EIS files "glued" to lamps

[kimalbech]

Can´t seem to find my way around Lamps with EIS files in my projects - and it might be a combination of things in my workflow. Once I started in V-Ray I was happy just to get things done - no woories why it worked or not But this thing seems to annoy me more and more. Let me clarify my workflow.

I work on laptop with files in my Dropbox - project files always set to be local as well. With lighting I fetch EIS files to each one and saves the EIS files in project folder.
I set up scenes on laptop, materials and ligting - with interactive render. Saves when I´m satisfied.
I open VPN connction to remote PC with better specs. This has my Dropbox as well. Open project - but now V-ray can not find EIS files to Each lamp. It´s like the EIS files is not "permanet gluede" to lamps in my model. Like the EIS light symbol in each lamp is "just a link" to the EIS file. Which would all so be just fine - if V-Ray just could follow the link and find the EIS file.
Why can´t the EIS file be "saved" with the EIS file so to speak. In this way I could always think "oh - I used this lamp with EIS file in another project" get it from the SU model - and it would work. But same thing happens - V-Ray can not follow the link to another project folder to fetch the EIS file.

IF my experience is the way it works - this would mean that You can not save a SU project with EIS lighting files to a USB pin and open it on another PC with SU and V-Ray, an render it. The setup You did on lighting will be in file - but V-Ray will not find the EIS files. I think this can not be right - so I must do something wrong.

What is it I do not see ? PLEASE

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi kimalbech,

V-Ray keeps textures, IES light files as well as vrmesh and vrscene proxies as references to the files on disk. They are not stored in the .skp file.
This means that when you move the .skp file you have to make sure all the external resources go with it.

The reason why V-Ray doesn't find the IES files on the other machine is the path to your dropbox folder must be different.
If that is the case there is no way for V-Ray to realize that the files exist in a different location and read them.

There are a couple of things that can help you move files around:

1. Auto resolving file paths.
V-Ray has a built in way to find missing assets in case they are located in location relative to the one of the .skp file.
So if for example your .skp file is located in C:/temp/project/model.skp and the IES file is in the same folder C:/temp/project/iesfile.ies V-Ray will automatically find the file.
If the IES file is located in a subfolder relative to the skp file lke C:/temp/project/assets/iesfile.ies the auto-resolve logic will still work.

2. Packing the project.
An easy way to pack a model with all it's assets in V-Ray is the Extensions/V-Ray/Pack Project function.
This function will create an archive containing the skp file and all the additional asset files (including the ies light profiles).
You can then move the archive and open the skp on another system - all the references should get auto-resolved.

3. Using the File Path Editor.
You can find a really usefull tool that can help you explore and manage file paths here Extensions/V-RayFile Path Editor
For more informatio non what this editor does please refer to the following docs page.

Hope that helps,
Konstantin

[kimalbech]

konstantin_chaos thanks a lot - great help