media folder....

[CADster]

projects media folder....

what (or where) is this.

im making content in max and exporting as fbx. i can get content into game core but
the content wont export when i go to 'make a game' due to it not being im my projects media
folder.

i see the media folder but its created 'after' the content is made. so do i need to copy
my fbx files and everything to media/objects or just media or what ?

it says i can make my folder anywhere but to avoid using the desktop (for example)
if its in the ref section or docs somewhere that talks about this more, please give me a link. thanks.

dumb question so let me say sorry right now for asking it. even if i answered my own
question while typing this, i would still like some feedback or a confirmation that im doing
it right.

[pixel_legolas]

when you start a new game project you have to choose a project folder. this can be anywhere bbut has to be empty. Gamecore will then put the necessary files inside that folder. all art assets needs to be in this folder anywhere to be exported correctly. so you an put it in the media folder anywhere but needs to be in the project folder somewhere.

The reason is that the exporter tool doesnt understand if the textures is in another place except the project folder.

So get used to always saving stuff where you actually have the project

[BigDaz]

Usual practice is to put anything from Max in media/objects yes.
You can create sub-folders within that to help sort things if you prefer. e.g. media/objects/vehicles/cars/

[CADster]

thanks.. that is exactly what i needed to know.

in future releases will GC be able to grab content from other locations or
will content need to be copied over every time ?

seems a resource collect button or feature (like the one in max) would
be a nice feature.

[gekido]

we've discussed having some kind of 'collection' feature like you mention, but it's not on the immediate roadmap. 

Basically you can think of your 'media' directory in a similar way to how other engines treat their custom asset packages.  instead of having to manually build the packages for your game, you simply work on your content in the 'media' directory and GameCore will automatically include whatever content you have there in your published game.

for things like textures etc - basically the engine does a multi-level check for their presence:
- first it looks in the OPR file to see if there is an overridden texture for that surface (via the surface editor)
- if not, it scans the 3d model file itself for the path to the texture - which is where things get tricky - certain model formats have absolute paths, some only include relative paths etc - so even though the model (an fbx file for example) may be in your 'media' directory, it could be referencing external textures located on your desktop or wherever. 
- next the engine scans the same directory as the 3d model / opr itself for the texture - so worst case you can simply include all of the textures in the same directory as your model and it should be found
- finally the engine does a quick check to see if there are any matches taking into account the 8.3 filename restrictions of a few formats (specifically 3ds files) - and will auto-match the closest fit to the texture.

The best practice is to simply work on your models etc in the gamecore project directory itself - the engine will automatically 'skip' any source models like .max files etc on export and any content being used in your game will be cache'd into bvo (models) or bvj (textures) to further reduce filesize on export as well.

Hope this helps clarify things.

[cysphere]

hi mike,

and again the question, how could I trigger to change textures in runtime, from a external folder.
Is there any onchange method for detecting file changes and reload and than view it on the char/model
immediatly.

The same would be fine at models or skycube etc.. any examples possible in code?

thank you