New characters for new project

[Jessariah]

Hey All,

How do I separate new characters for a new project from older characters from a past project?

[ChrisB]

I'm not sure I follow you but I might. You stated "How do I separate new characters for a new project from older characters from a past project? "

I'm assuming that you are referring to actor objects you customized to some extent (with clothing, decals, hair style/color, et cetera) to make then look unique and not like a bunch houses in some nameless suburban housing tract. Now you want to use those characters in a new project as if it was a ... sequel or something similar. Am I on the right track here? If so, its an easy thing to do. Try following these steps:
* Open the old previz file that contains the actors you want to reuse.
* Locate an Actor you want to use in new project and double click it to load them into the Green Room.
* Go to the Colors, Textures and State tab and click on the "Store as a Virtual Object" button
* The UI of this tab will change, allowing you to specify the name of the virtual object, what options to use and in which, what pose to use by default and what directory to store the object in. I normally choose Actors (Characters) to store all of my customized Actor objects in as it makes it easy to locate them all.

I missed the mark on your question, please clarify and I will give it another shot.

[Jessariah]

Hi Chris - thanks for the response.

Actually, I'm looking for something close to the opposite. I want to start a new project and clear out the "Characters" folder without losing them in a previous project. I tried a test with one character in a new project, and now that character doesn't show up in the past project, either - which makes me think that the "Characters" folder is a universal one for the program (I'm in 3.5). I just don't want to have to rummage through older material (but I don't want to have to lose it, either).

Thanks again for any help.

[ChrisB]

Are you a Mac or Windows user?  Either way, you're kind of in a bind on that one and here is why.  Regardless the platform, an installation of FrameForge contains an object library where all of the 3D meshes are stored in sub-directories labelled for easy categorization.  One a Mac, this is located in the /FrameForge Storyboard Studio 4.0/FrameForge Support Data/Object Library" director.  On a PC, this is located here: C:\ProgramData\FrameForge Storyboard Studio\Library.  Characters are located in the directory labelled "Actors (Characters)".  I realize you already know this but its for the benefits of anyone else who reads this.  Moving on, when you create a previz file with sets and actors and props, the previz file does not contain those items, it contains a reference to that item.  It says tot he program "I need item X located in directory Y".  This works great most of the time but were you to move items out of the Actors (Characters) director, if you opened a previz file that makes a reference to an item that was in the Actors (Characters) directory, you'd see a missing object message.  So you can see if you clear out that directory, old previz files are going to give you this message every time you open one. 

There is a simple solution though: create a new directory inside your object library labelled "Actors (<insert a unique name here>)" and store the NEW characters you create here.  Whatever name you give this portion (<insert a unique name here>) will be the corresponding entry in the Actors inventory in the FrameForge UI.  If you name it "Actors(Bozos)" you will have a Bozos entry in the Actors inventory.  Make sense?