I posted a Youtube video detailing my first six months using Daz Studio, for anyone who wants to spend an hour and a half listening to that sort of thing. Topics discussed include:

* The Daz Store versus Renderosity
* The NFT [rhymes with "scram"]
* Daz's firewall between vendors and customers
* Content management
* What I have learned and still need to learn
* Technical issues
* The need for standardization
and much more!

https://youtu.be/08UHbpyifw8

Paul

CHMedia has moved this thread from the Community Center forum to the DAZ|Studio forum as of Thursday, April 14, 2022 11:20 am

I watched your video. You seem like a nice enough guy. It seems you're doing quite a lot in very trying circumstances. In terms of power, the laptop battery should give protection against power drops, but you still need an in-line surge protector. It's possible excessive heat killed your SSD. Laptops can be powerful, but they have poor cooling capabilities. There's no space to put large fans or coolers.

Between DIM and Daz Central, DIM has been a no-brainer. No idea what you expect in terms of interface, but it's always been straight-forward, powerful, flexible.Many of us refuse to use Central.

Smart Content is not really that smart, IMO. Many Daz users don't bother with that, either. We use the Content Library to find our files. Some of us physically rearrange our files to organize them. The recommended method is to use the database to arrange the products into categories and products as desired, but that's volatile and we re-arrangers see that as a waste of time.

As far as file arrangement, part of the confusion stems from lingering vestiges of Daz Studio's shared history with Poser. Also, there is some disagreement between vendors and between customers about where all the files should go, how they should be arranged. So what we get generally follows a pattern, but there are always exceptions. As the exceptions may be baked into the resource files, it's on you to know which files can be safely moved and which can break your products when moved.

If you use Save As, you will see Daz has a lot of save options! Scene Subset is particularly useful for clothed, fully-outfitted characters. Outfits and outfit components can be saved as wearables, poses as pose presets, etc. Using Daz, I haven't gone that in-depth with all the save options and how they work, but I think the answers to a lot of what you want are there.

Look up tutorials by SickleYield. She is far and away one of the best, most helpful, most generous, most accessible vendors you'll find in the Daz community or anywhere else. She's on Youtube and DeviantArt.

Speaking of that, DA is one of the best places to share your work with a huge and vibrant Daz community. I highly recommend you set up shop there when possible.

As far as other vendors, RawArt frequently appears in the Commons of Daz forums. He is also on DA. Other vendors also appear in the Commons and especially in the Daz PA Commercial Products forum. When vendors appear, that's their choice. Part of the arrangement between Daz and PAs is that Daz provides the marketing and customer support.

Many of us agree with you about the NFTs and such. It is what it is, and we're stuck with it for now.

I am one of those that refuse to use Daz Central; it sucks.

Yet another case of Daz providing something we (well me at least) don't need. Apparently it was produced as folks found DIM complicated; I have no idea how they plan on using Studio, if DIM is complicated.

DIM is seperate from Studio; does what it says on the tin; and easy to use - at least for anyone used to doing more than watching youtube, facebook and twitter.

I would never recommend a laptop for 3D work; if you're specific circumstances prevent the use of a Desktop (there are two reasons: space is an extreme premium; it MUST be portable), then sure.

It is easy to get more for less; although the issues with graphics cards and their availability have made it less easy, but it is getting better again.

i use DIM and tried Daz Central, would use central again, DIM is very easy to use

Getting old and still making "art" without soiling myself, now that's success.

IAmNobody Special, I'd be interested to see/hear your experience, but in a much briefer format.  I rarely watch any video that lasts over 10 minutes.