Save the Chor and not the Project file...huh?

[rusty]

Hi,

 

Okay...when did you people move from saving mainly the project file to mainly saving the chor file?

 

Why did you do this?

 

What advantages does this have?

 

Is there really 'any' difference besides the .prj and .cho file extensions?

 

What else is there to this?

 

What else, if anything, are you using chor files for?

 

FYI: I have only used saving chor files for large models that exceed what I call the workable patch limit--once you pass a certain patch count (at least in V14) response time becomes unworkable.

 

Cheers,

Rusty

[NancyGormezano]

when did you people move from saving mainly the project file to mainly saving the chor file?

 

Why did you do this?

 

In the 10 plus years that I have been using A:M - I have ONLY used chors. I only use projects when I am forced. I have only found a need for projects when needing to embed data in order to share with others.

 

 

What advantages does this have?

 

If you save a project - all the modified elements of a project get saved (materials, models, chors, etc), whether you want them to be saved or not. I want control over when and what I save. If, for example, I have made changes to a material: I save my material, then the model that uses the material, only if I want the model to use the new material. Also: If I've saved a model to a new name and it is used in the current chor that I'm working in, then I also save my chor that is using it (if I want the chor to use this new model name). I also do not believe in auto save because I do a lot of testing and what-ifs and I certainly don't want my experiments to be saved.

 

Is there really 'any' difference besides the .prj and .cho file extensions?

A project can contain multiple chors. A project can contain multiple items that never get used in any chor, model contained in the project. For example images, sound files, actions.

 

What else, if anything, are you using chor files for?

 

FYI: I have only used saving chor files for large models that exceed what I call the workable patch limit--once you pass a certain patch count (at least in V14) response time becomes unworkable.

uhh...animating and rendering...is the normal use ....not just for constructing large models.

[higginsdj]

I was introduced to the concept in TWO. In Projects you tend to store everything in the Prj - its the default. By playing with Chors, everything has to be saved out as it's own element. In the world of reuse/libraries etc, using chors forces you to save out each element. If you don't - you lose it/them.

 

Of course you can still use Projects as a container of individually saved elements - nothing wrong with that - but in the end, it is the animation that is the 'master' and that is the chor.

 

Cheers

[largento]

Yeah, I've never used projects, either. Nancy nicely covered the reasons.

[rusty]

I was introduced to the concept in TWO. In Projects you tend to store everything in the Prj - its the default. By playing with Chors, everything has to be saved out as it's own element. In the world of reuse/libraries etc, using chors forces you to save out each element. If you don't - you lose it/them.

 

Of course you can still use Projects as a container of individually saved elements - nothing wrong with that - but in the end, it is the animation that is the 'master' and that is the chor.

 

Cheers

 

Got me with that one! If I have a project and every thing's embedded, when I save the chor it saves one .cho file. Nothing else is saved. If things are not embedded then, yeah, each item is saved out whether you save the project or the chor.

 

r

[rusty]

Thanks Nancy and everyone else. Those are good compelling arguments and one's I hadn't thought of.

 

Questions:

* So you never save the project, just the chor?

 

* In many cases I've collected all the models I need but have not placed them all in the chor yet, what then? Or how do you do it differently?

 

Oh, oh...wife calling with a 'honey do'... more later.

 

r

[robcat2075]

On TWO there was a large folder of models and materials and bitmaps made for the movie. Everyone downloaded this folder and it was synched with the original at hash so if one of the assets was updated eventually yours would be too.

 

For that idea to work, the models each had to be saved as their own MDL file and not inside a PRJ. Likewise with actions and materials

 

Animators would import the models they needed into A:M, drop them into their chors, animate, then save the chor only. The chor saved all their keyframing information and links to the models it used, so that the next time the animator loaded the chor it would also load all the models the chor needed.

 

Because everyone had downloaded the same file structure for the assets anyone who had a properly synched folder of assets could also open up someone elses chor and it would properly search out the matching assets in their copy of the folder.

 

The total assets in a TWO chor could be enormous so saving a PRJ with everything embedded would have created unnecessary duplication of the models. I save incremental versions of my work every few minutes over many weeks of work. It would be impractical to resave a copy of EVERYTHING just because I made a few keyframe changes.

 

Also if a Tinwoodman model got updated with different decals later in the production, that new model would be substituted for my old one when i re-synched my folder and I would continue working on with it. With PRJs with everything embedded that substitution wouldn't happen because I wouldn't really be working with a tinwoodman MDL that was synched to the one on the central repository anymore, I'd just be working with a copy of a tinwoodman in a PRJ.

 

Today I save whole PRJs with everything embedded when I want to save the entire working environment of whatever is cooking and not have to worry that a change I make to a model today will break something I did fifty versions ago but might want to return to.

 

Today i save chors if I am certain my asset development is done and all i want to do is drop my models in the chor and animate them.

 

Note that images and audio can never be embedded, they are always external. If you edit one of those used in today's version that change will appear in previous versions that used them.

 

You can tell if any asset is NOT embedded in the current PRJ if it has the tiny floppy disk symbol on its icon.