Reload texture image file (or reference)

[BartHays]

I searched for this as I am sure it was here on the list once already, but no luck.

 

In exhibit design, graphic panels develop in parallel with the 3D design. We use textures for every individual graphic panel.

When the graphics are updated I'd love to drop the new files (same filename) into a resource folder and have the Renderworks textures update.

 As it is, I have to open each texture, open the Color Shader, select Change Image, and reselect the existing file.

 

I imagine this could be a script, or an option to load the color shader Image as a reference.

 

Bart

[Kevin Allen]

could be a ratline reference, much like Adobe InDesign

[Andy Broomell]

19 minutes ago, Kevin Allen said:

could be a ratline reference

What's that?

 

 

Ironically, you CAN reference Bitmap objects, but not images used in Textures. It certainly would be nice to be able to do this some day, but since that's a fairly significant change in base functionality, in the meantime I wish they would at least make it faster to switch out an image manually. Currently it takes a minimum of 9 clicks each time.

 

As a suggestion: I wish we could right-click a Texture in the RM and have an option to "Replace Image in Color Shader" (which would only appear for textures that already have an image in the color shader). It would skip the pop-up asking whether we want to import an image or reuse an existing one, since 99.9% of the time we want to import a new one. Then we select an image, click OK, and bam it's done.

 

This would reduce the process to four clicks (right click, Replace Image, select Image in finder window, click OK). There are days when I'm replacing images constantly, so while a reduction of 9 clicks to 5 clicks might seem inconsequential, that cascades into huge time (and wrist!) savings.

[Kevin Allen]

3 minutes ago, Andy Broomell said:

ratline

 

typo. But I do like it, for something, somewhere.

[zoomer]

1 hour ago, Andy Broomell said:

As a suggestion: I wish we could ...

 

 

I wish for something like that ....

 

 

 

You can see the white exclamation mark,

this is how a Windows Path causes problems on my Mac.
(Why do they still use Drive Letters and wrong slashes ...)

The other Textures mostly use relative paths.

 

I know it is nice for most users to have all source files within the VW file.

But an option to reference Texture images would be great for me.

I have a Texture Folder in my Project Folder where Textures are used

from all my Apps.

And it would be really nice if I could assign "relative" paths that can

go up one or more step(s) to parent Folder(s) to reach my "Texture"

folder.

 

But, of course,

as long as VW even allows to rename my Texture Sources while exporting,

everything is lost, havoc and hopeless anyway .....

Edited October 13, 2022 by zoomer

[Mark Aceto]

7 hours ago, zoomer said:

 

 

I wish for something like that ....

 

 

 

You can see the white exclamation mark,

this is how a Windows Path causes problems on my Mac.
(Why do they still use Drive Letters and wrong slashes ...)

The other Textures mostly use relative paths.

 

I know it is nice for most users to have all source files within the VW file.

But an option to reference Texture images would be great for me.

I have a Texture Folder in my Project Folder where Textures are used

from all my Apps.

And it would be really nice if I could assign "relative" paths that can

go up one or more step(s) to parent Folder(s) to reach my "Texture"

folder.

 

But, of course,

as long as VW even allows to rename my Texture Sources while exporting,

everything is lost, havoc and hopeless anyway .....

 

Would it be possible to recreate this as a worksheet in VW?

[zoomer]

Why not.

If there is some API or access to these resources also from

other sides than just from Material Editor and VW does not

the hide resources from itself ....

[Mark Aceto]

Invoking @michaelk

[BartHays]

Problem Solved with a Python Script by @DomC!
 

An existing script would load all images in a folder and convert them to a texture. 

This updates reloads the image in an existing texture and adds new texture if there are new images in the folder

Run the script each time you update you images, just keep the file names the same to reload image to the existing texture.

 

Note this script names the texture based on the image name - which works fine for me.