asset tracking - please!

[v-cube]

Hello v-ray team, I have been asking for this some time ago and now it seems that I will desperately need it very soon.

All my Rhino / vray stuff will be transferred to a new server within the next 2 weeks, all the texture paths are linking to unc locations on the old server like e.g. //server/bibliothek/mappings/wood/wood23.jpg
Since the new server will be named differently and maybe in addition the paths will not remain exactly the same, I won't be able to access the textures used in old projects. Since I have to do a lot of revisions, this is a disaster for me, it would take me weeks to rework all the texture paths by hand, so I have to find another solution...

In the last tread wcmansp has suggested a two directory solution :

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthread.php?71495-asset-tracking&highlight=asset+tracking


while this is not a bad approach, I would not be my favorite option, for one this would mean that I would have to open and render every old project and use a distributed render texture folder, on the other hand every texture would be doubled and e.g. editing a texture which is only found in the second distributed texture folder, would further complicate this approach...

Since I know that there is at least one? folder vray searches by default ([rootfolder of the 3dm file]/textures?) I really really would like to know if there could be an option to define standard search paths for vfr including subfolders.
This does not have to be a fancy button integrated into the UI, it could be a script or anything... I would simply like to be able to tell vray "please look at this folder and its subfolders if you are unable to find a map"

please, please !!!

best regards

Andreas

[corey]

Hi Andreas-

I will get back to you on this one ASAP.

[corey]

Andreas-

Unfortunately, there is no simply way for us to do this right now.

We have added a pack scene feature in the latest internal builds. However, using that tool is not too far off from wcmansp has already proposed.

[mgibeault]

I'd like to add two things related to this:
-When a file is missing, it should be more obvious. Sometimes it's not easily seen in the render but it shows when the image is printed or too late anyway. At least the "V-Ray progress window" is now resizeable...
-When a file is missing we should get the information in which material it is used.

Thanks

[corey]

Thanks Marc, your points are noted.

[v-cube]

Andreas- Unfortunately, there is no simply way for us to do this right now. We have added a pack scene feature in the latest internal builds. However, using that tool is not too far off from wcmansp has already proposed.

Well, thanks for the feedback Corey, but that is really disapointing news...
As I wrote, the path /textures seems to be implemented already, so is it really impossible to add another user defined path?

Best

Andreas

[wcmansp]

Here's a different approach that may work in this particular server migration problem if time is of the essence although it is still based around the two-directory approach. When you mount the old server from your machine, just do a standard Windows Explorer "Search" for all the .png files. When "Search" has found them, it allows you to do a "Select All"; copy these all to a folder on your new server. Do the same thing for all the .jpg files (discard any "Preview" files), then for .vismat files, each time adding them to the same folder you created for the .png files. Now you have all your .vismat, .png, and .jpg files in one directory (e.g. the "second directory") in three steps and if you link any material from this directory into any of your existing files (Rhinoscript may be handy here, to inject a dummy material from this directory automatically), every other material used in that file will be found.

The upside of this approach is that it is much faster than the "Send to server" approach -- Rhino is not involved at all. It still assumes that you don't have material files with the same name (e.g. a .vismat file, an image file) that have different contents (e.g. been edited) but the suggestion to have V-Ray look into folders recursively tends to imply this as well. This takes advantage of the fact that "Search" allows you to find files within folders without having to open each folder individually, and that you can then select them all in one step and copy them. This approach can potentially include a lot of extraneous files (e.g. rendered .png images) but, again assuming these don't have the same names (e.g. wood3.jpg) as a material file, these are invisible as far as V-Ray is concerned and can be weeded out of the destination folder at your leisure.

The same objections raised originally, in terms of having to edit two destinations (or, at least, an edit and a copy), still apply. This is only suggested as a way to move the ability to render existing work from one server to another as quickly as possible. With all the materials in one large folder, the "pack" feature, where you want to extract just the materials used in a particular file, would rely on starting Distributed Render with a "Send to server" option, then collecting the results from that folder.

[Micha]

Andy, I'm not sure, but did you check the possibilities of the WINDOWS tools like hard link and/or soft link?

[v-cube]

Andy, I'm not sure, but did you check the possibilities of the WINDOWS tools like hard link and/or soft link?

Hello Micha, good morning 😀

Sounds interesting, i will sure look it up...

Best regards

Andreas

[v-cube]

OK - I took the time to investigate Michas approach a little further, this stuff should work good in local environments to create different kinds of virtual folders, which link to physical folders somewhere else on the computer. As far as I have understood it will not work for unc addresses in the network, so my question is :
Does someone know a (simple?) way of creating a virtual unc path (this would be my old mapping folder) which links to another unc address (this would then be my new folder). The paths e.g. look like this :

old location: //server/server/01_vcube/04_bibliothek/mappings/wood/beech23.jpeg

new location: //server2/04_bibliothek/mappings/wood/beech23.jpeg

I am grateful for every idea...

best

Andreas

[corey]

Matt mentioned to me that something like this might be the easiest thing to do: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4...n-windows-2003

[v-cube]

thanks Corey, I will give it a try!