Texture Indexing and Viewing Solutions

[rmccoy]

Does anybody know of a good solution on how to deal with massive texture libraries?

 

Over the years I have purchased, found or created almost 100gb worth of textures. It's great that I have this large collection as I usually have almost anything I need. However, It's a pain when trying to find what I need.

 

My setup is basically as follows:

-Massive folder with sub-folders labeling the contents

-Evermotion Textures

-Dosch Textures

-Total Textures

-Arroway Textures

-Marlin Studios

-Etc..

 

I have a catch all folder and then copies of my cd/dvd texture collections in separate folders.

 

I like to keep the collections separated from the catch all folder for easy reference.

 

Now the main question is. Are there any over the counter solutions on easy indexing and retrieving/viewing these images.

 

ex. I would like to be able to view small thumbnails of all images with the metadata tag "wood" within my texture library but not have to go into each individual folder to find and copy the texture to my project folder. I would like to be able to view all of the images within a central framework and then be able to go the specific folder to copy and paste it.

 

I've used Adobe Bridge to organize my folders and try to give the correct metadata tags to the images. Now I would like an easy way to use them while still keeping the collection seperated out.

 

Anyone know of some solutions to this type of problem?

[BrianKitts]

I haven't come across any, I was actually going to suggest bridge.

 

Bridge actually works quite well with windows explorer for dragging and dropping content, as does max.... most don't know you can drag texture files out of windows explorer and drop them right into specific materials slots in max (i.e. diffuse, reflect, etc.....)

 

since they both play well with IE.... give it a shot and see if you can drag and drop straight from bridge to max, you may already have your solution.

[mattclinch]

the long process of keywording and using metadata then using a program like portfolio to search/browse etc is the best method ive come across.

[bjornkn]

I use AcDSee for this. It works very well IMO, and you can very easily retrieve sets of images and copy them to your project folder.

There's no automatic indexing for keywords, but you can easily add keywords/tags to a lot of files at the same time. If you have a folder with a lot of wood textures you just add 'wood' to all of them, and then you select all the pine files and add 'pine', select all the boards, all the repeating texs etc and add relevant keywords. Then you can extract/view with all/any keywords and simply drag/copy them.

There are lots of batch options too, using/setting EXIF, IPTC and database values. And you can easily categorize all your files, add images to a basket etc. Very flexible.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

I've been a big fan of ThumbsPlus for years now. It appears to have a non-trivial set of searching functions including keywords. Can assign keywords to multiple files, search on keyword. There are also Galleries which appear to be folders of links to images. So you could create a gallery "Trees". Do a keywords search for "tree" and then select all the search results and dump them in the Trees gallery. This would keep the images stored in the correct location but also give you quick access to a folder full of trees.

 

I've only put five minutes into testing for the existance of functionality so I can't comment on how it is to work with. I do use the program all the time. Sort by similar is nice.

[R.S]

http://download.live.com/PhotoGallery

 

Its simple, integrates into the OS shell & Free.

 

I was rather surprised to find a MS product that works so well, lol.

[BrianKitts]

Followup to my previous post.

 

Adobe Bridge ROCKS for content with max. Tagging keywords, searching by name, drag and drop right into max slots. And best of all running it in compact mode, floating it over max panels works really well.

 

Should also be noted that bridge can be assigned to work with it's own indexes or search windows indexing values. This way if you have a library that was originally tagged in windows or another application, you can still search it without having to re-tag all of the textures in bridge.

 

I realize it's not a freebie, but the majority of us I'm sure use the CS suite so I'm calling it out as a great companion for your library not only completed shots (which used to be the only way I used it) but now also for content creation.

Edited April 27, 2010 by BrianKitts

[rmccoy]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

 

I'll give Bridge another try. I already own it so there's no reason to purchase different software. I've always just used it for keeping track of renderings and using it for batch processing.

 

I like the fact you can drag and drop into Max. I'll start checking into more of the advanced features available.

[hippiearchitect]

How about something that would do the same sort of thing for 3d models? preview my growing 3d model collection, search-able? ie if i were looking for a faucet i could just search faucet and it would show me all my faucets in my library. or for a tree and it would show me all my 3d trees as well as my tree textures etc....

[rmccoy]

You can preview max files in Bridge and it looks like you can assign metadata also.

[hippiearchitect]

apparently not with windows 7 though. and its not very sexy in xp anyway. i would love a program that shows you a rendered thumb then if you click on it, it produces a link to that file.

[BrianKitts]

apparently not with windows 7 though. and its not very sexy in xp anyway. i would love a program that shows you a rendered thumb then if you click on it, it produces a link to that file.

 

there's a registry edit that used to work to make max show it's thumbnails.....

haven't tried it with 7 so use at your own risk.....

 

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/12750-preview-max-files-thumbnails.html#post221996

[hippiearchitect]

check this out:

http://www.hermidacg.com/maxscripts/hcg-asset-browser/