Don't know how I missed this earlier...it's quite interesting it's actually set up as an extra section in the Content manager. I didn't realise that. So you could totally ignore it and it shouldn't mess with your other settings at all.
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Upgrading to Version 4.9 Pros and Cons...or any other version you want to talk about.
- Thread starter Pendraia
- Start date
This seems as good a place to ask as any.
What exactly is supposed to be so smart about smart content?
I've never used it, never looked for it, wouldn't know where to find it if I decided to. What is the supposed advantage?
Bit of background: I currently have my content installed (Manually installed. I have never used DIM, and was vastly relieved when DAZ finally retired the old Bitrock installers) on an external content library disk. I've got it split up into several dozen separate libraries by my own categorization. I have both the DS files and the Poser runtimes installed together in the individual libraries and enter the libraries twice in the content manager, once for Studio and once for Poser.
I've reached the point that one of my upcoming projects is going to be a bit of re-org, and that's likely to be ongoing for a matter of months, since I don't think I'm going to be doing it all in one long slog. I've found that Studio can find the matt pose files in a subfolder inside the main figures folder and maybe the props folder, so I expect to be moving a lot of those out of the Pose library and save myself having to go there to hunt for them when I want to use a different texture set. I also need to shift a few things around that have been either misfiled, or that I would probably be more likely to want to reclassify.
What exactly is supposed to be so smart about smart content?
I've never used it, never looked for it, wouldn't know where to find it if I decided to. What is the supposed advantage?
Bit of background: I currently have my content installed (Manually installed. I have never used DIM, and was vastly relieved when DAZ finally retired the old Bitrock installers) on an external content library disk. I've got it split up into several dozen separate libraries by my own categorization. I have both the DS files and the Poser runtimes installed together in the individual libraries and enter the libraries twice in the content manager, once for Studio and once for Poser.
I've reached the point that one of my upcoming projects is going to be a bit of re-org, and that's likely to be ongoing for a matter of months, since I don't think I'm going to be doing it all in one long slog. I've found that Studio can find the matt pose files in a subfolder inside the main figures folder and maybe the props folder, so I expect to be moving a lot of those out of the Pose library and save myself having to go there to hunt for them when I want to use a different texture set. I also need to shift a few things around that have been either misfiled, or that I would probably be more likely to want to reclassify.
Lorraine
The Wicked Witch of the North
This is the best thing I ever did. All my textures are now inside the item folder and I no longer forget I've got them. Plus poses are now with figures, props and figures of a scene or outfit are together, everything is together! I like together
Can't help you with why smart is smart as don't use it. I have stuck with my highly organised and easy to find stuff content library. And I use an external database called Everything if I do need to find something. It's brilliant and FREE. My favourite word
Lissa_xyz
I break polygons.
From what I understand about smart content, is if you select a figure, it'll show you clothing compatible with that figure, select clothing in the scene, it'll show you materials only compatible with that clothing, etc. Which means the item has to be marked for compatibility in the metadata. If you have say a V4 item, that's not marked as being compatible for G2F, it won't come up if G2F is the selected figure.
I'm not sure how it works for things like shaders that are usable on anything. Those may be exempt from the rule and show up regardless.
Only thing I can suggest is try it and see. I only used it a few years back when I first started actively using Daz, before I switched to using the content library, so my understanding could be quite outdated.
I'm not sure how it works for things like shaders that are usable on anything. Those may be exempt from the rule and show up regardless.
Only thing I can suggest is try it and see. I only used it a few years back when I first started actively using Daz, before I switched to using the content library, so my understanding could be quite outdated.
That's my understanding of it also Vaskania...the earlier versions didn't work very well though and it has supposed to be improved in 4.9.
Personally I love using the categories I not only have materials and anything related to an item in the same folder but I can also have an instance of the item wherever I want it. I'm still organising some stuff for example I want furnishings of a particular style in with the interiors of the same style and I also have a folder with all the furniture together. Can't do that just organising the folders without taking more memory.
Personally I love using the categories I not only have materials and anything related to an item in the same folder but I can also have an instance of the item wherever I want it. I'm still organising some stuff for example I want furnishings of a particular style in with the interiors of the same style and I also have a folder with all the furniture together. Can't do that just organising the folders without taking more memory.
AllenArt
Eager
I'm late to the party, I know . I don't notice any difference between 4.8 and 4.9...other than that I crash DS a lot less in 4.9 LOL. Since I'm still relatively new to DS (less than a year) I don't use categories or anything...I just let the DIM put it where it wants. I likely will get to categorizing my things tho since I still have a tough time finding things in DS.
Laurie
. I don't notice any difference between 4.8 and 4.9...other than that I crash DS a lot less in 4.9 LOL. Since I'm still relatively new to DS (less than a year) I don't use categories or anything...I just let the DIM put it where it wants. I likely will get to categorizing my things tho since I still have a tough time finding things in DS.Laurie
Mivan
Admirable
I've had one system lockup on 4.9 when I tried to install elf ears on genesis. It required a reboot to clear. Other than that it seems OK except the search function is slow and slightly dysfunctional. On a more positive note my copy of Poser 7 arrived from Calipornia and seems to be in nearly new condition. It installed in good time and as soon as I have physically moved my equipment to a higher stand up only desk I will be once again delving into the mysterious realm of Poser.
I love DS 4.9.10. I gave up trying to make any use of the Smart Content pane since the Hivewire stuff is all relocated under Local User, which is bunk but it's what DAZ deemed proper since these are non DAZ products. Other than that I'm loving the new setup. Not horribly different so don't worry too much about that. There were some needed corrections made to the iRay engine that are pretty minor but improvements nonetheless.
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Are we allowed to link to other sites tutorials? If not, please remove. This is how you do it (If I wasn't so lazy, I'd do this for all my HW stuff )
Metadata tutorial - Adding new items to your smart content
I do use Smart Content for a lot of items (for example, I find it easy to select materials or poses for a particular model) especially when I've lost all the categories I manually set up and I'm in a hurry and I've been too lazy to set up the cats again.
)Metadata tutorial - Adding new items to your smart content
I do use Smart Content for a lot of items (for example, I find it easy to select materials or poses for a particular model) especially when I've lost all the categories I manually set up and I'm in a hurry and I've been too lazy to set up the cats again
.
Jay Versluis
Admirable
I've upgraded to 4.9 on my MacBook before attempting it on my desktop system (also a Mac). Although the upgrade went smoothly and DS works fine, Carrara now doesn't see Smart Content anymore (worked fine before). Oddly enough, DS can see it just fine. I'm guessing it has to do with the switch to PostgreSQL which I didn't do until now.
In a nutshell, the upgrade didn't work so well for me and I'll stick with 4.8 on my desktop for now. I'm neither interested in DAZ Connect nor am I a big fan of Iray due to increased render times.
As for the warning to make a backup of the database... if only DAZ would tell us how to do it, and how to restore such a backup in case things go wrong. We're creatives, not IT professionals!
In a nutshell, the upgrade didn't work so well for me and I'll stick with 4.8 on my desktop for now. I'm neither interested in DAZ Connect nor am I a big fan of Iray due to increased render times.
As for the warning to make a backup of the database... if only DAZ would tell us how to do it, and how to restore such a backup in case things go wrong. We're creatives, not IT professionals!
Well, speaking as an IT professional, I always felt DS might make more sense to me if I knew nothing about computers
. That being said I just opened DS 4.9 for the first time today after a month or so, and started looking up some tutorials. The ones on Daz's site were all wrong, or at least nothing was were it said it would be. Either the option I wanted wasn't in the place it said it would be, and I had to hunt through menus to find it, or it was in the place it said it would be, but was called something else. Luckily I'm sure if I start beating my head against a wall, I know there are people here who'll at least get me a pillow.