Open Showcase file on other machine

[BarryZA]

I have exported a model from inside Inventor and set my still shots, environment, alternatives etc. and saved my Showcase file.

I can't have my machine locked up at the moment doing ray tracing, so I have emailed the Showcase files through to the company, who have exacltly the same suite package that I do.

My idea is that they can open it, recall my shots and alternatives and run a ray-trace.

However they are getting a "Unable to open file" error from Showcase.

Is it maybe because they don't have the referenced Inventor assembly? Which is way too big to mail through.

[MarionLandry · Accepted solution]

HI,

When sharing project with Showcase, it is important to understand few things:

1- Each Showcase scene comes with a companion folder. This folder includes all the requirement files, images and information of your scene. 

2-Whitout the companion file, the .a3s is nothing and will open an empty file.. 

3-In order to open the same Showcase scene, you need to have the same Showcase verison including all hotfix or sp updates. 

4-You don't need to share the original scene (from Inventor or any other source) but once you move the Showcase scene to an other computer, you will loose the active link to the original file. That means that you won't be able to update the .iam file in Showcase.. If you are only moving the file to render, this won't be a problem at all. This would only be a problem if you plan to work on the Inventor file and update the changes in the Showcase scene. You will only be able to do that from the original computer the Showcase scene was created. 

For easier file system maintenance, backup and scene sharing between computers, you can save the scene file and its associated companion folder into one compressed archive (ZIP) file.

To save your scene as a compressed archive:

1. Select File > Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S).
2. Select the Compressed Archive (*.zip) file type:

1. Specify a location and filename.
2. Make sure the file name has the “zip” extension.

The ZIP file you create can be opened directly by Showcase.

If you want to share complex files that have many textures, save the scene file and its textures into an associated companion folder. For example, by default any texture (environments, materials) that is in a library location is not saved with the scene. They will not be viewable if someone tries to open your scene:

• With the Showcase Viewer
• On a different computer and does not have your custom libraries

To save your scene with associated textures:

1. Select File > Save Scene and Textures As (Ctrl+Shift+S).
2. Specify a location and filename.

All image textures used in the scene are copied to the companion folder for the file. 

If you do have custom materials, you might want to consider saving the materials on the network to ease the sharing process in the futur. 

have a look at this video to learn more about this:

http://youtu.be/rT5LkAN050E

Hope this helps!

Marion

[BarryZA]

Thank-you for your time and effort Marion.

Being a visual person, your attached screenshots make it very understandable for me.

Thanks to you I've completed this little project. I don't think I would have managed the success otherwise.