going to a meeting

[EricCamper]

a client of mine wants me to bring the 3d model up for a meeting and he wants to change materials and stuff on the fly... what is the easiest way to accomplish this, would you say... Everything is located on the network, but I guess I can save bitmaps and the models to my computer. Just wondering the BEST way to do this. Is there an easy way yo do this all at once, without RECREATING materials and what not... thanx all

[tricky]

Could you use bitmap proxies and save them all to a local drive? Then, after adjuetments, uncheck bitmap proxies to go back to the files on your network.

[EricCamper]

hmmm never heard of that... Is that pretty simple?

[glorybound]

PhotoShop and masks... PSManager makes this easy.

[YoyoBoy]

I'm not sure what kind of material changes you're expected to do exactly, but could you use scene states?

[Donald2B]

I've had to do this many times. I usually just do a simple resource collect and that usually gets "most" of the bitmaps needed. I then track down any VRayProxy objects I may be using, if any. You also might need to grab any HDRs if you are using them.
Copy that folder to your laptop.
Disconnect from the network and then open the file.
You should get a dialog box complaining about missing maps. Click on Browse and point to the folder on your local laptop. This creates a new Maps Path in Max. Therefore, the materials location is not changed in Max, Max is just looking in more places for the maps when it can't find the actual location. So what this allows you to do is when you put the Max file back on the network, anyone can open the file like it never left, then you aren't stuck trying to setup all of the maps again.

There are many other ways to accomplish this also. I know that Collin has a great Bitmap Re-linking script that is pretty good.

Anyways, I use the above method when I take files home to work on them and when I copy the Max files created from home back to the server and open them @ work. It is like the file never left the office. Works great for me.

[Morne]

in max just "save as" then "archive" this puts your max file and any bitmpas and other assets like ies files etc into a zip file.

[EricCamper]

ARCHIVE... that's it... also getting that resource collector... thanx all... sometime you just need to talk it through.

[Donald2B]

Yep, there is nothing better than just talking through a problem with other people. Sometimes just talking out loud @ the office and bounce ideas off people can be a HUGE help for me.

[philip kelly]

I presuming your using RT too I have had this situation a number of times with guys sitting over my shoulder asking for materials to be changed.
Just had all the different materials in the slots ready to be put in.

phil