Texture maintenance..how important is it?

[Atheni33]

I'm currently in the process of texturing my age and it dawned on me all my texture are in a folder on my desktop so my image directory is pointed at the folder and not a blender file somewhere. I was thinking when I finish my age (which is huge) and 'pack' it off to the maintainers for review how will my texture transfer with it. I probably should have figured this out when I started this project now I'm scared that I'm going to have to move my folder and start over.

[D'Lanor]

There is no need to distribute your source files unless you are building an age together with someone else.

Your textures will be exported to the <agename>_District_Textures.prp file.

[Jojon]

Are you saying that the maintainers will want the source files, for inspection and not just the exported prp's (one of which contain the textures)?

If so; Blender does have a function that allows you to relocate paths, but I have never dared going close to that myself.

For sharing (and non-sharing too, actually); my choice would be to have all relevant textures in a sub-directory to the blend file itself and make sure all paths are relative (starting from the blend file's directory, rather than a filesystem root, such as C:\). This is how the files for the collaborative age "Rell-Too" are distributed and it means all participants can place the project directory anywhere they please on their system and it will still work for everybody.

It is, of course perfectly possible to make sure everybody uses the same OS and has the directory "Q:\Goobledigookie's_computer\My_neat_stuff\My_neat_stuff_level_2\Textures\natural\wood\StainlessSteel.png", but that's not my choice.. :)

Another way is to use blender's "pack" option, to contain the textures within the blend file itself, which is what the also collaborative "ERC age" does. This means less file clutter at the cost of flexibility.

[Atheni33]

Thanks for the quick reply's

Your textures will be exported to the <agename>_District_Textures.prp file.

Ok that makes sense. Not being all that familiar with blender I wasn't for sure how the textures were exported and if I needed to keep the source files in a blender folder.

Are you saying that the maintainers will want the source files, for inspection and not just the exported prp's (one of which contain the textures)?

You know I don't know if the maintainers would need the source files or not but it might be a good idea to keep them handy if there were concerns on where the textures came from. In my case I make all my own textures, just prefer it that way. I don't plan on having anyone else work on my age other than coding, animation and the like so I can't see why I would have to share those source files with anyone else.

[boblishman]

Whilst you will not need to supply the Maintainers with anything other than your Age files (generated at export by Pyprp) there may be time when you want to move your Blender file to another computer.
Now, just copying the Blender file and your texture folder(s) will propbably not work as the file paths of your textures are unlikely to be identical on your new machine, and you will end up with the dreaded "pink" objects syndrome when you open the Blender file on your new machine.

Now, there is an easy way for you to "fix" this problem of moving your blender file and /or texture folder to either a new machine (or maybe even a new directory (folder) on your current machine) by using Blenders "pack" function.**

Open the blender file on your current machine and then go to File/External Data/Pack into Blend file ... and then re-save your Blender file. If you go and look at the size of your blender file now, you will see that it will have rocketed upwards in size (because it now has all your original, uncompressed texture files inside the blender file itself.

Now, move this new, bloated Blender file to its new location ... and then open it (from its new location) and go to File/External Data/ Unpack into files/use current directory (create if necessary) ... and Blender will create a new folder inside the folder where it now resides called "textures" ... and inside this folder will be all your (perfectly recreated) texture files... ... but, the best bit is that if you now go and look at the paths for your textures ... they now all point to this new folder ... . Even better, if you have your default Blender setting set to "Relative Paths Default" (pull down the very top menu bar ... where you set the sfx sound path) ... then all your textures will have the path "//textures\yourfile.png"

This method can also be used to bring all your (scattered) texture files into one texture folder (if you have used various different folders all over your hard drive to import textures) ... even if you are not moving your blend file to a new location or computer ...

** you may want to try this method without "risking" your master blender file so ... BEFORE starting this process, open your master Blender file and then immediately save it with a new filename (e.g. MyAgePacked.blend) ... and then proceed with the packing process. This will also enable you to compare the size of the packed and unpacked blender files, so you will know that you have packed the file correctly.

[kaelisebonrai]

You know I don't know if the maintainers would need the source files or not but it might be a good idea to keep them handy if there were concerns on where the textures came from.

If they wanted the source files, to be honest, I wouldn't give them to them. There is no legitimate reason for them to want the source files. None whatsoever.
If they want to know about the textures that data is pretty easily obtainable, without the source files, and, to be honest, copyright issues are none of their business, copyright issues are *entirely* between you and the copyright holder. Not saying that they do require it at all, but, if they did, I'd be more inclined to tell them where to shove it.

[teedyo]

Not that it matters, but If I were running a shard and hosting fan content; I would require a copyright / license for every texture in an age just to cover mine own butt. "Good Faith" only goes so far and ignorance goes no where in a court of law. Yes, many ignorant cases have been heard so I guess I should clarify that ignorance of the law on the part of the defendant is non-defensible in a court of law.

[J'Kla]

Bobishman is there any chance of you posting that methodology for packing and unpacking Textures as a page on the Wiki as is would probably do as its very well explained. :

[kaelisebonrai]

Not that it matters, but If I were running a shard and hosting fan content; I would require a copyright / license for every texture in an age just to cover mine own butt. "Good Faith" only goes so far and ignorance goes no where in a court of law. Yes, many ignorant cases have been heard so I guess I should clarify that ignorance of the law on the part of the defendant is non-defensible in a court of law.

Except copyright infringement isn't illegal per se, its /extra/legal. A civil issue, as it were. Really, its generally only become an issue if the copyright holder decides its worth their time and money to pursue it.

To the people who seem to believe not defending your copyrights causes them to lapse, that is total rubbish.

The only way copyrights "lapse" is pretty much an amount of time after your death, or, (I believe) a fixed time in the case of corporations. Not entirely 100% on when the time is counted from with corporations/companies, but, I know for individuals, it is counted from Death.

Of course, if the Work was created by a US Government Official in the course of their duties, (example, photos by a national parks officer, or whatever), the Work in question is automatically passed into the public domain.

Some countries allow a copyright holder to voluntarily enter the Work into the public domain, some do not. Some countries have different lengths for the term of the copyright, etc.

[boblishman]

Bobishman is there any chance of you posting that methodology for packing and unpacking Textures as a page on the Wiki as is would probably do as its very well explained. :

done .... added to the Troubleshooting FAQ section ...