Chaos Corona Forum

General Category => General CG Discussion => Topic started by: JGallagher on 2017-03-14, 03:04:43

Title: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: JGallagher on 2017-03-14, 03:04:43
I've been practicing my shading recently and was hoping to start creating a collection of assets to use in my scenes. I've tried saving them as *.fbx last night but it doesn't seem to save the settings on my outputs. Is there a better way to save assets with the finished materials embedded?

Thanks for the help.
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: arqrenderz on 2017-03-14, 04:36:12
as max??
or are you trying to export them to some other software?
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: alexyork on 2017-03-14, 10:33:20
http://connecterapp.com/
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: JGallagher on 2017-03-14, 14:52:40
Yes, to reuse with Corona in 3ds max. I should've been more clear.
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: TomG on 2017-03-14, 16:13:35
Can just save the objects to .max format, and then use Import -> Merge to load them into any other existing scene?
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: JGallagher on 2017-03-14, 17:12:42
Can just save the objects to .max format, and then use Import -> Merge to load them into any other existing scene?

I was asking because I wasn't sure, but I was thinking this would be the recommended solution. This won't embed the materials though will it? I will still need to point 3ds to a folder?

http://connecterapp.com/

Thanks for the link, I will check it out when I get home.
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: NicoB on 2017-03-14, 20:20:20
Hej,

another usefull thing for your assets:

http://www.colinsenner.com/scripts/relink-bitmaps

All the best
Nico
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Juraj on 2017-03-15, 14:12:34
http://connecterapp.com/

This many times :- ) Connecter is invaluable and the development speed is fantastic. Great devs.
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: alexyork on 2017-03-15, 14:15:04
http://connecterapp.com/

This many times :- ) Connecter is invaluable and the development speed is fantastic. Great devs.

Yeh they're doing a great job over there!
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Benny on 2017-03-15, 16:08:39
What is the current consensus when it comes to material management? I know that Siger seems popular, but has anyone had a look at Vizpark's Material Manager? It looks interesting but it apparently moves all textures to a central repository and I'm not sure I want to reorganize all my folders I've set up over the years.

Any tool that is good at both materials and models?
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Juraj on 2017-03-15, 18:23:01
What is the current consensus when it comes to material management? I know that Siger seems popular, but has anyone had a look at Vizpark's Material Manager? It looks interesting but it apparently moves all textures to a central repository and I'm not sure I want to reorganize all my folders I've set up over the years.

Any tool that is good at both materials and models?

I am fanatic to organization, so of course I have all three :- ).

Vizpark does have one big benefit to organization, 'tags'. So you can organize without strict vertical organization like in Siger ( for example CoronaMats/Wood/Oak floor.. ) but same material instance can be in multiple categories ('Oak floor' can be in flooring, wood, natural, etc... ).
But otherwise it hads tons of little unfinished features and at time forced the 'collect textures'  you mention to materials. That was quite some time ago, not sure where it's at now, but this was my biggest drawback.  Second was it didn't come in 'clean slate' version with no tags or materials from vizpark and couldn't get into such state.

Siger is good, it's what I use currently. Now it can batch-generate previews which is big time saver. It feels bit clunky also, biggest direct preview is tiny 200px (I can't even see what that is) and to see the higher-res you have to click on right and select to see high-res. Bit inconvenient unless you remember what material that was or you created it yourself.

Lastly, I will try to use Connecter for materials also. I already use it for HDRi, IES, Models (my textures a bit sprawled..I would rather make them into materials first). Connecter is the cleanest UI of all. Did I say how fast and great the devs are :- ) ?.
Imho this could be the winner.
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Benny on 2017-03-16, 16:11:42
Can Connecter generate thumbnails?
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Juraj on 2017-03-16, 16:21:52
Can Connecter generate thumbnails?

Absolutely, using any kind of your own studio. Didn't check if  it can generate them directly too ( like it can for HDRi and IES )
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: GabrielS on 2017-03-16, 16:22:17
Connecter can:

- Generate thumbnail from viewport, render preset, render studio...
- Categorize file
- Generate thumbnail for ies
- recognize the render engine
- generate thumbnail for materials
- a maxscript is embeded to allow to drag and drop asset directly to the max viewport and place them on surfaces.

See the videos of connecter

A very smart tool, and free!!
Title: Re: Best way to save assets..?
Post by: Benny on 2017-03-19, 20:34:45
I've played around a bit more with Connecterapp and thumbnails, but I can't figure out how to select more than one model and create thumbnails from it. Perhaps it is only possible to create thumbnails from objects in a scene.