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Hi there,

So here i am working hard to build myself a good material database which is already 4gb, collecting textures and organizing them just as i want, a tedious task but that will make my workflow faster. The good thing about it is that i placed it in my google drive account in order to have acces to it no matter where i am working, but it seems that as the google drive folder is placed inside the user folder (in mac) the root for every texture and shader changes depending on what computer im working on. So even i have acces to all my materials i need to fix the root for all my textures every time a change where im working.

Is there any way i can solve this issue? has anyone tried to do the same thing? any other work around which has the same advantages?

Thanks!

You might be stuck with relinking your bitmaps. There are tools that make it painless in Max, but not sure what your host app is. Likely there will be something. For Max there is File Path Finder Pro and Relink Bitmap scripts.

Hmm.. Me no mac expert but in win one can 'share' any local folder and map it to oneself under any free driveletter(browse to my own computer in
network)

I use blender as main app with Nildar's addon for maxwell. Anyway i mostly use maxwell materials referenced therefore my main app would be M.studio and my textures would be loaded into mxm. editor.

Its very strange it doesnt do it by itself, i mean rerooting the textures because there is no need to find the new folder the only thing i have to do is open the MXM editor and in the textures list click on each one to reload them without having to find a the actual folder.

Polynurb: i dont think i understand what you are saying, because its not a sharing problem as i can find the textures, the problem is the root as the folder is in the cloud and not in a close network so the user folder will alway be diferent.

thanks

Ok, if i get you right there is a 'target' folder in the user directory. Guess much like dropbox also works.(don't have the google drive)
So your problem is the location of that folder, as in a normal local lan you would have things on a server and mount a network drive eg. X to connect to the files.

I am suggesting to share the cloud folder to your own computer so that you can access that it via driveletter eg. X on your own workstation. I am pretty sure this can be done on a mac

Exactly, as you say is pretty much the same thing as with dropbox, its a local folder which is being sync with the cloud, but is not like in a local network. Just to be clear, there are 3 copies of my material database, one in the cloud, another in my personal mac and a third one in a office mac, they are all correctly sync but the two local macs have different user names. So if a have a shader using a bump map called noise.jpg the root in each mac will be different, just like this:

users/MAC1/googledrive/textures/noise.jpg
users/MAC2/googledrive/textures/noise.jpg

This difference is enough to make maxwell not capable of finding the texture by itself forcing me to re-root every texture every time i change computers.

jep

the idea is to replace the "root end" with a drive letter by "mounting" it to another reference.
(i called that sharing but if it is not over the net it should be called mounting)

so:

instead the structure given by the file system:

users/MAC1/googledrive/textures/noise.jpg

"remount" the googledrive folder as:

X:\googledrive/textures/noise.jpg

this could be easily done on all machines you want to work at, no mater what user/machine is at the end of the root string..

in windows this is really easy to do and it will keep that mount after a cold boot. asfaik it can be done on a mac as well but not as easy due to some unix stuff to do with drive letters...

some quick google>

http://superuser.com/questions/116616/h ... der-on-mac

i see, that would solve everything and it would actually allow cross platform workflow.

Thanks polynurb, i'll see if i manage to make it work.

As the idea was really good seems there is no easy way to do it in mac, or is just me i am not able to find a clear answer.

Also "mounting" the gdrive means files wont be local, they would always be in the cloud, wouldn't that be an issue for maxwell having to acces them through the internet acces far more slow than a local network?

anyway i will keep my research.

the idea is to replace the "root end" with a drive letter by "mounting" it to another reference.

Quick note; OS X does not utilize drive letters, so you can't "mount" a particular directory and do it that way. The concept is the same though: put your Google Drive folder in a location that is named consistently across all machines.

Lynchon, just move your Drive folder out of the default location, which is in the \users\ folder, which is why it's named differently on every machine. Put it in a directory like \Library\* or something else that's generic. So in the end it should be like:

\Library\Google Drive\Materials\

Then follow these directions for pointing Drive to the new directory, and repeat the steps for other machines.

hatts,

that would work, actually works perfect... but you need user rights to do so and right now in my office im not allowed to have them. Clearly this is the best way to do it so im going to ask IT.

thank you very much!!!