Questions about saving models

# 1 14-10-2011 , 08:51 AM

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Join Date: Oct 2011

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I've created a block, like kids play with, with the letters on them. They were just cubes painted. I saved the block out as a Maya file Ascii. When I tried to import the file into another project the paint was gone, lol. Also had the same problem with a table, except the table top still had it's texture..

any ideas on that. Is there a special way of saving paint? lol

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# 2 14-10-2011 , 09:01 AM

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Join Date: Oct 2011

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I think I'm missing some basics here...say I had all these models created and painted..saved them in a folder..took them to a new computer with maya, shouldn't I be able to open that file and have my painted model as it was on my computer?

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# 3 14-10-2011 , 12:07 PM

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Is the paint a separate texture file? You're have to move that file as well to the new computer, it's not saved within the scene file.

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# 4 14-10-2011 , 12:21 PM

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All I did was make paintable, 3d paint tool, asign/edit texture...painted object, export object as ma ascii or what ever it is....is there a better way to do this? lol.

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# 5 14-10-2011 , 03:27 PM

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Jeremy,

All you have done is import the model from its orininal source. To help you understand how Maya does things all textures are not stored as part of the model but opened up when a model is loaded into Maya via its project. The project is the key here, to keep all your models data correct you would need to do a full export ensuring that you tell Maya to export it to the correct format needed for the import. Normaly you would have multiple scenes within a project so you can create multiple models and import them into a main scene within the same project. If it is a must that it needs to work in another project then use the square option box to export it out and make sure you tick the correct boxes to export the required data. Also use the mb (maya binary) format the files are smalled. maya ascii files are just plain text files, but are way way larger.

Chris (formerly R@nSiD)
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# 6 14-10-2011 , 09:51 PM

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It's a good idea to keep all textures used, and all other important information within the project folders eh? And then export EVERYTHING including various maps, and what not, so that a model can be used as a whole again?

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# 7 14-10-2011 , 10:02 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Yes, it's good to keep your projects organized, but all you really need in this case is the texture file that Maya created when you used the 3D paint tool. Also, using maya ascii has the benefit of potentially being recoverable if it gets corrupted or there are errors in the scene, since it's just text.