Reference Lock

[kurianos3d]

Hai All

I have a doubt .. if i am creating referenced object in a scene .. and i want to lock that object scale and rotate in side scene file not in the main asset file .. if i am trying to do that . that time maya telling you cant do that coz its a referenced object .. is there any way to this ?? but i want the reference also :-?

[jamespiechota]

In Maya 7 and 8 locking individual attributes on referenced objects is not supported (I haven't tried 8.5 yet).

You could create the reference as locked (there's checkbox in the Reference Option Box), but this will lock all the attributes of every node in the reference. Maya does provide a way to exclude attributes and/or node types from being locked - but if you really only want to lock a couple attributes on one particular node, this method may not be sufficient (and isn't really all that elegant). You can find instructions for excluding nodes/attributes in the Maya docs under: Using Maya > Basics > File Referencing > Locking a file Reference

[kurianos3d]

Sorry

Prob is when we reference one object scene after that i want to lock some attributes of that object inside the scene only .. i dont want to lock inside the asset file

eg:

I have a cam .. i want to reference this cam to my 100 scene .. done it

after that the animator want to lock the cam for safty means he want to lock the TX SX RX..

but if you try to lock that that maya will give

CODE
Error: line 1: The attribute 'test1:pSphere1.rotateY' is from a referenced file, and cannot be locked.

is there any way yo override this .. i want to lock test1:pSphere1.rotateY in my animation scene

how i can do that ?? thts teh prob for me

[jamespiechota]

Unfortunately you can't lock referenced objects from the main scene (atleast not in any version of Maya up to 8.0). The only way to lock a referenced object "inside the scene only not inside the asset file" is to use tick the "Lock" option when creating the reference (or using the "-lockReference" file command flag if you're creating the reference from MEL).

But that will lock all of the attributes of every referenced node (this locking occurs only in the main scene, not in the asset/referenced file).

There is an awkward workaround to exclude some attributes or node types from being locked when creating a reference in this manner. It involves editing or overriding a couple special MEL procedures - the details for doing this can be found in the Maya Docs: Using Maya > Basics > File Referencing > Locking a file Reference

In your example when you create the reference to the "cam" you would have to tick the "Lock" option. The "cam" would be referenced and all objects and attributes in the cam file would be locked (the asset file itself is not changed, the locking occurs only in the main or "top-level" scene).

[joojaa]

Well theres a trick to this, which is also VERY useful for varous other problems aswell (such as havng huge major change in the refernce ater the fact), you create a interface in the main scene conect it to the attributes and lock the interface.

[kurianos3d]

joojaa

I am really sorry for confusing you

I want to lock attribute in the scene file

eg: we jsut referenced the main cam file to our aniamtion file

and now i want to lock my referenced cam file attributes eg: i want to lock TX and SX

but if i am trying to do that maya is telling

Error: line 1: The attribute 'test1:pSphere1.rotateY' is from a referenced file, and cannot be locked.

but i want to lock this .. how any option for this plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :pray2:

[jamespiechota]

I'm sorry if there's been some misunderstanding - what I've been saying is: you can't do that in Maya. You can't lock an attribute on a referenced node.

There is an awkward workaround using the "Lock" option that I mentioned in my previous posts.

Joojaa's suggestion is very good - particularly because, as he said, it will help with much more than just locking attributes. However it may require significant changes to your pipeline.

One particular implementation of Joojaa's suggestion involves creating a character set in the main scene file to edit a referenced rig - you could then lock attributes on the character set (as a bonus you would be insulated from changes made "offline" to the referenced file). This is described briefly in the docs under: Using Maya > General > File Referencing > File Referencing Tips, in the "Sharing animation between proxy references" and "Editing referenced files" sections.