Resource collecting

[tricky]

We often use XRef'd max files in our production work. I want to be able to archive these projects. How would I go about archiving all associated maps/textures for each of the XRef'd scenes automatically without having to go into each one of them and do a 'Resource Collector'?

Is there a utility that will go through all XRef'd scenes and gather all associated maps into one place?

[Da_elf]

thats why i dont use x-ref hehe

[tricky]

Mmmm. The thing is, some of our jobs are MASSIVE, so we don't really have another option.
I have found a workaround which is a bit crude but it seems to work. Send a network render job and tell it to include all maps. Then go to the manager machine and look for the zip file it has created - this includes everything (apart from irmaps and vraymeshes I think).

[PixelJockey]

Have you tried using the Archive function in the File menu. I just gave it a try and it included my xref objects.

[PixelJockey]

I tried it on another more complex file. It grabbed everyting including vrmesh files. Not sure about ir maps.

[tricky]

Have you tried using the Archive function in the File menu

Stupidly, I hadn't tried that. The reason is, in trying to simplify my initial question, I mentioned 'archive' which was probably a red herring. What I am actually trying to do is a network render, but I don't want to have to click 'include maps' as this takes a long time everytime I send a job. However, if I don't 'include maps', I occasionally get missing map problems on one or two machines. Instead, I wanted to 'resource collect' all maps into one new folder for a particular project and add that folder to the 'bitmap path' of each render node.

It looks like the archive utility will be the best way.

Thanks

[flino2004]

I've used the collector before con xref ...and I decided to create a sort kind of temp folder...so every slave has this path...and I put all the maps that I need for an specific project in there....even I was thinking only use this path for my slaves....(so I wouldn't have to update folder and paths)

[dbuchhofer]

Mabye a silly question, but does the 'Bitmap Photometric Path Editor' work with Xrefs?

[Dynedain]

What we do is keep the project folder on the server. That way more than one person can work on it if necessary, and its easier to find stuff later. We simply use a "maps" and a "meshes" folder inside that project folder. We make sure all our bitmaps are being loaded from there, and likewise any externally referrenced objects (like vray proxies) are in the meshes folder.

We make sure to use UNC paths \\server\share\folder\image.jpg

And we make sure that backburner is running as a user that has the proper priveledges on the network and we rarely have problems with missing maps. When we do, its pretty quick and simple to see using the bitmap/photometric paths tool which files were not put in that folder and fix them.