A few questions before to start to work all the time with blender...

Hi everyone!

I have a few questions about Blender.
It has been more or less 5 years since I worked with another 3d software.
Here is my work
But a few days ago, I was very attracted by Sintel and the opportunities that blender can offer.
I am about to explore blender to eventually change my in-house production program.

Blender seems to be a good program, but i have some doubt about the possibility to use it in productions like I do.
Maybe can you help me to solve some problems…?

Here are some:

  • Network working: I don’t found any possibilities to work with network path. Saved file sequences in a network shared folder. I have several servers and I want to be able to easily make network calcuation and network working. I notice that I can’t access the network paths. How can I do if I want to be able to work with different computer on a project located in a shared folder. How can I do to have an easy to use render farm with the autodesk’s backburner style? I found the network render in the addons, but it seems to be very… hum… unstable…

  • Is that possible to work with xref scene. If a modeler work on a part of a project and me on an other part, is it possible to update the changes in real time in a file with xref scene?

  • Is it possible to compute the fluid simulation and particle simulation with all servers of my network?

I realy want to start to work all the time with blender. But I can’t, in any way, allow me to slow down my production.

For the rest, blender seems to be very powerfull for the rigging, driven, constraint,…
I like the possibility to make some compositing with the node editor. But, where can I found plugins, effects for the compositing?

Thank you in advance for your answers! :stuck_out_tongue:

Actually Blender is setup for networking. Every component of 3D project is in the form of database, and that is a totally different environment from other 3D software. With other software, you are pushing around object file manually all the time! With Blender you can “link” objects up to a master file. And everything updates as each component is updated. Everyone can be working on same project at once.

Ok thank you very much!
But is there a tutorial for that? How can I “link” objects to the master file? Where should I put my network path?
I’m sorry, but for that part I have a little bit of difficulty to understand the philosophy of blender.
How can you import stuff into blender if you don’t have the possibility to access to your network path!
When blender is open, I have to work locally!
I have missed something there…
Maybe you can help me… :wink:

thx :wink:

I did some network tests. And it doesn’t work well. When i create a new blend file in local with a shpere, a cube, and some other custom meshes inside of it, I can’t open it on an other computer.

I put my blend file in a shared folder, then i open it on an other computer, and when the files is open i only have a cube. I no longer have my sphere, and my custom meshes. I understand well the rest of the program. But I don’t understand the logic of blender for networking.

The distributed render and network rendering doesn’t work either. Arf… It’s only the two major problem I have. Somebody can help me?

Thank you!

I am new to linking, myself and it does seem to be flawed when you just link in objects. Try this. In your cube scene add the cube to a group called “myCube”. In your sphere scene add the sphere to a group called “mySphere”. Then in the master linked scene try linking to them both by just importing the group, not the object. This worked for me locally.

You are making sure to check the “Relative” pathing box right?

Also having fixed drive letters or mapped drives might be a way to assure connectivity to linked assets.

Network rendering is a plugin you need to enable.

There are many network rendering options than the built in one. check the plugins in your user preferences.

i’ve never done it my self sadly, no need atm.

Thank you guys
ok hum, I think that I need to make some more tests…
I’ll read the blender manual. And if I have other questions, I’ll post again :slight_smile:
See you all :slight_smile:

Hi everyone,
Ok I found this and that help me to understand blender’s philosophy.

I am aware that most of you already know this system. But I find it interesting to clarify my post for people like me who move from a program such as 3dsmax or Maya, to blender.

Unlike other programs, blender contains all the scenes and relationships through a database system. It’s greate, because, we are not obliged to create full of different files when we create an animation. With blender, just one file can contain all of the different sequences. With blender, just one file can contain all of the different sequences of an animation (I must test the stability of this with huge projects).

In the scene configuration we can chose to create some différent scene (If we want to make a parallel, it’s like the sequences in adobe flash…) We can do that with the xref scene importer of 3dsmax but i think it work better with blender… :slight_smile:

When adding a new Scene, we can chose:

Empty – Creates an empty scene (nothing is shared nor copied).

Link Objects – This is the shallowest form of copying available. This option creates the new scene with the same contents as the currently selected scene. Nothing is copied: instead, the new scene contains links to the objects (and hence, implicitly, to the obdata) in the old scene. Therefore, changes in the new scene will also modify the “linked” one, because the objects used in the two scenes literally are the same.

Link ObData – This will create new, duplicate copies of all of the objects in the currently selected scene, but each one of those duplicate objects will have links to the same meshes, materials, and so on (the “obdata”) as the corresponding objects in the original scene. This means that you can change the position, orientation and size of the objects in the new scene without affecting those in the other one. But any modification to the meshes, materials, and so on (the obdata) will affect the other scene. This is because a single instance of the obdata is now being shared by the objects in both scenes.

Full Copy – This is the deepest form of copying available. Nothing is shared. This option creates a fully independent scene with copies of the currently selected scene’s contents. Every object in the original scene is duplicated, and a duplicate, private copy of its obdata is made as well.

OK I continue my reading of blender’s manual!
See you all!