# Reference objects and expressions

**URL:** https://forum.highend3d.com/t/reference-objects-and-expressions/4930
**Category:** Maya
**Tags:** mel
**Created:** [September 24, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/reference-objects-and-expressions/4930 "2003-09-24T21:30:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![lcarnevale](https://forum.highend3d.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@lcarnevale](https://forum.highend3d.com/u/lcarnevale)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/reference-objects-and-expressions/4930/1 "2003-09-24T21:30:01Z")

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i'm having a little problem...i want to use a referenced character to animate with (since i havn't set up final lighting or shading)...however, when i reference an object, maya appends the referenced file name to the begining of each node in the scene, which screws up a lot of the expressions i have written to make animation, etc. easier. is there some way to get around this..aka...get maya to not change any node names ? (i've played with all the reference obj options and nothing there gives me results).

thanks  
luke

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### Author: ![gmask](https://forum.highend3d.com/user_avatar/forum.highend3d.com/gmask/32/192_2.png) [@gmask](https://forum.highend3d.com/u/gmask)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://forum.highend3d.com/t/reference-objects-and-expressions/4930/2 "2003-09-24T21:37:09Z")

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No but you could get your scripts to work with the names that it creates.