Default Sub-Directories

#1

What are all of the default sub-directories that LightWave looks to for your various assets, assuming you have your content directory set properly to your project root? This seems like such a basic “how to use LightWave” question that the first place I looked was in the manual. I was surprised when I didn’t find any information on it.

This is what I’ve been using based on experience and lots of experimentation:

I’m pretty sure I got the name of the “motions” folder wrong though, because Layout can never automatically find my motions files.

And other thing. If one of the other animators I work with transfers his project files from his workstation to the file server, then I copy them from the server to my workstation … even if I set my content directory properly Layout STILL asks me where certain assets are, like a texture map or something. And the really odd part is, that when I offer to show it the file it wants, and the browse dialog box comes up, it’s already pointing to the correct directory and the file is sitting right there! I don’t get why it didn’t just reference the file like it was supposed to.

  • Dustin
#2

if you start to work with content dir from initial step, layout not ask you path be cause it build a relative path (relative at content).
if some part of content are linked out of usual path or out of predefinited path, then layout write down on scene a absolute path to that special path of your disk.

#3

I used to have similar problems with a collegue. He’d always use this awful picture of a motorbike for reflections, no matter what he was modelling, and it sat on his desktop. He’d put it in the images folder afterwards but of course Lightwave had already decided that it was on the desktop. If you update all the images so that they’re in the right folder and Lightwave is pulling them from that folder, save all objects and it will save the image location too.

There is a create content directory button in Layout, why it isn’t in modeller I have no idea.
Hit “O” for…err, preferences(?) -> Paths, you can set the directory and create all the relevant folders. I have a set of empty folders that I copy and rename for each new project.

I also add a Source folder for any reference material or PSD’s and an Output folder for any renders. Inside the output folder I have tests, proofs and final and then further folders for passes if needed.

#4

I have the same thing, and I have a few extra folders in there that I always use. I just copy it at the start of every new job. Make things much simpler that way.

#5

Yeah I have a “_newProject” folder that has all my sub-directory structures ready to go, and I just copy it for new projects. That Create Directories feature is cool, I didn’t even know that was there. Thanks for the tip!

biliousfrog, your friend with the motorcycle reflection map needs to be shaken, not stirred. That’s rediculous :slight_smile:

Though, I have to admit, I have an HDR that I use A LOT as a spherical reflection map for metals and shiny plastics. I don’t keep it on my desktop though. When it comes to my desktop, I’m a minimalist.

  • Dustin
#6

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