Metadata Tutorial

Before you do base compatibility do the regular compatibility. In the case of a prop you check the "Custom" checkbox and either take the suggested name for it or use something different. In most cases the Suggested name is enough. Click okay (you only need to check the "Save Custom" box in that dialogue if it has material sets or something with it. Then click on the entry you just made so it is highlighted and the last is to click the base compatibility again. Click "Load" and it should find that .dsf in /data/whatever. And that's basically it.

So basically it looks like you just didn't have the compatibility highlighted when you tried to do the base.

Thanks for the reply MrMechano,

Just to clarify. With 'regular compatibility' you mean filling in the '(custom) compatibility'. Okay, first filling that in makes sense.
I was okay with the suggested name so I clicked 'done' (at that time I had also marked the 'save custom' CheckBox).

Then click on the entry you just made so it is highlighted

Interesting, this might be a problem. I guess you mean by 'entry' the String in the 'Compatibility' TextBox.
I clicked on it so the TextBox has Focus (cursor in the TextBox). Then I click on the Button right to the 'Base Compatibility' TextBox.
The aforementioned popup (or better to say MessageBox) comes up with the "Select compatibility before selecting Base Compatibility".

Maybe I ran into a bug? I am running version 1.0.6.1 (Alpha). If so, than I am sorry if this is a known issue. I might have been better putting my initial post in another thread.

Try using the second compatibility box then after you set the object compatibility uncheck the custom check box
it will move the custom name to the first compatibility box.

Thanks, that worked.

You're welcome. The smart content tab in the 1.0.6.1 is a little tricky for some things. The new smart content tab
in the test build and in the next release is much better.

Ahh. Sorry I read you were using 1.0.6.1 but probably "saw" 1.0.6.2 so my instructions probably made no sense

Klein, you have to think about how the asset is going to be used. Since it is a prop it can be the only thing in the scene and still work. So the compatibility should be left blank. If it will be attached, or parented, by the figure then you would make it compatible with whatever figure it is designed to attach to.

"Base" compatibility is the receiver of the "Object" compatibility. So a figure is a "Base". The skin mat is an "Object" that is compatible with the "Base", so its "Object compatibility" is set to that of the base although it has no "Base compatibility" of its own.

One a similar note..
I have wondered how to make a script show no matter what is selected or not. It seems that just leaving everything blank does not work. You must make it compatible with "Any Object" then it will show if any object is selected but will not if nothing is selected or the scene is empty. Obviously this is not the case with all object , but for the life of me I cant seem to make my scripts show up in a blank scene unless I untick "Filter by context". Anyone have ideas how to do this?

Holy Crap Tigertron!

In three sentences you've explained all that compatibility jargon into something can understand! Care to take a stab at "Scene" and "Preset"? How is a Preset different from a object compatibility? How is a scene different from a prop in terms of how you would organize your content/metadata?

~ Akkaal

Sorry for this late reply Akkaal. I intend to make a tut on my workflow which may help with understanding how DAZ manages the DB and what all the "types" are and how they relate in smart content. In a nutshell it really doesn't matter what "type" you set. It only,as far as I can tell, adds the little badge to the icon and determines if the asset is filtered by the compatibility or not. There is a handy liitle app on shareCG called database tamer that allows you to access the SQL records and look at the guts. It gives a lot of insight into the data. There are also quite a few plugins and apps showing up there now for DIM. So if havent been there go look in the scripts and plugins.

with 1.6 of CDDS I was doing 95% of my work in DAZ then using CDDS to create the package from just the first page since I was having so much trouble with crashes and what not. I'm hoping that the new 2.0 will solve some of my troubles. I'll be checking it out tonight.

If you were having problems with CDDS you should have reported it so I could have looked into it.

I think you were aware of the problems. The crashing when selecting from folder seems to be corrected. I have not had enough time to check 2.0 out full yet but it seems much more stable now

I don't think anyone reported a crash when selecting from a folder. But I think the ones that where giving feedback
was using zip files. However, I did fix a bug I found with files not getting decompressed when loaded from a folder
which may have been related to your crashes. Anyway, I'm glad it works for you now.

I have been unable to get CDDS to create a DIM package zip that DIM will actually recognize at this point. The video is long gone now so could anyone put up a simple step by step?

I do have the content package assist product from DAZ which works great but doesn't create metadata for the smart content.