Hi Christian a few questions then ;)
Will the square and its versions always be at the same coordinates on the grid? In the scenario that a square fits multiple projects is it not possible to just have multiple copies of the same file (or can max do standins ? That way you have a grid for each project where you will be sure that the edges match. the problem is once you go past 5 or so iterations the number of variables is going to make it nearly impossible to keep all of the edges matching up. Think of a chess board. If you click and set a project , say X to a square it should be able to tell you which adjoining squares should be loaded. If you right click on the square you can get a list of the various versions which still have matching edges Then you generate a file list and import those into max. I think trying to keep that information on each file just needs one person to forget to update and your screwed. You need to abstract the physical file and the overall grid data. ________________________________ From: Christian Gotzinger [[email protected]] Sent: 07 January 2014 02:36 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OT: Organizing files that belong together Thank you for the response, Angus. I need to expand a bit on what I wrote already. The files are all MAX files (we use Soft, Maya and Max and store final files in MAX format), but we're looking for an external tool to help us with the organizing. What I'd really like is this: I pick a file, and the tool tells me which projects this file belongs to (some square versions fit multiple projects) and which neighboring squares match at the edges. So I pick file F003_C, and the tool tells me that this is a square of Project X and Project Z, and that fitting neighbor squares are G003_C, G003_D, F004_A, E003_A, F002_A and F002_D We do work off of base squares and edit those, but projects overlap, some square versions are used in multiple projects, so it's rather complicated. For instance, I can't be sure that G003_C fits G004_C. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 12:24 PM, Angus Davidson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: My way of thinking of this would be to do it with versioning. Ie for each city square you have a base mesh possibly as emdl to be referenced in. e.g. square_001_base In your first project you will pull those in and place via reference so their edges are correct. Once you have that you can then create different versions of the base squares wether its by naming convention i.e. square_001_x, square_001_y or something like Git / mercurial Then in order to change which squares you pull into the project you can just edit the scntoc file for file bases versioning , or the files will be replaced by the correct ones if you use some form of source control. You could also possibly do it via Level of detail proxies (they will be about the same amount of detail but that’s not really an issue for this) I am sure there is also likely a scripting way to do this easily as well. Kind regards Angus From: Christian Gotzinger <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday 07 January 2014 at 12:56 PM To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: OT: Organizing files that belong together Hi list, We have a digital city model that's divided up into several hundred squares. Our projects require us to make different versions of these squares for planning purposes. So for any given square, we may have 4 or 5 different versions. The more projects we do, the more complicated it gets for us to keep track of what belongs (and what fits) together. When we need to quickly prepare a file that contains "City model with Project X + Project Y", we have two main problems: a) For squares with multiple versions we need to figure out which of these versions are part of Project X and which are Project Y. b) We need to figure out how squares may be combined. Let's say that the square F003_C belongs to Project X, but square G003 is not part of Project X. We now can't be sure which version(s) of G003 properly match(es) F003_C at the seam. I'm unsure how common a problem this is and whether I explained it properly. Does anybody have any pointers as to what may be a good way to tackle this? Maybe some kind of specialized software? Thank you Christian This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. 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