what is gained by keeping geometry file separate and referencing in to the rig file?
grand marshal polycounter
I am using Maya along with advanced skeleton. I have followed the suggested workflow to keep geometry in separate file, reference it to the rig file, and then publish the rig file to be used for animations.
The problem I have is that reference between the geo and rig file is really brittle. Naturally you change material assignments sometimes, or need to split a portion of the model to be separate, things like that. This is often leading to issues in the rig file where it breaks down and then it's hours of work to nuke the reference, bring it in fresh, copy and paste all your skin weights back, etc.
the biggest problem is that when you open a file, it seems that this always rechecks the reference, so incremental saves don't help you if something in the geo file is borked. For example is the rig file is broken because you swapped a material, and then want to go grab the skin weights from a previous increment, you can't do that because any increment of the rig file you open will pick up the borked geo file reference.
Obviously all problems can be got around with some planning, but it woudl be nice to work in a way where half the brain doesn't have to plan around such brittleness.
It got me thinking, what am I gaining from having the geo file separate? Absent of team considerations, I don't think anything is gained? It just makes an additional point of failure I have to work around, it seems like. Just curious if anybody else has some experience, I am thinking I may try out just having geo and rig file one in the same.
The rig is practically transferable because the fit skeleton can be passed around easily. So if I wanted to reuse the rig for another character, i can just duplicate the file and swap out the geo or work from the fit skeleton template. So I dont think referencing offers anything on that issue.
besides that, i cant think of any possibility where i will hate myself for not keeping them separate.
The problem I have is that reference between the geo and rig file is really brittle. Naturally you change material assignments sometimes, or need to split a portion of the model to be separate, things like that. This is often leading to issues in the rig file where it breaks down and then it's hours of work to nuke the reference, bring it in fresh, copy and paste all your skin weights back, etc.
the biggest problem is that when you open a file, it seems that this always rechecks the reference, so incremental saves don't help you if something in the geo file is borked. For example is the rig file is broken because you swapped a material, and then want to go grab the skin weights from a previous increment, you can't do that because any increment of the rig file you open will pick up the borked geo file reference.
Obviously all problems can be got around with some planning, but it woudl be nice to work in a way where half the brain doesn't have to plan around such brittleness.
It got me thinking, what am I gaining from having the geo file separate? Absent of team considerations, I don't think anything is gained? It just makes an additional point of failure I have to work around, it seems like. Just curious if anybody else has some experience, I am thinking I may try out just having geo and rig file one in the same.
The rig is practically transferable because the fit skeleton can be passed around easily. So if I wanted to reuse the rig for another character, i can just duplicate the file and swap out the geo or work from the fit skeleton template. So I dont think referencing offers anything on that issue.
besides that, i cant think of any possibility where i will hate myself for not keeping them separate.
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