Render Farm - Lightwave: Tutorial: Using Content Manager

Practicing Good File Hygiene or How to Archive Projects and Outsource Rendering

As the owner of the only automated Internet render farm on the planet, I've had a chance to see all manner of good and bad Lightwave file hygiene. Like it or not, the content directory paradigm built into Lightwave can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I don't know about you, but generally I prefer friends.

Way back in the dinosaur years (version 5.6), I couldn't stand the idea of having to put all of my objects into an "objects" directory, all of my images into an "images" directory, and so on. I've worked in small and large animation shops, and in both situations I preferred to handle where the files went myself, and not have a software program dictate locations to me arbitrarily. "What's up with this obnoxious objects / images thing?" So in 5.6 I promptly ignored the content directory concept altogether.

Well, I was stubborn, but not entirely stupid. In a shop where several people were working on multiple projects simultaneously, it made sense to organize stuff into libraries. Besides, changing the content directory was a pain, requiring one to open up those ".cfg" files in notepad and modify them manually.

But since version 6.0 and higher, management of the content directory location is a piece of cake. Go to Layout / Options / Set Content Directory, and there it is. Choose a folder and it's set. Plus there's a plug-in under Scene / Utilities / Generics called "Content Manager" which allows one to consolidate all externally referenced files into the currently selected content directory. It lists out all the objects and images that you have in your scene; you change the locations, it does some processing, and voila, all of your files are now in your content directory.

But so what?

After all, many beginner animators and hobbyists don't even notice that the content directory menu item is even there, and really, would it make much of a difference day-to-day if they used it? Larger shops are used to their own systems and are typically reluctant to change anything. Would any of these Lightwave users benefit from submitting to the content directory structure?

You bet. The two primary benefits are easier project archiving, and easier render farm outsourcing. This is because Lightwave's Project Directory paradigm utilizes "relative paths" as opposed to "fully-qualified paths." For those of you who've dabbled in HTML development, you'll understand immediately the term relative path and fully-qualified path. For those who don't, here's what a "fully qualified path" looks like:

C:\Lightwave\Objects\MyObjects\MyObject.lwo

And a relative path looks like this:

Objects\MyObject.lwo

Lightwave takes the current project directory and combines it with the relative path to generate the fully qualified path "on the fly."

Project Directory + Object Relative Path = Lightwave can now find your object

Or, put another way:

"C:\Lightwave\" + "Objects\MyObject.lwo" = "C:\Lightwave\Objects\MyObject.lwo"

Lightwave can use relative paths not only for objects, but for images, and other ancillary files as well. In fact a scene file is really nothing more than an ASCII text file containing motions and links to object files and image files. Open one up in notepad, it's a fascinating read.

So, because Lightwave "understands" relative paths, you can archive projects onto CD or into a ZIP file, and be able to load them back up quickly when you're under the gun. Simply copy the whole project directory and you're done; and six months from now all you have to do is pop in the CD or decompress the zip file, set Layout to the new content directory, and you'll get an error-free load. I don't know about you, but I can't stand it when I open a really old scene file and have to click all over various hard drives trying to find missing files. It's particularly miserable if you have a deadline or if your client is coming back for a "quick" tweak to his animation - for free, no doubt!

And then there's render farm outsourcing. At 2:00 in the morning, you don't want to be trying to hunt down files all over your network to pack them up - you want to submit your files for rendering and be done with it! You also don't want to get that dreaded phone call after you've settled into bed, expecting to see your final rendered images in the morning. It goes something like this: "You've got some missing textures" Or, as in the case of ResPower, you don't want to see the LWSN output on the render farm management page telling you: "Error: Can Not Find Image"

But what do you do if you've got a scene that's already been made? How do you switch it over to using relative paths? It's easy enough to do, and I've put together a list for you in 9 easy steps.

1. Start Lightwave Layout.
2. Load up your old scene file.
3. Make a new content directory on your hard drive. For instance, C:\NewContentDirectory
4. Set Lightwave Layout's Content Directory to C:\NewContentDirectory

   Figure 1:

5. Start the Content Manager Plug-In

   Figure 2:

6. Tell it to Consolidate Only, then hit okay

   Figure 3:

7. Select all objects that are external, and hit "set path." Choose "Objects" as the path

   Figure 4:

8. Select all images that are external, and hit "set path." Choose "Images" as the path.
9. Hit "Okay". Lightwave will chew for a moment. If everything is good, it will then say something like "Preliminary Processing Complete. Save All Objects?" Tell it yes.

All done! Take a look at C:\NewContentDirectory. It will have an objects, scenes, and images directory. Congratulations, you're now using relative paths!

There are a couple of "gotchyas" to watch out for. Very big images may occasionally cause crashes; models with multiple layers can also cause the Content Manager plug-in to "hiccup." These instances may, on occasion, require manual re-pathing - i.e., moving the object or image manually into your new content directory and re-linking.

Good file hygiene is always an important practice. Just like brushing your teeth, I highly recommend taking the time at the beginning and end of each day to ensure that all of the files in your current scene are also in the correct project directory. If you do, you'll be sure to have a smoother archiving experience, and an easier render farm outsourcing experience.

Happy pathing!