This article explains how to manually install Daz3d content step by step. You will learn how to download and install content manually for the Daz3D Studio software. More often than not, users from all levels face some difficulties installing content in this way. But no worries, this tutorial shows you how to install third party purchases as well as items from the official Daz Marketplace.
As requirement for the following steps you need to have Daz Studio installed. In case you haven’t installed it yet, checkout out our article about Daz Install Manager DIM vs DazCentral vs Daz3d Manual Install.
- CLOとは、CLO Virtual Fashion Inc.が提供しているアパレル向けの3DCADツールです。2Dのパターン（洋服の型紙）をもとに、パソコンの画面内で、3Dモデルデータへの着装シミュレーションを行うことができ、トワルやサンプルなど物理的に作成することなく洋服のシルエットや着装感を確認する.
- Use of this plugin does not in any way change the rights granted to you in the End User License Agreement from Daz 3D. Please refer to the Daz 3D EULA to review such rights, which at the time of this publication includes 3D printing for personal, non-commercial use. This product does require a serial number.
Download Your 3d Content
As always, first things first, we need to download the content. I will download Vianne for Victoria 6 since it was part of daz freebies this week, but you can also purchased content from other stores or browse for additional freebies here.
For content purchased from Daz3d you can find the download link in your account’s “Product Library” or “Orders” section.
Daz 3d How to Manually Install Content The daz 3d install manager automatically installs content for you that you have downloaded via the the daz 3d website. This makes installation of official DAZ content a breeze, but what about the multitude of third party content out there? At first this may seem rather confusing but Daz 3D How to Manually Install Content Read More ».
When downloading content, you will either receive your files in formats .rar or .zip, so make sure that you have the right software to open and extract your content. Having said that, we should create a new folder and extract all your files from the zip there. It should look something like this:
In this case we have three elements extracted. Two ReadMe files and the folder with the content we will later be installing. In general, the text files refer to instructions and information on using the content. For now we will center our attention in the folder named “Content”, double click and we find these subfolders.
Now, pay attention to this! Almost always we will find one of the folders to be “Runtime” and some other folders such as “Data” and “People” in this case. The content for now is not important, although since we will copy our files from here, whenever we come up with the famous folder named “Runtime” we should make a stop.
As said, our next step will be to copy these folders into the Daz Library directory.
Install Your Daz Content Manually
The directory of the Daz Library is usually on Windows in DocumentsDAZ3DStudioMyLibrary
We will find inside many folders such as “People” “Presets” “Scenes” etc., and probably one of them named “Runtime”. Now we will copy from our old “Content” folders all three elements (in other cases they could be more than three folders, copy all of them), including “Runtime” and paste in our recent directory.
Whether you are asked if you want to merge the data with the existing folder we will always choose to merge. We want to keep the old and the new data together.
Locate Your Manually Installed Daz Content
Once we copied and pasted our data we are at the final step of how to manually install Daz3d content. We are ready to open the Daz Studio to locate our files in the software.
Daz 3d Manual Install Machine
On the left panel, we click on the Content Library tab, and we locate the path of our file. The folder we are looking for is “My Library”, and since the content that we installed was Vianne for Victoria 6, we will find it in the People/Genesis 2 Female/Characters/ directory.
Remember that for every other product such as morphs or even plugins, you should follow the same steps. First extract your files in a new folder, find the subfolders often one of them being “Runtime” and copy from the location all these files to /My Library.
And we are done!
Lessons learned: How to Manually Install Daz3d Content
This article hopefully answered How to Manually Install Daz3d Content for you. Manual installation is something to pay attention to, but hopefully with the help of this guide it should be no challenge. In a few simple steps, we have shown how easy it is to import your new data. This is a great advantage if you want to step up with additional third-party products in your Daz Studio. After all, open doors to rich creations!
PS: You can find the figure 3d model used on top of this article here.
Prior to the advent of the DAZ Install Manager now known to many now simply as DIM, all content had to be installed manually using an executable file or zip file.
When you had a few to a lot of content to install it was a laborious task that took ages. Not only did you need to execute the install program, you needed to know where to put the content properly so that everything worked as it should.
Zip files were (and are) even worse on a Mac as there is no native merge directory utility as there is with the modern versions of MS Windows.
Then along came DIM a godsend to most, easy straight forward to use. Content went into the correct place and the world was all warm and fuzzy. That is until it does exactly the opposite and causes applications to not work properly, as was the case in a previous blog post where it actually killed the CMS database. Well, not intentionally, but it does have some quirks that are well worth noting.
Daz 3d Manual Install Mac Software
1. It will only allow content to be installed in a “Shared” directory/folder notably (on an OS X system) “/users/Shared/My DAZ 3D Library”, you cannot at the time of this writing nominate any other folder of your choosing. This in itself is not a huge problem, just annoying.
2. Originally DIM would only allow you to download and install content (and updates) purchased from the DAZ Store, and was very good at it saving a lot of time and frustration. All good. Now it would seem the newer version also finds, downloads and wants to install DAZ applications as well. I found this out the hard way.
3. Although relatively easy to use it is not very intuitive and in most areas I found out how to use it by trial and error. Not very spectacular when installing content, or more importantly not installing for reasons that will become apparent shortly.
I don’t know why DAZ in their wisdom decided to include applications like DAZ3D Studio 4.6 Pro 32 bit for Mac as well as the 64 bit version. As they are not compatible on the same machine. They also use the same CMS service and databases. In my case I was not really paying attention to list of available downloads and just thought it was the content I had purchased along with a few content updates, so I hit the GO button. Only to find that to my horror DIM was reinstalling DAZ3D Studio 4.6 Pro 64bit and the 32bit version as well.
That is what killed or corrupted my CMS content database.
Yes I hear you say, “but you can remove unwanted downloads and hide them so they don’t install”. Quite right, I agree. But only if you know what you are doing and are paying 100% attention! Even then they reappear next time you run DIM anyway. Grrrr……
The long and the short of it all is this, use DIM it is excellent, but bear in mind you have to pay attention to what is in the list in front of you.
I much prefer to use DIM for purchased content download and installation, but manually download Applications, Plugins etc from my account page then install them myself.
Daz 3d Manual Install Mac Pro
Anyway I hope this helps, just my 5 cents worth.