objects & scenes

# 1 07-01-2011 , 11:41 AM

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Hopefully this will make sense --

I'm creating a number of buildings in a street scene; for each new building, so that I can concentrate on that one object, I'm going file>new scene, creating the building (just a few boxes really), then exporting it into my main street 'scene'

thing is I'm ending up with a load of 'scenes' in the project directory - is there a better system for creating objects for a scene, without them being 'scenes' in their own right? :S

I've thought of layers, but wondered if it's more efficient to keep my modelling and final 'scenes' separate..

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# 2 07-01-2011 , 12:16 PM

The Nurb Herd
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why not just make two new folders in the scene folder. one called "buildings" and one called "street".

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# 3 07-01-2011 , 12:58 PM

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i could do, but after being shown about setting a project folder and the default folders Maya creates, with folders for source images, assets etc. I imagined there'd be a distinction between scenes and objects within it.
Also, I was told to make sure that my images for camera image planes are in the right folder or Maya won't find them, so I assumed it was a little picky about what's where and in what folder.

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# 4 07-01-2011 , 02:04 PM

The Nurb Herd
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nah, not overly picky imo. textures in sourceimages, scenes in scenes. I don't think it matters what sub dirs there are.
As long as you know where things are, or work with people who have a structure set up which you follow. what does it matter where you save things?

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# 5 07-01-2011 , 08:30 PM

EduSciVis-er
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You could export as .obj which can go in a "data" folder, but I think what dom said is right, just create a subfolder. Maya will look in the scenes folder first for scenes, but there's nothing stopping you from stepping down into subfolders. Maya can be picky, but it's usually just where it looks first for different things.

-stwert

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# 6 15-01-2011 , 08:18 PM

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hm, well you're right about it not being picky coz my project folder is a mess but everythings still working...
i think it's more that i'm having trouble knowing exactly where I need to set the project folder. say i've created a street scene with vehicles (which i haven't, but lets pretend..) i've made a subfolder for 'street' and one for 'cars'. when working on the cars i've pointed the project 'set' folder at the 'cars' folder, and i think i'm right in assuming it's created all the subfolders in there again, including another 'scenes' folder.
then, sometimes I've saved to 'cars' and sometimes cars>scenes wich has led to some confusion.
I'm a bit concerned when I get round to applying textures etc. i'm not going to know whats where...i guess it's just a case of developing a workflow

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# 7 16-01-2011 , 12:14 AM

EduSciVis-er
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I wouldn't create sub-"projects"... keep everything in one project in one maya project. You can make subfolders in the scenes folder, and subfolders in the textures folder, but don't change the project for different parts, so you have to "set project". Hope that helps.

Edit: Maybe I misunderstood... anyway, don't change the "set project" for different subfolders, just navigate where you have to within your project using the browse window when opening and saving.

-stwert

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# 8 16-01-2011 , 12:24 AM

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that makes sense, yeah. thanks -i'll bear that in mind things can get messy pretty quickly! I getting the hang slowly...

i need to present the folder to a tutor for marking -- but they're requesting a 'lite" version with just a few incremental saves etc. -- will it work if i move a section of finished versions into one 'scenes' folder, all the textures into one folder etc. - i can imagine the textures getting lost..?

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# 9 16-01-2011 , 12:29 AM

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Losing connections to textures is a problem, especially when you move to different computers and folder structures. The best way in my opinion is to have relative paths to textures (e.g. textures/grass.png) instead of absolute paths (e.g. C:\Documents...project/textures/grass.png) and try to keep the folder structure the same. You could copy the entire project directory over and then delete all unnecessary files within those.