Xref file organizing questions

[windrockwater]

Hi All,
This is not really a vray question but more of a 3dsmax organize question. I have slowly built up a large library of 3d trees to use in multiple projects. They are organized in folder categories (shrubs, trees, vines, flowers, etc.) and in each category there are many folders that contain the individual plants. The bitmap materials are located in the folder with each respective plant.

I am about to use many of these plants on many different Max projects. So I want to "Xref object" the plants instead of copying them into my project folders (to save drive space and be organized). Do other people do this too? Or do most people simply copy over all the objects and mats they need into the project folder? The problem with copying them is if I decide not to use some I have to remember to delete the no-longer-used bitmaps in addition to the max plant files.

Second question, since the plant bitmaps are located in the individual plant folders, I thought about making one material folder for each category of plant type and placing ALL the bitmaps in that folder (e.g. "Shrubs_Materials"). Then I can add these 10 or so bitmap repository folders to the Max userpaths on my render slaves to avoid missing DR render buckets.

Any advice or tips would help as to how other people organize and use large libraries of scene objects that do not need to change from project to project (like plants)? Right now I am playing with maxscript to automate xrefing in the plants all at once from an excel list...

[tricky]

If you were to create each plant as a vrayproxy in the same place as the individual max file, you could just use proxies instead of xrefs.

[windrockwater]

Thanks for the comment. I did my last project with vray proxy trees but wasn't thrilled with working with them. Unless I screwed up, I had to add the materials to each proxy (xref or regular mat). Although I guess scripting could help with merging in the proxy AND the material at the same time. Also, from my tests, proxys took (much) longer to render. They were much smaller file sizes so the scene opened and loaded faster though. I am really trying to automate the process of going from an autocad file with tree symbols to a max scene with 3d trees.

I also have Vue and make some of my static plants with it. I lately have been comparing using Vue as a plant plugin versus using my library of Max plants. Vue quickly becomes unworkably sluggish on anything but very small scenes (even on my good PC) which has totally frustrated me considering vue cost a bundle! Max handles vray proxies and xrefs much better. For now I think xref object trees are the answer becuase a simple script lets me replace autocad block instances with xref plan objects (including their mats).

[Neilg]

create the proxies, add the material, save the max file with proxies in and merge them in instead of creating a new proxy.

I have no idea why you're moving files and maps around though, if space is a concern why dont you just stop duplicating all your maps and objects for every job?

[Sazzle74]

I have no idea why you're moving files and maps around though, if space is a concern why dont you just stop duplicating all your maps and objects for every job?

I agree, we have all our maps in one place and point the Max user paths to that place... seems far easier than copying for each project.

[windrockwater]

I am trying not to copy the maps all over the place of course. I am new to 3d and for my first couple projects it made sense to have a maps folder for each project. But now I am building a library of assets and want to access them rather than copying things. So my choices are:

1) Leave the maps in the folder of each plant. I have hundreds of folders. Each with a species of plant. And the maps are in EACH folder. If i "Xref Object" in the plant in a new scene, it seems to work because it finds the map in the folder (with the file path stripped for the plant maps). No userpath setting is necessary with this method.

or

2) Move all the plant maps into big category folders and then point the userpaths to those folders.

These are two different methods. And the third choice is to convert all the plants to vray proxies which I started to do on the last project but then gave up for reasons i mentioned above.

Curious as to which people prefer (for re-using repetitive assets from a large library).

Thanks for comments, its good to hear opinions.

[Sazzle74]

We use method number 2. It may take you a bit of time to set it up but then it's so easy to update with new maps etc and not worrying about whether Max will find the files etc. We put all our plant maps into an 'Organics' folder for instance etc etc.