the asset name and keywords, so I can easily scan
....now, granted, one asset is often in several files, but I was kind of stunned how many rugs I actually had (or apples? why does everyone on the planet include an apple??) and now I can see with minimal effort what's available and where I have gaps.
It hasn't been too bad to keep up with once I got through my backlog, but I'm also on a limited budget, so it's not like I have a lot to input on a regular basis, either.
Hope this helps, either as-is or to inspire you to something more suitable to your own methods. :)
My eternal struggle in a nutshell, right there.
I use a custom content hierarchy within Studio--when I install any products, I also use Categorize to put instances of that product into my custom hierarchy. Example: I buy Luthbellina's Adventure Clothes and put an instance of the directory and its subdirectories under Categories/Clothing/Casual-Underwear-Swimwear.
This is a fairly workable solution, so much so that I hardly ever need to go look for things in the file-structure-based content tree (that is, LocalLibrary). However, it's got three problems.
1. I have over five thousand installed products, and I need to break down my content tree a lot more finely than it currently is. (For example, those three designations--casual clothing, underwear and swimwear--really need to be separated out.) This is a major production every time I reorg. Two weeks ago I renamed everything in my Shaders category to make them easier to find (all the fabric shaders now have names that begin 'Fabrics -' and so forth). That was an all-afternoon task.
2. I need cross-referencing. I need to be able to say "I need a casual outfit, but I need it to be G9." I am probably going to have to set up separate hierarchies under each clothing section by Genesis version and by intended gender. Same with figures. I have one custom directory where I can see ALL the female actor icons, apart from the non-human ones, and there are 391 of them. Some days I want to choose only from the G3s for this particular job. Or I know I don't want someone white in this role. And so forth.
3. Studio's CMS is held together with duct tape and baling twine and sometimes things just ... vanish ... from the custom hierarchy. I work with databases all day for a living and I am getting real close to just installing a Postgres client and opening the hood and finding out why the heck their DB is such a mess. But if I do, that's several days' work. Urgh.
If Studio metadata were reliable, and if its metadata-updating didn't sometimes go completely haywire, I would use it. (I no longer allow it to update metadata when I connect.) There's SUPPOSED to be a hierarchy for "show me all the available shoes!" "show me all the available hats!" but Smart Content is just not up to par. And even if it were, it wouldn't cover some of my strange needs like "list of all G8Fs who have special/unusual face makeups so that if I want to use that particular weird makeup effect on a different character I know where to look."
On the other hand, I would also prefer not to have to go look up packages in a SEPARATE tool or database every time I am making a decision about what to use. So whatever I do, it needs to be within Studio. Somehow.
By the by, not especially germane, but this is why some of my long-running comic projects have pages and pages of notes. Continuity. "Wendy's office is the Futuristic Executive Office with Futuris Dusk 5 at a rotation of zero." "Claire is one of the only two regular human characters who is never seen in public without makeup." "Gina and Esperanza's current weapons use Lightning Maker rather than any of the beam or blast effects." On and on.
I second that, I am super interested as well. I have been toying around with my own database/spreadsheets for this for a while. While I didn't work with creating databases for a living, I did work with creating pretty elaborate spreadsheets through my jobs. Right now I am just using a spreadsheet to track what I have purchased/invoices, etc.
I wish I could create a way to view all of the items in some sort of visual database, so that I can scroll through something, similar to the online product library, with pages of pictures of the items, but with additional details and my own custom tags. I did toy around with creating a pdf version of the online product library pages--like searchable pdf book--that helped some, --of course I never finished this as this became daunting especially when you add several pages to the library after a sale
@paulawp (marahzen) I did check out your screenshots of your Access database and I like that. I would like to do something along those lines. Of course this is so time consuming and I have spent a good amount of time just organizing/backing up content in the event of a crash.
Within Daz Studio, I try to make use of Smart Content. Wading through a large number of simulated manila folders (It was a state-of-the-art approach in 1989) to find content with a name that isn't usefully descriptive just doesn't seem like a good use of my time. I have zero ambition to be a file clerk.
When you have more than 1,500 items installed, trying to remember what an item is called without a visual prompt is rather difficult. So, as a useful supplement, I maintain lists of items by category, such as "Hair--Female" or "Environments--Interior--Home--Kitchen" with helpful notes like "Skin requires adjustment for excessive grayness" or "Autofits to later generation better". I find that keeping the list in a word processor is better for me than a spreadsheet. Anyway, maintaining the lists occupy some time during dForce simulations or test renders that I make upon first installing content. Better than staring into space or twiddling my thumbs.
I've been working on an external database for some time, trying to find the most user friendly solution. It will have DS integration so you can select a product in the database and with a couple of clicks automatically open that product in the DS Product Library. Here's a demo video showing the basic functionality of the current test build: https://app.screencast.com/JYjweteeureSy
I too have thought of using a database or a spreadsheet for keeping better track of assets. Like many others above, the project never comes to fruition. It’s a lot of what to create what is desired (including images) in such a database or spreadsheet.
Like several others, I have been using a low-key approach for years. Whenever I buy an asset at the DAZ3D store, I
Over the past year or so, I have also been adding additional keywords, as needed, to assets in Daz Studio so that I can search for them better there than just relying on the asset name. So, for example, I may want to find SciFi assets, but some SciFi assets don’t have SciFi in their product name. Searching for key::scifi will let me find those assets that have the scifi keyword. I used this example in particular because some science fiction assets use SciFi in the product name, others use Sci Fi, others use Sci-Fi, and some may not use any of these descriptors in the title.
Wow, loving all of this sharing. Thanks, everyone. Regarding keywords, @jjoyner, is there a way to back those up in case you ever have to move to a new machine or whatnot?
Yes, there is. As a hobbyist/dabbler, I try not to venture too far into topics that get technically heavy very fast unless, I really, really have to. According to @crosswind in September 2023 in the thread, Is there a trick to searching smart content? (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8346366/#Comment_8346366),
Just above her post, Richard Haseltine provides a link to the dated but still sometimes helpful Daz Documentation Center page for the Tags Page which discusses keywords.
A few years ago, I got into the strict habit of backing up several key folders weekly in the event of something strange and/or disastrous happening regarding Daz Studio. On Sundays, I make backup copies of
I have had to use some of these and other backup files to recover from unexpected situations in Daz Studio.
Most recently was last month when I dropped my main Daz Studio content portable drive that contained all of my Daz Studio (and Poser) content. Fortunately, I kept another portable drive as identical to the main content drive as possible so that I was able to recover quickly without having to reinstall all of my content. I had missed backing up a very few assets on the backup drive, but it was easy to only have to reinstall those few items and not thousands. I had to change the drive path in all of my DIM manifest files so that DIM would see the installations, but that was accomplished in one afternoon using the powerful search and replace feature of Notepad++ (free at https://notepad-plus-plus.org).
I would love a drag-and drop program that does what Content Wizard does, looks at the files and does a fair job of sussing out meta for smart content. The reason it would have to be an outside program is because running a script in Daz forces you to work only within the script, you can't interact with your library while that script is running.
Wow! Thanks for this. I've been looking for a list of what to back up, especially so that I don't need to reinstall everything in DIM. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Yeah, as @jjoyner suggested, backing up all those key folders / content on weekly-basis is really a good as well as wise habit. You even can use some software to back them up to cloud or local by setting up background job.
Since I'm a heavy Smart Content user, I'd like to add one more thing: also back up cms database ( %appdata%\DAZ 3D\cms ) if you much rely on Smart Content, just in case... For instance, sth. like "keywords" is pretty useful, but you just need to back up the whole cms cluster folder, then you'll have everything safely kept. When you have a new PC and need to migrate Daz assets as well as cms, you never have to re-import metadata... yada yada, but just need to simply copy / paste the cluster folder from old PC to the new one. Migration can be quickly and neatly done within 5 mins.
As for the OP related to "creating a database...", I just had the experience of that. I ever developed a program to manage Daz products (store + 3rd-parties) with Delphi nearly 4 years ago. But at the end of the day, esp. starting from the time when I used Content Wizard as well as had much better understanding of cms database + Smart Content, I found the program was totally useless... All my need could be met by cms + Smart Content then I thought I should've spent more time on my projects rather than "managing assets". It was not a game like Magic the Gathering, I had to have a software to manage the cards I owned...lol ~~
So still, I personally suggest that not waste your time on developing a database. Instead, learn how to well use Smart Content while focusing on your projects.