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492 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
The Custom Dependencies function lets you
associate files that aren’t true scene dependencies.
A true dependent file is required for rendering,
animation, exporting, etc. A custom dependency
might be reference art work, a text file with scene
documentation or tasks to accomplish, custom
scripts, etc. Basically, any collect ion of files that
should “travel along” with the scene.
One potential use for a custom dependency is as
a way to perform simple project management.
Forexample,youcouldaddafilecalled
GameTitle-A.txt as a custom dependency to any
scene file asso ciated with GameTitle-A. You could
then instru ct the provider client, such as Vault
Explorer, to display all files that are dependent on
GameTitle-A.txt,whichwouldgiveyoualistof
files asso ciated with that project.
Refresh—Reloads the asset listing from the local
scene and updates the window contents.
Paths menu
The tools on this menu help you resolve
file-path issues such as missing files. They
include functionality also available in the
Bitmap/Photometric Path Editor Utilit y (page
3–510), but their integration into the Asset
Tracking dialog helps speed the workflow of
managing scene assets.
Highlight Edita ble Assets—Hig hlights all assets
whosepathscanbeaffectedbytheremaining
commandsonthismenu.
Forexample,ifyourscenematerialsusebitmaps
from a number of different folders, you could copy
all the bitmaps to a common directory within your
working folder, use Highlight Editable Assets to
highlight all the bitmap assets, and then use Set
Path (see following) to designate the common
director y.
Set Path—Opens a dialog for editing the scene’s
record of the highlighted asset’s or assets’ p ath and,
inthecaseofasingleasset,thefilename. Both
versions of the dialog include d rop-down history
lists for reverting to a previous path or file name.
The primary function for this command is to
change the path pointed to by 3ds Max for exist ing
assets whose locations have changed. However , for
outputfilessuchasrenderedimagesandrender
elements,youcanalsouseSetPathtocreate
and use new output directories. If you change
an output path to one that doesn’t exist, you’re
prompted to confirm that you want to create the
folder(s). if you confirm, the output paths are
changed in all appropriate locations, such as the
Render Scene dialog.
The version of the dialog that appears depends on
the number of highlighted assets:
• If a single asset is high lighted, you can change
thepathandthefilename. Thefollowing
dialog appears.
Tochangethepath,editthePathfieldorusethe
ellipsis [...] button to browse for a new path.
This changes the path only.
To revert to a previous path, choose it from the
drop-down list.
Tochangethefilename,edittheFilefieldor
choose a name from the drop-down history
list.Notethatthischangesonlythenameofthe
asset file as pointed to in the scene; it doesn’t
change the ac tua l asset file name. Use this
toupdatethesceneiftheassetfilenamehas
changed.
• Ifmultipleassetsarehighlighted,youcan
changethepathbutnotfilenames. The
following dialog appears.