Copying Forest Object from one file to another, same surface & geometry

[TheMan]

I want to copy forest object from one file to another, but have it uses the same surface and geometry from the new file without duplicating them.


1. Let say this is my file.


2. This is my colleague's file that he made a new forest object that needs to be merged to my scene, but he created the forest using the same Surface and Geometry as mine.


3. I merge the forest from another file by 'Merge file > check on Display Influences and Select Influences' this will comes up.


4.1 Selecting Merge, Auto-Rename will get this result


4.2 Selecting Delete Old, I lose my original surface and some of the source object and that leads to losing one of my other forest object.


4.3 Selecting skip, the new forest won't generate.


Is there a way to copy the forest object to another file and have it link to the surface and geometry with the same name?

[Rokas]

I am afraid, only with some scripting.
Hardest part for script to know which You want to keep - old or new conflicting geometry/surface.
Sometimes You want new geometry and old surface, sometimes both new. What to do with conflicting names of ForestPack objects?

[JL4017]

Hi

Did you manage to find a way to do this with scripting?

we've tried to Import > Replace objects and splines before which will keep the FP objects attached to that surface, but it does some odd things with the pivot points of the splines or surfaces.  Think they have to be the same size which doesn't help us as we normally want to change surfaces.

thanks

Neil

[Rokas]

Too many variables of what user would like to be the same/changed. All/Some of geometry/surfaces/ForestPacks.

[JL4017]

thanks

If i merge in a FP object into a scene which has 2 pieces of tree geometry, and the scene i'm merging into already has those identical 2 pieces of tree geometry in it, i'm currently getting FP to autorename the merged tree objects so it doesn't mess up my existing FP object.  Then pointing my new FP object to the existing 2 trees which were in the scene manually to avoid duplicate tree geometry.

do you know if there is a better way to do this?

thanks

Neil 

[Rokas]

do you know if there is a better way to do this?

That sounds like a reasonable way.

[JL4017]

ok, thanks

[JL4017]

I saved this as a preset in the end, and then used that preset on the other scene, this seemed to work well for what i needed and saved me re-attaching objects.

thanks

Neil

[nubo]

Is there a script for finding duplicate FP geomery objects and relinking them?
That would be very useful, if one didn't have to point to old geometries after merge, to avoid duplicates, as decribed by @JL4017.

Regards,
Przemek