Scattered textures fix?

[Jaakko]

Hi!

Sometimes the textures in my project get scattered all a round the server in the different folders (due the copy pasted objects). After a while formZ starts to slow down especially when opening the project file. What would be best and easiest way to collect them in to one folder and relink to the materials in formZ?

[Shibui Design]

File menu> Save a Copy As. On the options menu, be sure to check save textures. This save the file and all textures reference in the file to a location of your choice.

[Andrew West]

I do a Save a Copy to consolidate my texture maps for individual files.  I did notice that when using V-ray the program often looses my maps and then creates a new folder on my C drive that has copies of my maps.  Then the scattering begins.  In all my years of using this program I have never really understood how it accesses the maps and why it has been so problematic.  It seems to have all started when they implemented Maxwell and then it got amplified with the addition of V-ray. 

[Jaakko]

I tried that Save a Copy procedure. When I open the new file the links are still pointing to their original folders. Relinking can be done one by one. Is there a way to force formZ to use the maps from the new folder?

I hope ADS revamps textures handling. After all these years it is still a bit mystery to me too. Sometimes opening a file can take a very long time. Probably searching some texture map(s) from the server.

I have few ideas. An option to save all referenced maps in to a certain folder and make formZ to relink automatically to them. After that all the maps of that project are in the same place. Or an option when object is copy pasted in to the project formZ automatically copies the texture map in to a certain folder and uses it thereafter.

[Shibui Design]

Take a look at your preferences. There is an option to add a "File Search Path." I always add a search path pointing to my project folder. My strategy is for common maps that are used very frequently are set up on folders named by categories. These folders are in a subfolder within the FormZ application folder. Include that as a File Search Path in preferences. Then for maps specific to the project, I always have a folder titled "textures" at the same location as the project.fmz file. Rarely do I experience missing textures using this strategy. If you do, it's easy to relink the textures simply by remapping one of them, as long as the other missing texture files are at one of these locations.

[Jaakko]

Shibui

I have a similar system as you have, the common maps are in the specific folder and one textures folder under the project folder. I have missing maps rarely. But the problem is this system starts to break apart when I copy paste an object from different project which have specific maps. I do that a lot. To keep system solid I'd have to copy that specific map in to the new project and relink it manually. Or is there some other way to do it? Maybe I have to reconsider my work flow and take a better look to File Search Baths. 

 

[Shibui Design]

I encounter the same and I just manually copy/paste the texture to the new project texture folder, which is best practice and maintains tight control of your files. When many files need this, I simply use save as copy and have it collect all referenced texture files.

[Jaakko]

Today I tried to Save As Copy my file (21 Mb) to a new folder to gather maps to same place. The green bar halted near end for at least 45 min. Then formZ came back online, but the target folder was empty, no maps, no fmz-file. Checked my Resouces (V-Ray Settings), the texture maps are linked to the different folders on the server and C-drive,  and no missing texture maps.

Somehow this doesn't work as it should.

[Jaakko]

Second try to Save As Copy. After 30 min it managed to save a fmz-file but no maps. And now when writing this opening that new file has already taken over 15 min.

[Justin Montoya]

You're not working off files stored on a server are you??

If you are using texture maps linked to different folders on a server, you are asking for trouble, or at least very slow and inefficient operation.    Good practice is to always download all your files and work on them locally on your workstation.   If you need to move these to a server for archiving, when you are ready to archive them, make sure the design files have their appropriate maps and texture files stored with the whole projects design files (under a 'maps' folder works well).  That way when you need to go back and re access them, you just grab the whole project folder and it's got everything you need.

You can not expect to work off a server and have the file saving to work efficiently, or reliably.  Get those working files local on your workstation.

[Jaakko]

Yes, that's my practice for 20 years ? It has worked pretty well for me, but now when V-Ray has come along it has changed.

Now I'm trying to chance my bad habits and store all the maps under a project folder. That's why I'm trying Save As Copy (Save Image Files on)  to gather the maps in to the same folder and force formZ relink to them. For some reason this doesn't work for me at the moment. First formZ gives this warning even the destinaton folder is empty. After cliking OK it takes long time to save and there is no maps saved just fmz -file.. 

[Andrew West]

Texture maps and their links to the original folder are a huge problem in Form.z and I have experienced this in both Maxwell and V-ray.  I too copy and paste models from my library into new projects and the maps  frequently get lost, corrupted, or not linked no matter what search path I designate.  Integrating a new render engine into Form.z has been a major issue for many years now and the introduction of V-ray has been a bit of a mess to say the least.  I have found that every time your program crashes (which happens to me regularly) your preference file will get corrupted which in turn leads to all sorts of bizarre and unpredictable results.    Throwing out your preference folder still seems to be my only go to fix for a lot of these issues.   Perhaps some day they fix this but I am no longer expecting any further updates to the program since all progress seems to have stopped for quite some time.  I hope I am wrong as I have been waiting for this integration for almost a decade.  I really hope I don't have to learn a new program at this stage of my career. 

AW

[Jaakko]

I have examined this problem a bit deeper. I opened the Project Info panel and there Linked Files. It shows that there are missing links to the textures used by RenderZone. I wasn't aware of this. Links to the textures used by V-Ray were all okay. I chose to unplugg all RenderZone related Extensions from the Extensions Manager. After a short testing it seems that the files open quicker also and the Material Parameter panel is more responsive. I haven't used RenderZone after V-Ray was installed. So I can leave it away.