Organizing materials

[cneville]

Hi all,
I'd be interested in any thoughts on organizing material libraries. Since some of the files require bitmaps to work, and since you may go back to a revisit a model years from now, it seems a consistent and organized structure is important.

Question 1: Where should the library be located? By default it was put about about 5-folders deep in the "Documents and Settings" folder. Since I can see frequently downloading new materials it would seem that a more obvious place would be easier to remember and would be easier to back up as well. Any thoughts? Is there a down side to moving it?

Question 2: Since many of the materials require a bitmap to work as designed how is it best to keep the various elements of a single material. Should the bitmap be put in the same folder as the vismat file or should it be kept in a separate texture directory?

Question 3: I appreciate the advantage of keeping file size down by NOT having hdri, textures, materials etc. saved in the 3dm file. Unfortunately, however, over the years files can get moved or copied to other directories or the material library format itself may get revised. improved or changed. I hate the surprise of opening up a model I did months if not years ago only to find it doesn't work. Any thoughts?

Any and all comments are welcome

Thanks,
chuck

[aclark]

Re: Organizing materials

Question 1: Where should the library be located? By default it was put about about 5-folders deep in the "Documents and Settings" folder. Since I can see frequently downloading new materials it would seem that a more obvious place would be easier to remember and would be easier to back up as well. Any thoughts? Is there a down side to moving it?

CNEVILLE, as far as the material location goes, it's best to keep that on a shared network folder of some sort especially if you plan on ever using the capabilities of DR. There should be no real downfall to keeping the materials elsewhere, but there are definitely advantages. For instance, maybe you want to lock that particular part of the network so only you and a few others have access to it?

Question 2: Since many of the materials require a bitmap to work as designed how is it best to keep the various elements of a single material. Should the bitmap be put in the same folder as the vismat file or should it be kept in a separate texture directory?

This may depend on whether you use other types of rendering engines. For me, I don't plan on using anything other than VRAY. In that case, I keep all the bitmap images associated to their particular vismat in the same folder. In general, this makes management much easier. Also, since the 1.48+ has added bonuses like being able to import Skp models and it brings the vismat's with it, you can start to create libraries that you manage in a Skp format that can be imported like a library.

Question 3: I appreciate the advantage of keeping file size down by NOT having hdri, textures, materials etc. saved in the 3dm file. Unfortunately, however, over the years files can get moved or copied to other directories or the material library format itself may get revised. improved or changed. I hate the surprise of opening up a model I did months if not years ago only to find it doesn't work. Any thought

This answer really depends on how you handle 1 & 2.

[cneville]

Re: Organizing materials

Hi and thanks.

Though it sounds like a lot of the placement issues are realted to networks and multiple users. I'm a single user. I have two computers which I may ultimately tie up for horsepower reasons, but what I hear still leads me to put the library in a place I can find it, back it up and mofity as necessary.

I'm still not as sure about the nest of files that make a vmat file work.

Also I 'm somewhat uncertain what gets saved and what does not. It seems like the material file itself will save with the model file, but not the associated textures, hdri etc. I know doing so can significantly impact file size, but it also could make the file you stored a lot more stable if you need to use it a few years from now. Trust me I am constantly having to use old files.

Thanks for the thoughts... more are welcome

c