Loading existing files

[GATOR]

Just recently I've noticed that when I open a scene, it can't find my files and asks me to find them. If a model has eight pieces, it has me load the scene eight times.

Very odd.

No changes have been made to my system, no upgrade to my lightwave and no change to my hardware. Suddenly it just can't find my textures and models and I have to do it manually.

Suggestions?

[jeremyhardin]

You're content directory isn't set or isn't set properly, so your scene doesn't know where to look for object and image files.

[GATOR]

OK. Fair enough.

I understand the interactive nature of LW's ability to find files. Indeed, I've been using the program for a year now and it's been fine. I create a client file, put in separate directories for models, textures and scenes and every time I open up a model or scene, it finds my textures (or models, if it's a scene I'm opening) and life is good.

Until last week. Now it wants me to find every file.

I will admit, even though I live behind this program 4 or 5 hours a day now, I really don't know it hands-down. I use what I use. I am not an expert. I'm guessing the toolbox I acccess is most likely about 50% of the program's ablity, but it works great for me just the same.

Why is this suddenly doing this to me? A complex scene is now asking me to reload every model and texture (I don't, and have never used the program's 'object and image' directory setup. I have a dozen projects at a time, each archived and put away on DVD, and if needed, they always pop up just fine again...in their own directories).

I hate sounding like a newbie, but once I'm done with this project-gone-haywire in terms of just OPENING the thing, I want to get back to where I was.

Any help would be great.

[GATOR]

Still open to suggestions on this one.

The program seems to know where the modes/textures are, the proper folder opens when I hit the 'alternate file' button to load the files. When I look at the content manager plug-in, all the proper routes to get to the directory are shown.

I am working off an external hard drive.

This is getting highly annoying (plus wasting a lot of time loading a dozen textures each time I open the file).

Any suggestions welcome!

[Triple G]

I know this doesn't help a whole lot now, but here's the folder structure I use which has always served me well: you set your content directory to a main folder (called Projects_Folder or something similar), and then have each project you work on in its own folder within that projects folder. Within each of these folders is contained folders called objects, scenes, images, etc. So, for example, it would be

Projects_Folder->ReallyCoolProject->objects
Projects_Folder->ReallyCoolProject->scenes
Projects_Folder->ReallyCoolProject->images

and whatever else you need. As long as you set your content directory to Projects_Folder and save your files to the appropriate directories, you shouldn't have any problems...if you need to archive a project, or put it on another drive to share it with another user, just create a Projects_Folder on the new media and copy the "ReallyCoolProject" folder to it, and everything should load up just fine.

One tip for your problems now...once you get your scene open with all of the objects/images loaded, make sure you Save All Objects within Layout, and then save the scene...this will save all the current file paths so that next time they should come in automatically.

[GATOR]

Is it possible that there's something I need to turn on/off?

Here's an example of the problem.

I open up an old file, it doesn't see the textures or models. I have to open each one separetly, if I'm in modeler, it doesn't find the textures.

Used to be that when I opened up an old archived file, one I found one texture, all the others would load automatically. Now they don't.

And, as noted above, even when creating new stuff, it doesn't remember the path. I have tried your content directory suggestion and it still doesn't work.

I'm flumuxed.

[Triple G]

I don't know what to tell you. If it's not finding the paths even for newly created content, and you're certain you've set up your content directory structure properly, the only other thing I could suggest is possibly trashing your prefs files...possibly they got corrupted and are somehow messing things up?

[GATOR]

Let me toss this into the mix.

I copied a current project over to the internal hard drive of my computer.

It opens great (after finding the textures the firsrt time, which would be normal. And I just have to find one, the others load automatically...as is normal).

So, it's my external drive causing the problems.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why this might be? The links to all the textures look right on the money when you look at the content manager. But even then, EVERY texture and EVERY model needs loading.

So, I'm thinking it isn't a software problem at all, but a hardware problem. Just the same, I'm open to suggestions. I have the 300GB hard drive so I can work seemlessly between my studio and my house. Plan B will be to just use the drive to transfer files and to output animtions.

[GATOR]

Problem solved.

It wasn't the hard drive, or the software. When I made a new directory on my internal drive, i just gave it a simple name.

And it worked, so I assumed it was moving the files. It was the name.

I figure it was one of two things, either it was the VERY long name of the folder, or it was the forward-slash character I used in the name. The content manager plug-in had issues with one of those.

Back to normal again.

[Triple G]

Yup, that can definitely do it. When naming files or folders, I've gotten in the habit of using underscores instead of spaces, and NO special characters...alphanumeric only. You know it's bad when this extends beyond Lightwave...like writing emails to friends & family members....hehe

[Triple G]

<SNIP>It opens great (after finding the textures the firsrt time, which would be normal. And I just have to find one, the others load automatically...as is normal).<SNIP>

That's the thing, though...that's NOT normal. At least it shouldn't be. If you set up your content directory properly and make sure that the directory structure is identical to what it was on the original machine, you just point LW's content directory to the correct folder before opening your scene, and you shouldn't get any file requesters at all. Ever.

[GATOR]

I don't know. I'm still kind of new to the program, but I found that the program has been very good about finding my files automatically until I had this problem. The content directory was set to the default file in the applications folder and I never thought once about it. The program always found my files, usually on an external drive with each project having it's own directory.

That's why I was confused, what had been working fine...wasn't.

OK, now that's settled, I need to find out why the 'world coordinates' button doesn't seem to work (or is always on?) when applying textures. I know folks say that texturing should be done in Layout, but sometimes doing textures in modeler is needed (for me). Guess that's another thread.

[jeremyhardin]

Gator, the program found your files, because your scenefile writes the EXACT path on the disk if the files exist outside of your content directory. it's an absolute path, rather than a relative one.

that's fine, so long as you NEVER rename a folder or move anything it depends upon (including any of the parent folders).

but when you work within content directories, you have a relative path for it to look to. so if you rename a folder 3 directories up, or move your projects to a DVD, CD, or external HD, it will load correctly with no prompts, so long as you set your content directory.

To be completely honest, the people that say they prefer not to use the Content Directories are usually the people that aren't experienced with them. When you've worked both ways, it's almost always worth the extra step of resetting the content directory between projects to NEVER get a thousand prompts, one for each object and texture.