Where's the (Library) stuff

[thumperness]

So I have purchased the subscription and downloaded the software. Did the installation and got through that hurdle.

 

Now I am up to the 'The Door's Stuck' tutorial in TAoAM and have run into a little snag.

 

It tells me to go to the projects tab in the library and get the project for the tutorial.

 

um...the projects tab is empty.

 

Is there a link to download the extras?

[Rodney]

Is there a link to download the extras?

 

Please note that all of the files necessary for working through TaoA:M *should* install with A:M so you may have a different problem here. It's possible that such a problem will result in empty Library even after downloading the following resources. The key to having the files show up in the Library is to have them at the right location on your harddrive which is usually in the form of: C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\Data.

 

But, to answer your question...

If you don't have the files at that location you can find the resources online:

There should be a link in the email and it should be available in the Hash Inc store if you look there.

Those link should point you to files on the Hash Inc FTP site:

 

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/LittleData.zip (7MB containing all the files needed for the TaoA:M exercises)

 

and/or

 

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/misc/Data.zip (158MB of various resources)

 

 

The first thing you should do is check that Data folder to see if the files are there. You don't have to open them via the Library. You can simply point A:M to the files and open them.

[thumperness]

Thanx man.

 

I'll check when I get home.

[thumperness]

OK. I found the files, and can load them manually, so I'm good there.

 

The issue now is that they are individual .prj (project) files. I'm not really sure how to get them into the library under the projects tab.

 

Again I am on a mac. Has anyone else been able to do this?

[robcat2075]

You dont' really need anything in the library to use them for the tutorials. Loading them manually. If you need just a model from a PRJ, save it out separately and load that.

[thumperness]

You dont' really need anything in the library to use them for the tutorials. Loading them manually. If you need just a model from a PRJ, save it out separately and load that.

Yeah, I understand all that. I am only trying to learn the ins-and-outs of the library and whether or not it actually works.

 

One of my goals I have in coming back to A:M is to know the ins-and-outs of all the parts of the software that I use.

[robcat2075]

In NewTAoA:M I hope to bypass the library entirely. There's nothing you do with A:M that requires an object be there. We did all of TWO without the library. Don't worry about the library.

[Gerry]

Yeah, unfortunately, the library is a good idea in theory, but even when you have it working, it's generally not used much. You can create your own libraries of your own models, sets, etc, create icons for your own items, etc, etc, but in practice I'm not sure many people do.

 

Keep in mind, that if you choose to use the libraries, when you take an item from it (and this applies even if you just open models, prjs, actions, what have you, from a finder window as opposed to the library pane) you have to rename/resave the item elsewhere, because if you don't, any changes you make will be to the original library item.

[thumperness]

Turns out that I started playing with the library settings a really screwed something up. I ended up having to delete A:M and re-installing it. I'ma gonna pretty much leave those alone I guess.

[robcat2075]

Turns out that I started playing with the library settings a really screwed something up. I ended up having to delete A:M and re-installing it. I'ma gonna pretty much leave those alone I guess.

 

Help>Reset Settings would probably suffice for something like that.

[Rodney]

I'ma gonna pretty much leave those alone I guess.

 

This is the opposite of what you should do when you are learning something new.

You won't break A:M if you enter some stray settings. You may alter it beyond recognition... but then you can always reset it.

 

There are some things in life that would be foolish to trifle with... a valued relationship for instance. But when it comes to A:M you'll learn a whole lot more if and when you experiment.

 

In NewTAoA:M I hope to bypass the library entirely.

 

TaoA:M has inspired many an idea over the years and here are two that I've yet to get the chance to investigate (the first is relatively easy while the second would consitute a major change in how we do business in A:M):

 

1. All TaoA:M files are loaded into one Project file. (Anything needed in later exercises would be created from available project assets)

This is also a keep-it-all-in-A:M approach I wanted to pursue for use with other tutorials.

There is little reason to have to leave A:M while working through a tutorial and this fact could be taken advantage of.

 

2. A new file format: an A:M Production file. (.pro or .amp as the possible file extension)

This file format would build a layer of extensible data over the top of all the current formats and (eventually) incorporate and enhance the capabilities of A:M's current Library set. Because of each .pro file's ability to be edited and viewed outside of A:M in a browser the user could customize the look and feel, organize and intuitively interact with and alter the content.

 

Bottome line: Libraries are quite useful... Google is one huge online library(!). For a number of reasons, most of us just don't use the Libraries in A:M.

 

Not a feature request for Hash Inc... just something I've tried to investigate as the opportunity allows.

[zandoriastudios]

I use the Libraries, it is easy to set up your own custom one too. Just open the pane and drag and drop files there from an open folder, it will make a shortcut to it in the Library.

[SHS]

So I have purchased the subscription and downloaded the software. Did the installation and got through that hurdle.

 

Now I am up to the 'The Door's Stuck' tutorial in TAoAM and have run into a little snag.

 

It tells me to go to the projects tab in the library and get the project for the tutorial.

 

um...the projects tab is empty.

 

Is there a link to download the extras?

 

I'm having the same problem...I loaded AM, download the lastest data files, placed them over the top of the exsisting data files...they are all there, but when I open AM and look in the library I don't see everything in the data files. Do I have to refresh or re-crete a new path? What did you do?

[Gerry]

Yes, you have to remap the path(s) to the libraries you want to have show up, and you can re-order the libraries in the options panel.

 

I just went through the mapping process to make sure I knew what I was talking about, and my libraries were a mess! I looked in my Program Files folder and into the Hash folder and it appears that the most complete data folder I have is from v12, all the later ones have a kind of sampler of models etc, but not the full libraries. So I mapped to the v12 "Libraries" folder. Map to that, not to the "Data" folder, but only map to a libraries folder that's adjacent to the data folder you want.

 

I also found in the Options/Libraries panel that I had about 8 or 10 duplicate paths to my v16 folder, so I deleted all those, mapped to the v12 folder, and the libraries seem fine and fully populated now.

[Rodney]

Check out the info on reconnecting your Library at this link:

 

http://www.hash.com/lib/win.html

 

 

Note to Robert: I know you are trying to avoid Libraries entirely in the new TaoA:M but even if you go that direction perhaps we can have something of a footnote/annex about them here in the forum that provides useful information and standard troubleshooting? If including Libraries in some capacity perhaps it could be added to the installation or troubleshooting annex/appendix (with any other strange and rarely used things).

 

For those that do use the Libraries:

We could use a champion or two here. What doesn't get used eventually goes away.

Perhaps we can illustrate via a short video of how practical/useful A:M;s Libraries can be. (Because I was perhaps the only A:M User that used it, the loss of the Tutorials tab in Libraries was especially painful for me)

 

Other rare uses for the Library:

I've rarely seen anyone use A:M's Libraries as a place to store and easily access their movies and series of sequential images for use/reuse in A:M.

This provides an excellent means to quickly edit films together in A:M and it's just one of A:M's many unknown/uncharted features.

 

Tip on leveraging the power of EXR images in A:M: There is a small bug in the Libraries search function that prevents A:M from listing files with the .EXR extension. If you change the search to all files it'll also list .EXR and from there you can grab them and add them to your Library. Drag and Drop should work the same as with other images.

 

Possible Goal for Library usage: A periodic Library update that refreshes (adds and updates) resources from this forum's A:M Exchange.

Shared projects could have SVN update the Libraries at the click of a button.

Other Potential Usage: High Quality Libraries of resources could be commissioned, sold or exchanged.

[thumperness]

I use the Libraries, it is easy to set up your own custom one too. Just open the pane and drag and drop files there from an open folder, it will make a shortcut to it in the Library.

 

Since I am using this software on a Mac now, I have to keep asking if posted solutions will work on a Mac too. If not, I need to figure out who the power Mac users are and seek advice from them.

[Rodney]

Sorry... Mac users should wear a big hat on their heads so I can tailor my links to them.

 

http://www.hash.com/lib/mac.html

 

I need to figure out who the power Mac users are and seek advice from them.

 

That you do!

 

My offer still stands... if someone gives me a Mac I'll be a Mac user.

[thumperness]

For those that do use the Libraries:

We could use a champion or two here. What doesn't get used eventually goes away.

Perhaps we can illustrate via a short video of how practical/useful A:M;s Libraries can be. (Because I was perhaps the only A:M User that used it, the loss of the Tutorials tab in Libraries was especially painful for me)

 

Rodney, the libraries have always made sense to me in theory. I have just never been able to have them do everything I knew they could do. I never asked enough questions. William Sutton seems to have them figured out, at least on the PC side. No reason they shouldn't be as easy on the Mac side. I just purchased the extras DVD (download) and am very anxious to get all of it integrated into the library.

[thumperness]

Sorry... Mac users should wear a big hat on their heads so I can tailor my links to them.

 

I'll work on tweeking my avatar...

[Rodney]

Rodney, the libraries have always made sense to me in theory. I have just never been able to have them do everything I knew they could do. I never asked enough questions. William Sutton seems to have them figured out, at least on the PC side. No reason they shouldn't be as easy on the Mac side. I just purchased the extras DVD (download) and am very anxious to get all of it integrated into the library.

 

First, I hope you saw the link above to the Mac version of that tutorial. Looks like you did.

 

There are a few facts about Libraries in A:M that are good to know:

 

- Libraries are largely misunderstood and underused.

- For many seasoned users Libraries are of little use.

- Libraries tend to move away from standard files system interfaces (File/Open) to more drag and drop usage.

- Some don't use the Libraries because it looks like something a kid would use.

etc.

 

More practically:

Libraries can get disconnected

Libraries can be overwritten

Libraries can be temporarily or permanently lost

Libraries are (mostly) manually produced

 

We can extrapolate out from some of these and begin to break down the workflow. That would help others better understand the benefits (and constrains) of Library usage. It could also help develop the Libraries used with A:M in the future.

 

Robert can speak for himself on his take of Libraries (He is agin' them) but I'd summarize his take on them as "unnecessary usage" and due to A:M's multifaceted nature and standard interface this is true. But Libraries represent an alternative (an enhanced redundancy) and are more in tune with the future. They also align with Martin Hash's concept of resource usage/re-usage. Just because something is not useful to me now does not mean it isn't going to of use in the future.

 

So, to restate my standard mantra, "This stuff will go away (or at least lie dormant) if it isn't used". Due to lack of interest, development of the Libraries was halted even as they were introduced. But more importantly, as time rolls on, some elements/functionality will by the very nature of disuse... be removed*. In the end one thing is abundantly clear:

 

A:M Libraries can be more useful.

 

 

*a worthwhile goal would be to see Libraries (eventually) updated, enhanced and improved.

[Gerry]

Hey Thumperness, I'm a Mac guy who has to use a pc at my day job, and I carry my AM files back and forth and work on them on both systems on a regular basis. So I know of issues on both sides, and though the Mac version previously came up a little short, most of the issues are fixed and all the things that work on the pc now work on the Mac as well.

 

At the moment I'm at my Mac and looking at the library mapping thing. Let's see...

 

Okay, I just tried the same thing on the Mac and found that my v15 library has a lot more items in it. So I tried mapping to that "Libraries" folder, but the folder is empty unfortunately. Shouldn't be, there should be a small .lbr file in there.

 

So I next tried moving the v15 "Data" folder into the v16 app folder to see if I could trick AM into seeing that data folder, but no luck. However, I think the problem is the files I have available on each machine, not platform-related.

 

EDIT: Just took a look at the v16 .lbr file and it's just an .xml file so I may try writing a version to access the full v15 data folder. Just for kicks.

[mouseman]

In general, I think a library would be most useful where you have numerous projects with assets that are common among projects. For example, I think working on a web comic would be great to just select a scene from the library, select three or four characters from the library, and then tweak the lighting and set up the cameras and the characters. I imagine that this pipeline would be helped greatly by libraries.

 

I think, however, that most people do one-off projects, and the reusability (and thus payback) from creating libraries in these situations is debatable.

[thumperness]

So I purchased and downloaded the extras DVD content and using the Mac link Rodney sent me, I got it into my library. But not as expected. I was hoping it would have distributed all the models to the model tab and all the projects to the projects tab, etc...

 

Is there any way to do that?

 

Also, the content that is sent when you download A:M including all the tuts does not have a library folder or file.

*** For the Mac ***, How do I create a library file/folder that contains all that stuff? Is it a matter of drop and drag like Will Sutton was talking about?

[Rodney]

How do I create a library file/folder that contains all that stuff? Is it a matter of drop and drag like Will Sutton was talking about?

 

At this moment you have a few manual options.

 

- Drag and Drop

- Manually add the shortcut in the Libray (via Right Clicking and selection)

- Edit your Library directly (Library files are a text files)

 

If you (or anyone you know) has any programming talent you can grab a list of A:M resources from your hard drive and format that into a Library. (and you can use most text editors to do it)

 

 

For the sake of discussion, I'm going to walk through a brute force method of creating a Library on a PC so that you and others can better understand the underlying process and formatting of A:M Libraries.

I apologize in advance if I'm unclear or if this gets anyone lost.

 

If I were to go to the command line and type in the following:

 

Dir H: /s /b *.mdl>models.txt

 

This would create a directory listing of all models on my external drive in a textfile name models.txt. The listing would look like this:

 

H:\Mycoolmodels\awesomeman.mdl
H:\Mycoolmodels\basictree.mdl
H:\XtraDVD\Data\Models\GuyNamedFred\Fred.mdl
etc.

 

The standard format of a Library file (which is a simple text file) is as follows:

 

ProductVersion=15.0

Projects

Tutorials|

FileName=../Data/Tutorials/The Door's Stuck/The Door's Stuck.prj

Tutorials|

FileName=../Data/Tutorials/Cosmic Bowling/Cosmic Bowling.prj

Tutorials|

FileName=../Data/Tutorials/Flag/Flag.prj

Models

FileName=../Data/Models/DuckDuckGoose/DuckDuckGoose.mdl

 

So... if we start with a raw file that has the following:

 

Header

Data

Footer

 

The model listing we've created for the H:drive is the data for Models. We just have to format it right. So for a library that will be at the root of the H:ddrive we could parse/replace elements of the text listing to form what is required for a Library:

 

H:\XtraDVD\Data\Models\GuyNamedFred\Fred.mdl

 

becomes:

 

FileName=H:\XtraDVD\Data\Models\GuyNamedFred\Fred.mdl

 

Note that in this process we've replaced 'H:\' with '[carriage return]FileName=H:\' and '.mdl' with '.mdl[carriage return]'

 

We would likely reserve adding the Header and Footer until after we also add in Project Files, Materials, Actions for merging with this (correctly formatted) list of Models.

 

Header file content:

<LIBRARY>
ProductVersion=15.0

 

Footer content:

</LIBRARY>

 

Now... anyone who can make sense of that is equipped with the knowledge that will help them write their own A:M Library creating utilities.

My suggestion would be to find a way to do it on an iPad and then move the data files back and forth to your A:M system as desired.

 

The Library discussion will continue until we perfect the product.

 

 

On the PC, Rusty Williamson and (I believe) Glen Anthofer put this basic process together into a separate Library generating utility.

Perhaps if the code from that is shared and a feature request prepared in A:M Reports we'll eventually see a file-sniffing Library generator as an A:M standard.

There is however, no particularly good reason it can't be programmed as a separate application and even move over into other operating systems. Libraries are flexible like that and we should be able to sort and organize our A:M Libraries anywhere... even on an iPod.

 

*If anyone sees any mistake in my brute force process please identify it*

 

Note: A:M's current Library uses images contained in each asset. This image is then associated with the shortcut and displayed in the Library. If there is no image it is because no one has yet added it. If you see an error-looking icon assigned to a Library shortcut it means that there is no asset at the specified location. Future stuff? An enhanced Library might provide additional means to enhance the visual interaction with the asset by looking for an external image saved to a specified name and format. For instance: icon.png and if not present the image would default/fall through to the standard user created icon. If no user created image was present the icon would default to the asset's default icon (i.e. the established icon for models). This external Library image would then be used as a means to create future enhancements. But of course, understanding how Libraries work in the here and now helps us move foward to ever more useful enhancements.

[thumperness]

Turns out, at least on a Mac, you can right click (Command Click. I have a 3 button mouse) in whatever library tab you want and it will give to the option to browse to the file you want in that tab of the library. Pick it, and it is then 'in' your library. FUN.

[ReubenM]

Cool, thanks for that: just the solution I was looking for!