Daz Tutorial Daz and disk space.

[Empiric]

Just a few tips for fellow asset hoarders, who might be struggling with space on their drives.

If you are like me, with a smaller SSD, that was initially meant just for few games and software, you'll eventually notice that daz assets can be quite greedy for disk space.
At some point I had to delete old content to make room for new one or pass on great assets with enormous file sizes. But then I realized, I don't really need or use a lot of stuff that comes with the assets, deleted them and saved up around 70 gb and a lot of individual files. (That's like quarter of my SSD)

So what to get rid off? (Least to most complicated)

Content for figures you don't use. (Duh.) :

This is the easiest and most obvious one, especially with hair (and some clothes), they often come with g8f/m and g3f/m version and can be quite large in size. So if you only use g8f/m figures like me, or the other way around, you can go to the hair's data subfolder and delete the one which you do not intent to use.​

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In this example I'd delete the Genesis 3 Female subfolder. I'd do the same in People subfolder.​

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FBMs and FHMs:

If you ever open data subfolder of any hair or clothing, you'll find out that in most cases what's taking up the disk space isn't the asset itself, but adjust/fit/move/blow morphs. Again especially noticeable with hair. What I do is that I delete FBM (body morphs), FHM (head morphs) and adjusts I know I won't use.​

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In this example data subfolder of the hair has 234 MB (after I deleted the G3F subfolder), which is on the lower ends for hair, but still I want to save up as much space, as possible. I'll click through to the subfolder with fit and adjust morphs, as you can see in the picture ordered by file size, the biggest files are fits for head morphs of various daz figures. ​

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I know that I don't use any of those and I only own Victoria 8, but I don't really use her head morph anyway. So I'll delete all of them (easy way to do it without going into the subfolder, if you want to delete all, is to search for *FHM* and *FBM* and delete them that way.)​

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Adjust morphs you generally want to leave for poke throughs of the base of the hair through head (the shit that gives you black lines on forehead, cheeks and neck.) But I also delete the adjust head sides, because I never used them anyway and I usually just use the head size, forehead depth, cheeks and neck.​

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So after deleting those files, the data subfolder went from 234 MB to 68.4 MB. But there are hair, where this saved me up half a GB or more, which is a lot for my 256 SSD that I have DAZ installed on.​

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Deleting material options you don't intent to use:

A little annoying to do, but can also save you a lot of space. Usually I do this with clothing and hair and it's quite tedious and hit or miss, because a lot of the assets are not all that good labeled or sorted, and sometimes when I load the asset after it hits me up with missing files. Especially when one of the material options I don't like is set as default option. I won't go into detail, but with some assets it's quite easy. ​

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Let's say you get a nice clothing asset with a lot of material options and you only intend to use black white and red and nothing else If the textures are well labeled and have other options in name, just delete them from the textures and people subfolder. (don't delete roughness, bump and stuff) ​

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HD options for models:

This is for People with weaker PCs, who don't use HD options that come with the model, or use just the head/body morphs to mix with other models and opt to not use the HD.​

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Here's example. As you can see, the model's morphs don't take almost any space at all. CTRL is control for both head and body morph, FBM is the body morph and FHM is the head morph. So what you might want to do, is just delete the .dhdm file and corresponding .dsf file.​

TIF texture maps:

(This requires some understanding of Surfaces tab and what file goes where, so you know which file you need to insert manually after you delete it.)​

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A bit more complicated step, but useful for someone who hoards a lot of high quality models, but don't do crazy close ups in high details. Converting TIF textures to JPG, especially Normal maps. I use program XnConvert for batch converting (it's also free). And what I do is that I just simply go to the textures subfolder of the model, and if I see any overblown in size TIF image, I convert it to a good old jpeg and delete the TIF files. (I usually do it just for normal maps which are the largest.)​

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You do lose quality, but you save a lot of space and eventually also VRAM memory, when rendering. ​

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Note that DAZ won't recognize the jpeg, when you are loading the material options and will prompt you that the files are missing, simply click it away and then load the files manually in the surfaces and either save it as material preset. What I do is that I save the full hierarchical material preset after I did all the tweaks, changed to eyes I use, applied golden palace textures I use and such. ​

* If you are not sure, better ask before you delete anything important.

 

[p_staker]

This works better when you use something like Content Package Assist to make new lite DIM installable versions.

Daz Install Manager is great for seeing what is taking all of you space and swapping out content that you aren't using.

 

[Empiric]

This works better when you use something like Content Package Assist to make new lite DIM installable versions.

Daz Install Manager is great for seeing what is taking all of you space and swapping out content that you aren't using.

Yeah, I install everything manually, so I just delete everything I don't need before putting it in the library and it's fairly efficient that way.

 

[p_staker]

Yeah, I install everything manually, so I just delete everything I don't need before putting it in the library and it's fairly efficient that way.

Ahhh... Ok.

I like making a DIM because I only have to do it once. Then I can install and uninstall as much as I want without leaving anything behind.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

A bit more complicated step, but useful for someone who hoards a lot of high quality models, but don't do crazy close ups in high details. Converting TIF textures to JPG, especially Normal maps. I use program XnConvert for batch converting (it's also free). And what I do is that I just simply go to the textures subfolder of the model, and if I see any overblown in size TIF image, I convert it to a good old jpeg and delete the TIF files. (I usually do it just for normal maps which are the largest.)

Most Daz 4k normals are around ~300~500 ko jpg?
Maybe I miss something tho.

 

[Empiric]

View attachment 1481465

Most Daz 4k normals are around ~300~500 ko jpg?
Maybe I miss something tho.

I've seen 174 mb eyes iris normal and often I see around 48 mb torso/leg/arm/face normals, which adds up

 

[watdapakisdis]

!WARNING - May fuck up your PC!

If you have your DAZ assets in a regular drive, just use the compact command. I don't recommend using this on an SSD if you have a ton of assets. The performance hit is negligible if you have a decent CPU and RAM. There's a GUI called Compactor if you're not confident in using the command line.

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[RVNSN]

I've seen 174 mb eyes iris normal and often I see around 48 mb torso/leg/arm/face normals, which adds up

Doing something about regaining storage space is a must do for me, as in I need to do something. I've started to make categories, so when I'm done with that I can uninstall more items and it'll be easier to know what I need to reinstall.

Sometimes I make my own image maps for textures, and those can get a bit large. Aside from making images to customize things like clothing, unique t-shirts, surfboards, etc, I will also make my own bump and normal maps to improve final render appearance. These maps can vastly improve the appearance, but they do so at the cost of storage space, and they can make the scene a bit heavier, causing Daz to behave more sluggishly if you take it too far and your computer isn't super fast.

In the following images those custom maps were needed to fix the appearance of the cave wall, particularly how the light reflects off of the wall in the tunnel. But at a cost: the bump map is 37.5 MB, and the normal map is 90.8 MB. In total the custom bump and normal maps I made for this entire scene (interior and exterior) take up 1.73 GB. Note that these images are postwork, so they also include denoising and camera raw adjustments.

 

[Selek]

Yeah, I install everything manually, so I just delete everything I don't need before putting it in the library and it's fairly efficient that way.

In my limited experience with Daz, I've done a lot of manual installation, but it's hard to resist the temptation to auto-install with DIM. Maybe I should resist harder?

Do you find your method helps keep loading times reasonable? Do you ever cut-and-paste stuff in and out of the library onto an external drive, to save space and improve load times?

 

[Empiric]

In my limited experience with Daz, I've done a lot of manual installation, but it's hard to resist the temptation to auto-install with DIM. Maybe I should resist harder?

Do you find your method helps keep loading times reasonable? Do you ever cut-and-paste stuff in and out of the library onto an external drive, to save space and improve load times?

There is a way to reduce loading times of the figures significantly, but it's a bit obnoxious. I just deleted all the morphs and expressions from genesis 8 female figures I knew I wasn't using, but you could also keep the morphs you are using rarely and/or only for creating full character morphs in a separate folder and keep them from loading onto the figures, when you don't need them.

I already discussed it in this thread, if that's any helpful.
https://f95zone.to/threads/splitting-daz-content-across-multiple-drives.98812/post-6893610

And also more in depth here:
https://f95zone.to/threads/excluding-some-morphs-from-loading-by-dafault-in-daz.99335/post-6912027

 

[Empiric]

* realized it's in dev private subforum, here are the basics:

You could technically have two separate DAZ instances, with two separate libraries. One with just morphs, for character creation and one with all the other assets + the necessary morphs you use. I use like 15 full figure morphs I made, expressions on occasion some HD pressure, cellulite, age morphs. So I'd put them in the main daz and rest of morphs in the other one. That way in the main daz instance figures would only load the morphs I often use.
Sounds like a tedious work to separate though. Lucky me I don't hoard morph assets.

Same principle, you go to #:\Users\**\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 8\Female\Morphs folder, everything what's there will load on the figure, what is not, won't. I tried simply putting it in separate folder and dragging it onto the figure, or opening it, daz seems to try, but I won't find the morph on the figure, so I'd assume it has to be loaded with the figure, maybe I'm wrong.
So only solution I'd assume would be to move the ones you don't use, or only use in character creation, to a separate folder and move them back into the morph folder when you need them. it doesn't matter the subfolder name and path, as long as they are in the genesis 8 morph subfolder, so you could to easily make a subfolder named unnecessary to group all the not often use morphs to, move it outside the morph folder and only move it back when you intend to use some of those morphs.
Note that putting them into differently named subfolder than they are in by default will break the one click presets from vendors, so you'll have to manually dial them!


* I'm very much sleep deprived and I probably could've explained it in way less words.

 

[Selek]

Thanks for quoting the posts. I was about to post that I couldn't get to your links, hehe. (I had no idea there was a separate dev forum, but that sounds like a good idea.)

Anyway, those suggestions make sense. It's a shame Daz isn't optimized better so as to avoid these sorts of workarounds. I'm at least as concerned about loading times as disk space, as I'm planning to buy a new PC with much more disk space (and, I hope, a 3090!), and I have several under-used external USB drives sitting around.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply. This is a very useful thread.

 

[Empiric]

Thanks for quoting the posts. I was about to post that I couldn't get to your links, hehe. (I had no idea there was a separate dev forum, but that sounds like a good idea.)

Anyway, those suggestions make sense. It's a shame Daz isn't optimized better so as to avoid these sorts of workarounds. I'm at least as concerned about loading times as disk space, as I'm planning to buy a new PC with much more disk space (and, I hope, a 3090!), and I have several under-used external USB drives sitting around.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply. This is a very useful thread.

Yeah, I'll probably do separate thread for loading times and how to keep daz better organized some time when I'm bored.

 

[Selek]

Yeah, I'll probably do separate thread for loading times and how to keep daz better organized some time when I'm bored.

I look forward to it! Incidentally, I meant to say that I really enjoy "Through Spacetime."

 

[RVNSN]

In my limited experience with Daz, I've done a lot of manual installation, but it's hard to resist the temptation to auto-install with DIM. Maybe I should resist harder?

Do you find your method helps keep loading times reasonable? Do you ever cut-and-paste stuff in and out of the library onto an external drive, to save space and improve load times?

I also have a storage issue, and that's a big reason I install things manually, since DIM leaves extra junk in another location that you have to keep or the asset doesn't work.

Perhaps there is a better way to remove items you have manually installed, but this is the way I know about:

You must be registered to see the links

scroll down to find the instructions

 

[Selek]

I also have a storage issue, and that's a big reason I install things manually, since DIM leaves extra junk in another location that you have to keep or the asset doesn't work.

Perhaps there is a better way to remove items you have manually installed, but this is the way I know about:

You must be registered to see the links

scroll down to find the instructions

Thanks for that link. I read it with interest. Gah, what a hassle.

Ages ago, I did a lot of work with Poser. I don't remember file management being nearly so difficult. But the models don't look as good, alas.

 

[osanaiko]

First up, that's a fantastic post and thankyou for contributing your knowledge to help us out.

TIF texture maps:
(This requires some understanding of Surfaces tab and what file goes where, so you know which file you need to insert manually after you delete it.)A bit more complicated step, but useful for someone who hoards a lot of high quality models, but don't do crazy close ups in high details. Converting TIF textures to JPG, especially Normal maps. I use program XnConvert for batch converting (it's also free). And what I do is that I just simply go to the textures subfolder of the model, and if I see any overblown in size TIF image, I convert it to a good old jpeg and delete the TIF files. (I usually do it just for normal maps which are the largest.)

You do lose quality, but you save a lot of space and eventually also VRAM memory, when rendering.

I'm going to be pedantic about this part: "you save a lot of space ... VRAM memory, when rendering".

This is not true: The Daz render pipeline loads the assets from the on-disc file state (DCT compressed jpg or RLE compressed TIFF) and decompresses them to raw bitmaps in memory. The bitmaps are then compressed by the render library (Iray) using a compression format called "DXT" before loading into the graphics card memory. During the render, the shader programs running on the GPU will decompress textures as needed on the fly inside the GPU memory, but all the bitmaps will never be uncompressed at the same time.

So the compression of the Daz asset files on disk has no bearing on the amount of GPU VRAM used at render time.

The only thing that does help is reducing the dimensions of the textures; this is exactly how "Scene optimizer" works - you can find textures in your scene that are like 4Kx4K (approx 50mb uncompressed) and squish them to 1kx1k (approx 3mb) and get almost identical render quality as long as the surface is not close to the virtual camera.

 

[Empiric]

First up, that's a fantastic post and thankyou for contributing your knowledge to help us out.



I'm going to be pedantic about this part: "you save a lot of space ... VRAM memory, when rendering".

This is not true: The Daz render pipeline loads the assets from the on-disc file state (DCT compressed jpg or RLE compressed TIFF) and decompresses them to raw bitmaps in memory. The bitmaps are then compressed by the render library (Iray) using a compression format called "DXT" before loading into the graphics card memory. During the render, the shader programs running on the GPU will decompress textures as needed on the fly inside the GPU memory, but all the bitmaps will never be uncompressed at the same time.

So the compression of the Daz asset files on disk has no bearing on the amount of GPU VRAM used at render time.

The only thing that does help is reducing the dimensions of the textures; this is exactly how "Scene optimizer" works - you can find textures in your scene that are like 4Kx4K (approx 50mb uncompressed) and squish them to 1kx1k (approx 3mb) and get almost identical render quality as long as the surface is not close to the virtual camera.

Yeah, I figured that might be the case.. I'm still converting them if they are too overblown in size just for the space.

 

[RVNSN]

On the note of texture files, I have a question. First, I had been using png for all of my files, and finally, for the last version converted to jpg (no, I'm not planning to use webp at this time) to (massively) reduce game file size. I make a lot of my own shaders, or customize a lot of them, and as a result, I have a custom textures folder in my daz library that is over 7GB. Have been converting all of those png files to jpg (all or almost all are converted at this point), and trying to go through scenes (subsets, etc) to replace the image maps when I have time to save storage space.

So far, those I have replaced appear to produce matching renders, but is there information contained in the png files that gets read which would not be there in jpgs and thus result in lower quality (whether it's for base, bump, normal, etc)?

 

[Empiric]

On the note of texture files, I have a question. First, I had been using png for all of my files, and finally, for the last version converted to jpg (no, I'm not planning to use webp at this time) to (massively) reduce game file size. I make a lot of my own shaders, or customize a lot of them, and as a result, I have a custom textures folder in my daz library that is over 7GB. Have been converting all of those png files to jpg (all or almost all are converted at this point), and trying to go through scenes (subsets, etc) to replace the image maps when I have time to save storage space.

So far, those I have replaced appear to produce matching renders, but is there information contained in the png files that gets read which would not be there in jpgs and thus result in lower quality (whether it's for base, bump, normal, etc)?

Jpeg doesn't support 16 bit, so you will lose colors, if the png was in 16 bit in the first place.