Working with big scene?

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hi there, i’ve recently switched from Cinema 4D to blender.
Just to know, i’m quite happy with blender, i can model fast and accurate, even for 3d print projects, eevee is awesome!
So… after trying blender for a while, i want to know how to manage big scenes?
I mean a lot of models, and textures/materials…

On cinema 4d there is layers function, where you can put models, materials and so on.
For example, you have a medical asset, with like 5 models, and 10-20 textures… and you can set all of them in generic layer name: medical asset… so everything is organized

I just want to know if there such option for blender, or maybe there is another way to work with big scenes?

Thanks! :slight_smile:

#2

In 2.7x there was layers that you could use. However in 2.8beta as of now they are called collections which is causing a lot of confusion to a lot of the older version blender users. So collections is the old layers system. I am not at my laptop or desktop to snap some screenshots of how collections work or the location to toggle/enable/disable them. But to answer your question, yes blender has that. You can also break large projects into scenes as well then combine them in the compositor.

Keep in mind this is an older video and as with all beta the locations and layouts will and can change but this is to give you an idea and point you to the right direction.

1 Like
#3

Hi FlyingBanana, thanks for the response.
I’m aware of collection, and for grouping meshes they are great! but they didn’t work for materials, so basically if you have a lot of materials, you need to scrape in the dropdown… maybe i need to begin to make more specific name for my materials, so at least with search bar i can go directly on the material i’m working on…

I don’t know if in the final release they have thinked about a material/texture grouping system…

#4

If a group of objects are going to share the same material why not just select all the objects needed and link the material?that way you don’t have to select object, select material selecting the object with the already created material last. Then Ctrl+l

#5

Hmm… maybe it’s not clear what i mean…
Here is an example 3d model who i have worked on…

As you can see, this model has a lot of materials/textures, then imagine on a big scene with models like this… this gonna be insane!

I have think three solutions:

  1. made a single meshed object with one material, and a single uv map.
  2. made the model with very few mesh/uvmap/materials
  3. fine-label every material… like not generic screen-material… instead crt.monitor.screen…

Anyway i know is a bad model this one, because it has some topology errors and uvmap errors, and of course a lot of objects/materials… i think i remade/reworked it in spare time…

#6

No worries, it is probably me just misunderstanding what you are getting at. I won’t waste your time trying to figure out a solution to what you are looking for. I just always select all the objects in the scene that are going to have the same material/texture to one that I created the material for. Then I Ctrl+L and do link materials. Now everything selected will have the same texture/material as the one single object that I selected last. If I find I need to change something to a linked material I just make it a single user and tweak what I need without having to recreate the texture/material nodes.

Again, sorry for any wasted time on my misunderstanding.

#7

@badunit if you’re worried about your file getting clogged up with materials and meshes, you can easily create separate files for it… blender makes referencing models from other files really easy. Just group your CRT in a specific collection (or create a group) and save your file.

In your scene file, go file->link, navigate to your file, and select the collection. Your CRT will be linked into the scene but non-editable. A great technique for keeping your file clean.

Cinema 4D has something like this called xrefs, if that’s familiar to you.

#8

Sorry if i speak like you have wasted my time, be safe you’re not! Thanks for the tip, never know about linking hehe :smile:

#9

Thank you! never tried linking in blender, yeah i know xrefs on cinema 4d but never used… This is can be another trick to stay organized!

#10

Just a video showing what I was talking about. If the version looks a bit different it is because I am using another users build of Blender 2.8 that speeds up render times and allows for exporting objects/camera/empties over to Hitfilm Pro without needing any adjustments.