I need to be able to create complex machine-models, save them in a library, and refer to them in other projects (linked to the library).
It was suggested that I could parent the machine parts to an empty, link to that empty, then use Shift+G. Didn’t work.
Help?
ok this would be my suggestion,…when you make a scene that you want to refer to, name the scene something recognizable, then when you need to refer to it, append the scene, ( shift F1 ) then in render buttons, way over on the left under the button labelled ‘backbuff’, there is a button with two little arrows. if you click on this button you can select the scene you appended, and it will link to that scene as a set.
And if you Link the scene instead of a direct Append, any changes you make to the scene (adding objects for example) in the library file will propagate to the files it’s linked to.
Martin
Linking to scenes …? Waitaminnit…
Pop! :-?
That was my brain trying to absorb just one more cleverness. Guess I just ran out of capacity. I’m gonna have to chew on this one for a while.
Pardon me, :), but what t’hell is “linking to a scene as a set” supposed to mean? Do we mean literally “a set” in the theatric sense?
This is very nice except there will be one wee little problem: I need to have more than one machine in a particular shot. Maybe more than one copy of the same one. I still have the basic need to be able to refer to a group of Blender objects (“a machine”) stored in another library-file as a means of populating the various shots.
All of this is not a “show stopper” to me, in the sense that I can proceed on-schedule. But when I see the notion of “libraries” being defined in Blender, I confess to being a wee bit puzzled that I can’t fairly-easily bring in a whole collection of objects.
If, as described, I could indeed create an “empty” that is linked to everything, and specify that I want to link not only to that Empty but to every thing (in the library) that it is a parent of, then I would be in business.
as they said, shift+F1 is how you bring other blend files into the current scene. it is indeed a useful hotkey/combination to know
Also I am sure there is a way to link to multiple scenes,…I’m drawing a blank at the moment but it could be as simple as ctrl L.
I see that you can indeed link to several scenes.
I also know, with my quite-limited knowledge, that you can create a new scene such that it links to the Objects, or to the ObData, of an existing scene. And as we have observed, a scene can also be used as a set … a backdrop.
But, can you link to objects found in several other scenes and use them in a new scene? I don’t mean simply when creating a new scene: I’m visualizing being able to link to objects in another scene.
And… I think I’m tantalizingly close to it: - I create a new blend-file and, with Shift+F1, link to the scene in the other file. - Shift+F4 shows all of the objects in that scene, also linked. The scene pulldown shows the linked scene and lets me view it. - In the Object menu there is a selection Make Links … To Scene … (Ctrl-L, 1). It sounds like exactly what I want, but I can’t make it do anything.
Obviously some functionality very close to what I am looking for is there, but my poor cerebrum just can’t wrap itself around it this morning.
I have no blender at this computer, but can’t you just File->Append… Then select Link down the bottom instead of Append, browse into your .blend file into the objects, select a whole heap of them with right mouse button and then import them? If they’re hooked up to an armature, it makes it easy - you can have multiple armatures to control the pose, but re-use the same linked geometry objects. No need to go to all the trouble of linking to Scenes. Using sets is not what you need - you can’t manipulate sets, but you want to bring your character (or whatever) into your file and manipulate it while preserving the original model.
Importing individual objects is what I am doing now, but of course when I make any change to an object, I’m having to rebuild all the scenes that use it. There is no way, yet apparent to me, to group a bunch of Blender objects into one “thing” and link to that “thing.”
Once I define a “machine” and define all of its movements, animating all of its parts and applying textures to it, I really don’t want to have to replicate that definition. I want to somehow link to it in toto, such that I can make changes to the base library and have those changes immediately be reflected in any scene where that machine appears.
My video, now extended to about 5 minutes, consists of 30-odd shots, most of which include the machines that will be sitting in immediate sight of the museum visitor. Now, I can make changes 30 times in a row, but if the video were ten times longer … This is a problem that’s begging for a better solution, and as I mentioned, I see tantalizing glimpses that some more workable strategy does in fact exist.
You can make links from one scene to another with the Ctrl-L combo.
Martin
Show me. Howto.
As long as you have more than one scene.
The center of the object will now appear as blue instead of pink (magenta, whatever you call it). If you move the object in one of the scenes, it is reflected in the others (in this case, there’s no original object and copies, they are all the same).
Martin
:o Do-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ohhh! :<
!!
:Z !!
smack! smack! smack! dope! dummy! aaRRRGGhh! bad Dobby! bad! bad! bad Dobby!
Thank you, I feel much better now…
I tried a dozen times or more to link from the empty (new) scene to the populated (linked from a library) scene. I never once tried it the other way around.
And, of course, it worked. %|
So it now appears that I will be able to solve my problem in this way:
It’s still a lot of work, but if it allows me to build and animate a machine once and use it by reference in many shots, I’ll be happy enuf.