Question about lighting

[GPNMilano]

I also have loads of textures and materials that show as unattached that persist version upon version. There was a thread that told me you just close and reopen and they go but this appears not to be the case.

You have your files packed. Thats the reason they don't go away generally. Under the file menu in blender there's an option called "external data" it will give you several unpacking options. Choose the first one. This will unpack all the files in your blender file. Afterwhich if you save and reopen the materials will be gone.

NOTE: Packing your files in blender is a good way to ensure that you don't lose data by moving your textures to another area of your hard drive, and should also be used if you're sending your file to someone else. It saves all materials, textures, and images in your blend file. The downside is that it greatly increases your blend file size, and continues to save even unused materials/textures.

[Nadnerb]

I use packed files, and blender still garbage collects normally for me...

[J'Kla]

Please excuse the following rant

[rant]
I have been building my age in a modular way importing completed modules it has been putting these in separate scenes (something I only just found out about) these imports have been importing the development work and embedding it hidden in parts of these other scenes.

I have stripped out most of the rubbish using the "Outliner" (Something else I just found out about) I have managed to remove most of my excess lighting and a pile of other stuff I did not know was there.

Oh how I dream of doing this with Studio 3DMax ok it's expensive. don't get me wrong Blender is good once past the first bit of the vertical learning curve.

There's lots of info on what keys do what but not what specific buttons do. I find it a tad over protective. It doesn't ask you to confirm a delete it just embeds the method and requires you to embark on a learning mission to find the keys.

It's ok saying hey this stuff may be needed again so I ain't throwing the trash out. I was trying to delete an IPO that's used by 4 meshes I just want it gone the IPO is wrong I want to start over. There is just no simple way of saying hey trash this lot I want to start again. I have taken to making loads of copies so I can go back to an earlier stage.

The age at this time has 375 modules the complexity took a week to embed and a week to repair a simple fault because I had to open every module up make the change (it was a turn normals around). I really hate the way you can't highlight a group of objects and do the the same change to them all.

And then buttons hidden on panels that only appear if you are in edit mode or whatever why not leave them just greyed out so that you know where the have gone then at least you know you have found the right panel.
[/rant]

Thanks I think I know where I am going now. I will come back if I get lost again.

[Trylon]

Yup, that's Blender alright

Well, at least you get what you pay for

[J'Kla]

I'm banking on that.

[Aloys]

I don't know personally I dislike Max just as much. Sure it's more powerful but I find the interface just as messy (although in a different style).
But then again I've tried pretty much all major 3d packages and I found stuff to complain about in all their interfaces.. (the worst to me being Zbrush)

[Godot]

Blender can be a pain but just thinkof the fun of hand coding every vertex like I was doing with Java3D.
I have gotten into the habit of checking the normals at the end of each session as they seem to be assigned randomly.
When I think about it, how else would they be assigned?

[J'Kla]

They are assigned according to the original primitive then in general outside the problem comes when you build a cup shape or anything with a void that is when does the outside become the inside. If we have an issue with this a simple computer program has to do it with rules and those rules depend on what the adjoining surfaces are doing. A hidden surface has no influence.

[Trylon]

Blender can be a pain but just thinkof the fun of hand coding every vertex like I was doing with Java3D.

Or how about hand-coding a vrml file. I once foolishly did that about 8 years ago in high school

[J'Kla]

The nearest my school got to a computer was graph paper and a pencil but it was 1972 when I left.