I have just started using Daz Studio (2 days) and managed to get the items I've accumulated from the Daz site into the Content library via their cloud install. My problem is getting things from Renderosity and ShargeCG into the Studio Library. I followed (or thought I did) Jenny's instructions on putting the unzipped folders into the DS Library, (see screenshot below) but now I don't know how to get them to show up in the opened Daz application. Is there a step I need to do, or just close and reopen, or did I not do the transfer correctly? Any help will be appreciated. I'm using a Mac Pro with 10.11.6, am a former blond and am having a MAJOR senior moment over this. Just wanted you to know what you are dealing with. Speak slowly and use small words, please. Thanks!

Ouch. Well for starters, those should all be in "My Library", not "My Daz Connect Library", that one is for content downloaded by Connect.

The other problem is that you left all the content you are trying to install under the original unzipped folder names. If you look under each of those you will probably see subdirectories called "data", "people", "props" and one called "runtime". You aren't seeing "runtime" under "My DAZ connect Library" since it is a leftover from Poser. Many vendors still stick there textures under there. Any case, all these "data" folders need to be in the base level of "My Library" to work properly.

I'd suggest moving all the folders under TruForm, etc down one level, and put them in My Library.

Note: You will still only be able to find them in the content manager, not under smart content because they probably did not come with metadata information for the database to make them smartcontent.

Thank you for the quick response. When I transfer the items in the folders, do I make one data folder and put everything in it or rename each data folder with a 1, 2 etc., added to it? One of them nests this way: Data/DAZ3D/Gen3/female/morph/Anagord/ANmorphs/(all .dsf files). Another just starts with AllenArt/bezel set rings/(etc.). What do I do with the People and Runtime? Sorry to be a pain, but I REALLY don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Agree with diogenese, there should only be one data folder, one runtime folder, etc. Those folders will contain subfolders which are specifically created by the vendor to easily identify their products. Do not rename any core folders, this can break DAZStudio and subsequently 'lose' your content within the application, never to be seen in the library.

I never did agree with those install instructions simply because DAZ Install Manager (DIM) uses a different core folder for content called My Daz content Library. This is my preferred location for all other non-DAZ content.

GrandmaT, with the exception of the files in /data and /runtime/textures and /runtime/geometry, pretty much everything else is scripts to load the contents of those directories into the scene. So it is imperative that you do not change those three folder names or move stuff around in them because the program uses relative paths to find them. If you move those around or rename them you will get an unending string of "file not found" messages. As long as you are not using smartcontent which depends on database entries, you can move pretty much everything else anywhere you desire, and I usually do. The "/data" directory is essentially DAZ's version of the two runtime folders I mentioned in that it has all the geometry files and texture files in it (as well as other things like morphs).

So in the root of MyLibrary (or whatever else you have pointed to as a DAZ library) you should have exactly one /data and one /runtime, and any content you have with those folder names should be merged into those folders. If you have a /data or /runtime at any other level in the directory structure, it will not operate properly.

Poser Native content has a few more rules, I don't want to complicate things for you at the moment, but all the poser scripts are at the /runtime/library/(one of six subfolders) level. Moving those outside of that structure renders poser files unusable in DAZ

Thanks! I managed to get everything transferred and most of it works. I'll have to play around with some of them to see why they aren't showing up, but for the most part, I'm one step closer to figuring out what I'm doing. I really appreciate both of you being so patient and taking the time to answer.

I use the Content Package Assist product to convert ZIP files to the kind of ZIP files that are installed by Install Manager. It works pretty well.

However, there are some products on Renderosity (SWAM hair, City_145058, etc) where all the DS4 files are placed under a "My Library" folder in the ZIP. I wish they would not do this! When I try to load a product, I get a lot of missing files warnings from DAZ and basically the file doesn't load.

I can fix them by unzipping, moving the files out of the "My Library" folder, rezipping, and then using the new zip in Content Package Assist. However, usually I have already installed the products through Daz Install Manager, so I also have to do an uninstall and a re-install.

Does Renderosity advance some kind of Best Practices for file layout to its artists? Please don't put DAZ files into a My Library folder in the ZIP!