I can save my render settings in it's own nice little file.

I can save my atmosphere... and all my materials for a job... 

I can save my building, trees, la di da... as a .vob

But when I have animated a camera and want to copy it over to another Vue scene... no dice.

When I want to copy my sun's exact placement into  a new scene w/out typing in all the info... no dice.

And why does Vue move my sun when I import the atmosphere that I just saved 5 minutes before?!?!

If anyone knows the answers to these, I would be grateful.

Partial answer: I was surprised to find that you can right click on the sun and get a "Save Object" option. I tried it in Vue 5 Infinite and it saved a s a .vob. Opened a new scene, deleted the default sun and loaded the .vob. It worked, lighted the scene from the same position and orientation - but no sun symbol in the viewports!

Right-click on a camera doesn't offer to save. Of course, you can write down the position and rotation on any object (+ the camera focal length) and just enter those again later.

I could have sworn I tried to do that to my sun, but maybe I didn't!  Can't see it in the viewports.... beautiful... sounds like a potential post to e-on tech support.

The camera thing is not so simple, it's animated very precisely for an architectural fly-thru and it's 17 seconds long, I don't want to have to go thru setting it up again.  It's odd that on their site I see you can export the camera to VIZ using a plugin, but can't copy a camera between two scenes... they definitely need to fix this.

I have a theory that maybe if I "save-as" and delete everything in the scene except for the camera and sun, then export the entire scene as a .3ds, maybe I could import it into another scene that way... I just had that thought when I woke up this a.m. and since my computer is still rendering my animation I will have to see later.

Thanks Jim

Wonder if someone could write a Python script to save out all the camera info and load it into new scenes?

I don't know how much of the interface is exposed to Python scripting, but it's an idea.
My experience is only with stills. Maybe ask again with animation in the title? or try the Animation thread at Cornucopia 3D or try e-on's own registered user's forum? Cornucopia has a Python thread also- if you haven't already.
I would have thought the camera positions would be saved as part of the animation and you could get them back that way.

If I get a spare moment, and no one steps in first to offer their services, I'll have a look at a Python script to save out the camera data and one to load it in.

Thanks Mark!

Thanks Mark!

Hopefully these two scripts will help...

http://impworks.blogspot.com/2006/05/v5i-camera-animation-save-and-load.html

I'm off to now so any problems may not get an immediate response

You rock, my friend.  I will try them this weekend (probably Sun. afternoon) and let you know how it goes.  Thanks a million.

Fletch

impish,  I tried your script.  It worked!  ...kinda 

Unfortunately I tried importing my 'other camera' into my Vue file where I had already animated a different camera... instead of 'adding' the camera I imported... it 'went haywire' as they say and combined the current animated camera path with the imported camera path to produce what I can only describe as a path that looked much like spaghetti.  But if you want to use the script to import already-animated cameras onto a 'brand new scene's camera' I think it will work beautifully.... but it will ruin any info you already put in the camera in existing scenes... at least as near as I can tell.

I am very impressed w/ your ability to write a script like that... thanks.

Sorry it didn't quite do what you wanted.

The path to bad code is paved with wrong assumptions.  I didn't think you'd already have an animated camera in the scene. 

I'll take a look later and see if I can get it to add a new camera and animate that.

I've uploaded a new version of the load script that now creates a new camera to apply the animation data to.

http://impworks.blogspot.com/2006/05/v5i-camera-animation-save-and-load_18.html

Hope this makes better spaghetti

Impish.

I posted this comment to your blog, but thought I would also put it here for benefit of others...

This script is a piece of ART in itself... thanks again for your help...(i'm certainly no programmer)

care to top your feat?! I have a huge favor to ask...

by the way,
I use the free render engine "Kerkythea" to render my SketchUP stuff.
check out this amazing FREE program here... it's kinda like maxwell and vray but easier (sure, it's not vray or maxwell, I'm just saying you can get some amazing renders - easy!)
http://suwiki.org/suwiki/index.php?title=Kerkythea
see the image gallery here:
http://www.kerkythea.net/gallery2/main.php

it reads .xml files.
A guy, ToMasz, has created an exporter using Ruby from SketchUp that exports lights, geometry, pages as cameras, and a sun&sky using the Ruby script language... which I understand is something similar to Python, but I'm no programmer. You can d/l the script here. http://forum.sketchup.com/showthread.php?t=75797&page=4

My question... Please... I want to see if you would be able to analyze his script and create an exporter that will export my camera either from SketchUp, or from Kerkythea (maybe this is easier?) and set up the exact camera inside of Vue5 (and eventually we will get Vue6) so that I can render my building in KT with MLT or BiPT or Progressive Path Tracing, but get my veg at the right angle from VUE!!!! this would be very cool experiment.

the new version coming out very soon of Kerkythea has MLT (and multi-threads... so it's a seriously beautiful thing.

Mark, you would make yourself immortal if you would write a Pytrhon script that reads camera and light information out of Poser pz3 files.

Don't worry Wabe it's on my to do list but since I've got to dig into other programmes to make headway with it.  I'm planning on writing an exporter script for Poser as that way if the pz3 format changes I won't need a new script (plus I spend too much of my day job parsing obscure file formats to want to go near any I don't have to). 

FuzzyVizion I'll take a look at that too.  It sounds interesting.  I can't promise when though.

I'm a little busy on a project that needs to be done before the end of the month so don't hold your breath 'cause you'll be very blue faced by the time I get started :-)

(Having read this I have a horrible problem hearing Michael Winner saying Don't Worry from the Eshaw adverts)

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How about quitting your job Mark and concentrate full time on our pleasure?

thanks Mark.  if you have paypal I would consider a donation to help you in your time allocations ;)

can I edit Python in Notepad, or need a python script editing program of some sort?
I'm thinking I'm just crazy enough to at least open them and see where the camera info is... and give it a whirl... is it too much for my first-ever script in any language? (except Basic from 9th grade)