Quote - If there is no metadata then how do I use the stuff from here?

I organize all my content in the content tab using Categories. Metadata creates categories and product information for you, but I create my own categories in my own top level category. I use my own top level category so that DAZ Metadata will never mess with my categories.

I ogranize all my content into an organization that makes sense to me. I have thousands of products from DAZ, Renderosity, RuntimeDNA, and various other sites. When I'm looking for something, I can usually find things quickly.

The search in the DAZ content tab is also sometimes useful for finding things.

Older products from the DAZ store do not have metadata and do not appear in Smart Content. All products purchased from 3rd party stores like Renderosity do not have metadata and will not appear in Smart Content.

I stopped using Smart Content and switched to use the Content panel for almost everything. Smart Content is useful when you are first getting started, but it is not smart enough to really be useful once you have a large number of products.  If you have G2F figure and are looking for clothes for her, Smart Content will only show you G2F clothes. Genesis clothes will also auto fit to G2F, but smart content won't show you these items.  If you have V4 for G2F, then V4 clothese will autofit to G2F. Again smart content will not show you the V4 itemes.

There probably is some error message in the log file about some shader parameter missing. When you do a render DAZ compiles the shaders needed for your design to prepare them for 3Delight. There appears to be some bug with the AoA shader and DAZ not recompiling the shader when it should be. 

If you are on a PC, you can go to the directory:

C:/Users//AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4/temp/shaders/brickyard

Delete all the files in that directory and re-render.

If that does not work then save the scene, exist DAZ Studio. Use the task manager to make sure the DAZ Studio process has exited. Then load the scene up again and re-render.

Usually deleting the files in the brickyard directory works for me.

I have used V4 poses on G2F.  They work fairly well. There is a product in the DAZ store called Handy Dandy by Slosh. It has presets to fix G2F hand and foot poses after you use a V4 pose on G2F. With those fixes V4 poses work fairly well on G2F. You will still need to make some minor adjustments, but that is always true of poses.

The Victoria 6 HD promo image was probably rendered in DAZ Studio.  The difference between the professional promo image and your render is posing and lighting.

This is also true of photograph. When you hire a professional photographer, yeah he has a better camera and lenses than your phone or pocket camera, but the big difference is he understands posing and how to use or create lighting. If you had his camera and lenes, you would still take boring pictures.

It is the same thing with 3D rendering. You need to learn how to do posing and lighting. There are various tutorials out there on lighting in DAZ Studio, but the technology has changed a lot in the last few years.

DAZ Studio comes with the uberenviroment light for global illumination, the standard distant, point, linear point and spot lights. Also the UberArea lights come with DAZ.

Recently a lot of people are using the Advanced lights from Age of Armour. The Advanced Ambient light can provide global illumination or can simulate indirect lighting and it usually renders faster than UberEnviroment ligts. The main advantage of the advanced distant and spot lights are faster render times, but you have to know a lot about lighting to understand how to use them and get that benefit.

I also use the InaneGlory Photo Studio - Point and Shoot 2 a lot. It gives you lights that are similar to those used by proffessional photographers in a photo studio.

The thing to keep in mind is buying all those light sets is NOT going to magically improve you renders. You need to learn how to do lighting.  Learn the basics 3 point lighting. Learn how to create dramatic lighting. You can do all that with the lights that come free with DAZ Studio.

Notice the promo image lighting. The far side of the body and face is brightly lite up while the near side had normal lighting levels with very soft shadows. This kind of rim lighting makes for dramatic images. Your image has much flatter, more uniform, lighting which makes it less interesting.

It takes practice and study to learn to do renders approaching the quality of the proffessional promo renders DAZ does.

Quote - Ignore manelystanley on issues about DIM and CMS, there is nothing evil or nefarious about either.

I agree. Don't be frightened about DIM or CMS.  I have been using both with little problems.

I view DIM as a huge improvement.  It makes purchasing and installing new products much easier.  DAZ also regularly sends out updates to fix issues with products. I get several updates per week. Some weeks it is 10 or more. (I have a lot of DAZ products.)  Many of these updates are for new products that were recently released, but some are for older products.  People who are not using DIM generally don't find out about these update.

CMS has been using a data base that requires a data base service to run on your computer at all times. There have been problems with this data base getting corrupted occasionally. DAZ is now transitioning over to use a PostgreSQL data base that does not require a server process. When you start DAZ Studio or DIM, the PostgreSQL data base will start. It is hoped that the PostgreSQL data base will be more reliable, but all data bases can get corrupted.  If your data base gets corrupted, you just have to reset it and re-import all the metal data to rebuild it. If you have created your own categories to organize your data as I have, then you have to remember to dump the user meta data regularily so it can be restored along with the product metadata. 

I have been creating my own categories for the last 2 years or so. In that time my data base got corrupted once.  I just rebuilt it from the meta data and the user data I had saved. Anoying, but not a big deal. If you don't create your own categories, you don't need to worry about saving the user data.

CMS is usually connected with Smart Content. I hardly ever use Smart Content, but I think it is useful when you first start using DAZ Studio.  You will need to learn how to use the Content tab and find products that do not have Smart Content, like all the products sold in this store or any store other than DAZ. Even in the DAZ store, most of the old V4/M4 products do not have Smart Content. 

As to your original problem with not being able to find the characters and other content, DAZ Studio comes with the Genesis, Genesis 2 Female and Genesis 2 Male characters, along with a few clothes, hair, and sets. Those are separate free products that you have to download and install. If you are using DIM, it should have offered to download and install them. 

If you downloaded and installed them, and still cannot see them in DAZ Studio, then maybe the DAZ Studio libraries are not setup in the same place DIM is installing.

Recently DIM has been getting disconnected from the DAZ server frequently while I'm downloading a alot of products. I think this is because of my flakey internet connection (I know it is flakey because other applications get disconnected all the time too.)  DIM could be made more falt tolerant to just automatically reconnect.

If you are new to 3D and/or DAZ Studio, I would not purchase products that say "not tested in DAZ Studio".

As others have commented, many of these products will work in DAZ Studio or will work but the materials need adjusting for good results in DAZ Studio. Figuring out if a product will work in DAZ Studio is not something for beginners. Adjusting materials to work in DAZ Studio is not something for beginners. 

I would concentrate on learning 3D and DAZ Studio using content that designed to supports DAZ Studio. After you are more familar with material settings (the surface panel in DAZ Studio) you can look at some products that are not tested in DAZ Studio. By the way, you need to learn how to adjust materials to get the best renders in DAZ Studio, but this is not the first thing you need to learn.

Quote - Been trying to use "Dawn" character and several bits for her downloaded from hivewire also a couple of bits for Genesis2 from here...Complete list of figures I have - Victoria4.2, Genesis, Genesis2

Vendors who sell Genesis2 products here usually package there products similar to the way Dawn is packaged. There will usually be a DAZ zip, sometimes there will be more than one DAZ zip. Sometimes the textures are put in the DAZ zip. Sometimes the textures are in a file that can be used in both DS and Poser.

If there are DSON zips, you don't need those and should not install them. Those are for Poser.

The DAZ zips may be like the Dawn zip with top level 'data', 'People', 'Runtime' directories, or they may have top level directories 'Content' or 'My Library' under which you will find the 'data', 'People', .... directories.

Quote - Been trying to use "Dawn" character and several bits for her downloaded from hivewire also a couple of bits for Genesis2 from here...Complete list of figures I have - Victoria4.2, Genesis, Genesis2

I believe to install the Dawn character in DAZ Studio, you need to download the zip files named "DAZ Studio Files - Main ZIP" and "DAZ Studio & Poser Files - Main Textures".

In the zip file "10001-dawn-sr1-ds.zip" you will find directories:

data

People

ReadMes

Runtime

Templates

The folders "data", "People" and "Runtime" need to be merged with the directories of the same name in your "My Library" or "My DAZ3d Library" directories.  The "ReadMes" and "Templates" directories are not really needed, but it would be harmless to copy or merge them under "My Libary".

In the zip file "10001-dawn-sr1-textures-ds_psr.zip" you will find directories:

ReadMes

Runtime

The directory "Runtime" needs to be merged with the directory of the same name under "My Library" or "My DAZ3D Library".  You can merge the "ReadMes" directory too, but it may contain duplicate content to the "ReadMes" from the other zip file.

There is "Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female" which includes a auto fit clone.

As far as I know there are no autofit clones for Gen3 characters for Genesis 2, like there are for Genesis 1.

You might be able to autofit to Genesis 1 and then save it as a Genesis 1 clothing, which you could then auto fit to Genesis 2, but I am not sure that would really work and have never tried anything like that.

I just select the geocrafted genetalia and apply the default mat preset to it. This will apply all the same surface settings as the hip zone.

Poser was first released in 1995 and has changed hands several times before ending up with Smith Micro.  DAZ got its start selling content for Poser.  Sometime in the mid 00s DAZ apparently became worried about the future of Poser. There apparently were questions of whether the company that currently owned it would continue to develop it. DAZ was totally depend upon Poser for their sales.

In 2005 DAZ acquired Eovia, which owned Carrara and Hexagon. It was also in 2005 that DAZ released version 1.0 of DAZ Studio. This was apparently an insurance policy against Poser disappearing from the market.

Poser was eventually bought by Smith Micro and they have done a good job of enhancing and supporting Poser.  There is now little danger of Poser disapearing.

DAZ has gone ahead with developing DAZ Studio anyway. DAZ Studio was not always free. I believe early on there was a free version and not free Pro version. For the last few years DAZ has made the Pro version free, so there is no longer a non-Pro version. DAZ could go back to charging something for DAZ Studio in the future. Time will tell.

When DAZ developed Genesis (1) they were using several new bits of technology, like weight mapping, that were not available in Poser. They enhanced DS to have weight mapping. Smith Micro also added weight mapping support into Poser, but the two implementations of weight mapping are incompabible.  DAZ chose to support Genesis in Poser by creating the DSON library that adds support for DAZ weight mapping in Poser.  This means that Genesis clothes will interoperate betwen DS and Poser aside from materials.

The developers of Dawn at Hivewire picked a different technique. Dawn is one shape between DS and Poser, but Dawn uses Poser native weight mapping in Poser and DAZ native weight mapping in DS.  For Victoria 4.2 there is one figure that works in DS and Poser.  For Genesis there is one figure that operates in DS and in Poser through the DSON importer (note: many Poser users are distatisfied with the DSON importer because of bugs or performance). For Dawn, the Poser and DS version are really different figures.

The lack of a auto fit for Dawn in DAZ Studio is because DAZ owns the copyright on the Victoria 4.2 shape. Hivewire cannot create a Victoria 4.2 autofit clone without using that shape. If you own Victoria 4.2, you can create a auto fit clone for your personal use, but you cannot sell it. DAZ also cannot make a Dawn auto fit clone for Genesis, because Hivewire owns the Dawn shape.

Users of DS already have access to weight mapped figures in Genesis 1/2. There is a weight mapped Victoria 4.2 addon that uses native Poser weight mapping and does not work in DS. It is available free at RuntimeDNA, but has never taken off.  Dawn was an attempt to provide a character that supports native weight mapping technology in DS and Poser.  The result is a character that is less compatible between DS and Poser than either Victoria 4.2 or Genesis as far a clothes. PA have to do two versions of clothing, one for Poser and one for DS, as well as different materials for Poser and DS.  Hivewire encourages PAs to do both Poser and DS versions, but in the end PAs will do what is in their financial interest.

I helped crash the Hivewire site the night Dawn was released (Hivewire site actually crashed when I submitted my order. I never got the confirmation page, but the order had gone through when the site came back up.)  I bought most of the Dawn clothing I could find in the early days that would work in DS. Even then much of clothing was Poser only.  I did try to create a V4 auto fit clone. Never got it perfect, but that was before the tutorial.

I gave up on Dawn not because of a lack of clothes, but because I was just not happy about her renders. That is a completely personal judgement, but I decided to concentrate on Genesis 2, because I was happier with the results.

As others have indicated the Dawn figure is available at Hivewire3d.

Dawn is not a figure from the Victoria 4 or Genesis 1/2 families. Dawn is a completely new figure.

Dawn is weight mapped similar to Genesis 1/2, but Dawn uses DAZ Studio native weight mapping in DAZ Studio and Poser native weight mapping in poser. The result is that clothing for Dawn is not compatible between DAZ Studio and Poser. The differences go deeper than just material settings. 

Many Dawn products are available in both DAZ Studio and Poser versions, but some are only available for Poser.

Victoria 4 and Genesis 1/2 clothing will not directly work on Dawn. Some people have created a V4 clone for Dawn in DAZ Studio that allows you to autofit Victoria 4 clothes to Dawn. Unforntuately, because of copyrights, this clone cannot be sold commericially.There is a tutorial someplace on how to create the V4 clone.

Quote - Can can g2f use Genesis 1 female characters and morphs? Likewise, can g2m use Genesis 1 male characters and morphs? That would make switching to DAZ Studio for the new models a lot more attractive to me.

Both Genesis 1 and 2 can be used at the same time in DAZ Studio, so you don't have to convert Genesis 1 characters to Genesis 2.

If you decide to convert your Genesis 1 characters, you will need to have the correct UV support for Genesis 2. A lot of Genesis 1 characters used the V4/M4 UVs. You get those in the products:

Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female

Michael 4 for Genesis 2 Male

If the skin uses V5/M5 UVs, those are natively supported on the default Genesis 2.

If the skin uses one of the UVs S5, A5, F5, H5 or D5, then there are newly released support for those UVs in:

Generation 5 UV Bundle for Genesis 2 Female(s)

Generation 5 UV Bundle for Genesis 2 Male(s)

The DAZ store unforunately does not give you any information about what UV a character uses. The only way to know for sure is load the skin on Genesis 1 and find the UV property in the Surface pane or ask in the forums if someone knows what UV a given character users.

As for morphs, ie character shapes, you can translate them using

Genesis Generation X2

GenX2 AddOn for Genesis 2

You can also transfer V4/M4 characters to Genesis 1 or 2 using GenX2.

The DAZ site frequently gives errors at around midnight Mountain time, when they updating the site with new products being released the next day.

The DAZ site also goes down from time to time, like any other web site.