Daz Studio 4 Pro ...

I enjoy using Daz Studio, but seems like everytime when I need to, I spent more time on setting things up or figure out why previously saved Daz Studio scene wasn't showing up properly.

The pain mostly came from several things:

• I don't use the application frequently. So I rely on the blogs I wrote to remind myself how to set things work.
• I used differnt content reference among my Daz Studio environment and thus I almost never open a Daz Studio file without some error on the screen.
• There are various version of Daz Studio, from 3, 3 Pro to 4 and now 4 Pro, and older application can't open newer files.

Recently I started to establish this following pattern so that I will have less pain on forward.

• Always install Daz Studio 3 Pro, and try to work the simply scene using it.  That way, since this app is old, I kind of know for sure that more latest version of Daz Studio call always read the file.
• set up the content folder in a consistent way.  I have a standard "Ultimate Poser Vault" folder on my server, and everytime I set up a new Daz Studio environment, I will always copy that whole 19Gb of content form \\My Server\Ultimate Poser Vault\content to my local enviornment.  For Daz Studio 3, it will be "C:\Users\{my account}\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio3\content".  For Daz Studio 4 Pro, it will be "C:\Users\{my account}\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library".  That way I know that loading my files will work WITHOUT making any specific setting at all.

Still there are stuff that can't be opened.  And then I found out of one importnat thing:  I need to make sure that the fiiles in "C:\Users\{user name}\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data"  got copy over.  In fact each version will create a newer folder.  For instance, in this Daz Studio 4.0.2, a folder "C:\Users\{user name}\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\4_0_2" is created, and in order to open the saved file, this folder has to be exist.  So, sigh, that means all my old stuff won't open properly without backing up this folder.

To provent this nightmare from happening, I am need to set up a SyncToy to make sure that everytime I save something from the Daz Studio 3 Pro and Daz Studio 4 Pro, I also use SyncToy to sync these content to the server, and I also need to remind myself to BACKUP the content on the "Ultimate Poser Content" folder on the server.  Damn you Daz Studio.

Daz Studio 4 Pro introduce a new challneg because it seems to move things around.  Like, I can't find any of my items under "Actors, Wardrobe & Props".  Turns out that area is for new contents.  For my old stuff, I should look at the right side of the screen, select Content Library, choose "Search" and the bottom, enter item that I want to serach, click the manify glass.  Boom, ny content shows up.
  Not the end of the world.  And good enough for my way of simple us of the application.