TIP: Merging Choreographies / Chor Collections

[Rodney]

One of the easiest ways to combine Choreographies is to create a third (empty) Chor and import the others into it.

As a cautionary note, saving that Chor will result in one that is truly merged and combined so make sure you save your originals.

 

For realtime organization and planning of Projects consider creating Choreographies with themes.

For instance you might have one Chor named 'Characters' that has all of the actors needed in a particular storyline.

Similarly, a Chor named 'Props' can be populated with all manner of props.

As you need these resources simply drag and drop from the Character Chor into the active Chor you have set up for with a camera for that shot.

Need a different camera setup? A different rendering output? Grab a camera from the Chor named 'Cameras and Render Presets' that already has the settings you want.

 

Note that all of these resources need not be spatially organized within the Chors but generally they should be properly scaled/sized.

This will ensure that Characters, Props and Scenes all fit into proper environments.

Then simply use the listing in the Project Workspace to locate the assets and drag/drop their name as desired.

Chor collections growing too large?

Copy that Chor collection, name it something appropriate and then remove everything that isn't wanted.

 

But what about Libraries?

Libraries are still very useful and provide a preview image prior to selection but for those times where you don't have adequate time to organize resources or assign preview images to assets the broader categories of raw assets stored in Choreographies can help populate scenes rapidly. Unlike Libraries however, Choreography contents can be automatically identified via filters/tabs in the PWS. Just name the assets in a way that will help the filters you set up find them. THEN, once the Chor collections are created consider storing those Chors in your Library with a preview image assigned (in the Chor category).

[robcat2075]

Another one of those superior workflow powers that makes A:M so good.