Maya 7 Referencing Issues

[tone45]

Hi,
We have a large city environment that we are creating in Maya 7. The models for the buildings are being made in 6.5, due to limited 7.0 licences (don't know if this makes a difference at all). I have referenced 13 buildings into the scene, and duplicated a second copy of 7 of them for a total of 20 with absolutely no problems. When I save and re-open the scene, whether .mb or .ma, one or two of the buildings have returned to the origin, while the rest of the buildings stay where I last placed them, but with their supermovers at the origin of the scene. I have tried referencing these buildings in groups, have grouped them manually, and have placed keys to see if any of these things worked. Groupin and placing keys on the buildings keeps all the buildings where I want them placed, but ALL of the supermovers from the referenced models return to the origin.

Does anyone know how to fix, prevent this? A possible work around? Thank you very much for your time.

-tone45

[jamespiechota]

If you have more than one reference to the same scene, you could try unloading and reloading the references after opening the scene. There are some problems with multiple reference to the same file in Maya 7.0 - some of them have been addressed in 7.0.1 - if you haven't you may want to upgrade.

When you duplicate the buildings are you instancing or copying? Also do you know if the DAG is being reordered at some point after duplicating the buildings? (See this thread: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php...21#post3227521)

Some more general questions:
Are you using namespaces or prefixes? (namespaces are generally more stable)
Do you know if you have any duplicate naming in the main scene or the references? (e.g. two nodes wit the same name) This can happen when duplicating or instancing an object - while it isn't a problem on its own, it can cause trouble with references.

[tone45]

Thanks for your feedback. I seem to have found a remedy for most of the problems. I removed all supermovers from the referenced files and relied in grouping. Now the buildings stay put where their suppose to with absolutely no problem. I don't know if Maya was having problems with the curves used as supermovers?

When I duplicated the buildings I used the "copy" option. Namespaces was checked on my referencing options box, no duplicate naming was used in either scene file, the buildings are fairly low poly with 2-4 pieces of seperate geometry. I really don't know about any reordering happening in the DAG, I will see if I can check.

Thanks again!

[joojaa]

I doubt that... but maya does have problems with muiple animation sources.