Greetings,

MY SPECIFIC EXAMPLE:

In one scene, my avatar is along in his apartment.  In another scene, he is wearing different clothes as has visitors.  The two scenes take place at roughly the same time of day.

The obvious solution seems to use two Project Files.

So far, so good.

THE NEW CHALLENGE - AND MY QUESTION:

Now if I want to make "global changes" to my scenes, what is the best and easiest way to keep the to project files synchronized?

Suppose I want to add some additional lighting, and adjust the ambient lighting?  Or I decide both scenes should take place in the evening rather than in the afternoon.

• Is the only option to open up each light source in Project File 1, and with paper and pen, write down all the color RGB values, XYZ transformation values, multipliers, etc., and then open Project File 2 and manually adjust all the lights to match?
• I don't see a good alternative to the manual approach.  Do you?

Suppose I want to decorate the set?  Add some pillows on the couch, move a chair, put pictures on the wall, add a television... what is the easiest way make my sets the same?

• I'm thinking I could attach those props to a dummy, and save it all as a "master prop," and then add that master prop to my other project file.
• Is that reasonable?  Are there other, better ideas?

WRAP-UP:

Maybe I simply need to learn more about "Sets."

I look forward to learning some more best-practices from the masters.

P.S.:

A similar situation is where I have a rather long scene with the avatar walking around and gesturing.  In the middle of the scene, he interacts with a prop in a fairly detailed way.

To avoid a lot of complications, I figured I'd make a "close-up Project" where I refine his interaction with the prop.  In the "master Project" he can walk up to the prop, but if his position is a bit off, it doesn't matter.  I'll simply position him correctly in the close-up Project.

When I edit (NLE) the two projects together, you won't see any misalignments.

But like in my example above, what if I want to adjust the mood of the scene?  Add fancy lighting options and stuff like that?

What's the easiest way to make the same changes in both projects?

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Good question. I unfortunately do not have an easy solution. I've been adjusting the lighting manually in both projects.

Anyone else?



Doug

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There are several solutions available. If you want to have the same lighting in several scenes then just set up the lighting in one scene.

Next select the Lighting tab in "Stage" and add the lighting to your custom folder, you can also do this for Atmosphere - which includes a bunch of HDR, IBL, Fog settings etc.

Now when you want to have the same lighting in another scene just select your saved pre-set in the custom Lighting folder and the rest takes care of its self.

If you have to make any changes then do it and just save another custom pre-set that can then be applied to any project using only a few mouse clicks.

Gerry

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System: Win 10 Pro (21H2), Asus X99-E WS, CPU i7-5930K -3,5 GHz, 32 GB DDR4 2666-16 RAM, NVidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU - 11 GB VRAM(Driver Studio-536.99), Samsung 850 Pro 512 GB SSD, 6 TB HD storage.

Thanks for the tips, Gerry.

I was worried about spending a lot of time investigating false leads.  Your guidance is appreciated.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Gerry's tips are the way to go.

One thing I found out is that for some reason iClone does not always put back saved lights where they are supposed to be. I had this with spot lights and point lights, which have a specific location. So you may have to do some adjustments. I believe this is a recent bug.

For stuff inside a room, I create a dummy and attach all the stuff to it and then save it. I keep a separate subfolder in my Props folder dedicated to props that are specific to the project I'm currently working on. So if I have customized something it is readily available. Also, since iClone saves props with their location info, I can easily add the same prop (or a dummy with stuff attached) to multiple scenes at the right spot. I used that recently to add a surveilance camera in the correct spot in several scenes.

To save a terrain with vegetation (trees, flowers) you can save it as 3D scene. If you add your buildings to the terrain, you can save a complete layout. You can then later detach your buildings from the terrain if needed (convert to prop). This is very handy if you like a particular setup and is the closest you can get to merging projects.

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@Animagic,

Glad to hear that my instincts were right about attaching the props to a dummy.

Thanks for the warning about lights that might move.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

it's ultimately going to be all on your work habits, simply because iclone itself doesn't have the features required to import work done on other projects.

the suggestions made on this thread already are good ones, add to that saving your presets, for example your lighting can be saved with atmosphere presets, and you can also save animation details with motion plus.

It all comes down to administration of your files, and utilizing as many features as you can from iclone and it's presets / exports, basically work protocol.

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There are several solutions available. If you want to have the same lighting in several scenes then just set up the lighting in one scene.

Next select the Lighting tab in "Stage" and add the lighting to your custom folder, you can also do this for Atmosphere - which includes a bunch of HDR, IBL, Fog settings etc.

Now when you want to have the same lighting in another scene just select your saved pre-set in the custom Lighting folder and the rest takes care of its self.

If you have to make any changes then do it and just save another custom pre-set that can then be applied to any project using only a few mouse clicks. "

Thanks, Gerry

Works with both Lighting & Atmosphere, here

One proviso, though; Atmosphere HDR Tone Exposure can change with different Camera angles & needs to be re-set.

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What I did last night...

I had two copies of the same "rough" set, used for two scenes.  I could probably have kept it as "one scene" in this case, but I wanted to minimize the complexity and avoid putting all my eggs in one basket.

My set was for a office (like what a detective might use).  It only consisted of the 4 walls, floor, door, desk, table, two chairs.

There was nothing outside, so you only saw "gray" if you looked out the window. 

Then I wanted to improve my set.  Here's what I did:

• Improvements done in Project A...
• Added city streets and city buildings, and a couple props
• Modified some lighting
• Adjusted the color of one of the props
• In Project A...
• Added a simple box
• Selected all the city elements and the props
• ATTACHed them do the box, and named it "Office set additions 1"
• Saved the box as a Custom Prop (and gave it the same name)
• This prop is unique to this "movie project" because items are positioned specific to this set, so I should remember to delete it later
• In Project B...
• Add my custom prop
• Bam!  Easy-peasy.  Everything was there, both the exterior features and the in-office props.
• I DETACHed on of the props because my avatar was going to interact with it, but now I know it started in the same place where I left it in Project A
• In Project A...
• Manually wrote down the settings for my two new lights
• Type, color, shadow, direction, multiplier...
• Wrote down the color settings (ambient/diffuse) of the one prop I edited
• I could have saved it as a custom prop, but this time I just wrote down the RGB values of the colors
• In Project B...
• Maually set the lights and the prop to match the values I wrote down

Overall, not too bad.

I have a few sets that are used in multiple scenes, (or one movie scene split into multiple files to minimize project complexity), so I'll be doing this several more times as my sets continue to be refined.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD