Reference With No Prefix

[inspleak]

Hey guys,

I am using maya 8.5 and I am trying to reference in a game character that I have all set up and ready to go. However the exporter is very picky about the names of objects. So I am trying to reference in a character without using a prefix. I know that this is generally a bad idea, but I can manually guarantee that there will be no naming clashes.

I've tried to uncheck the Shared Nodes and Use Name Spaces check boxes, but the closest I get is
the filename_ as a prefix.

Any ideas on how I can do this? I would really like to animate on references instead of a real file.

Otherwise, I think I will just need to save out the joint animations and apply them to a clean mesh in a different file
just before export. However, thats not really the way I want to do it.

Thanks for the help!

[prattyy]

i guess maya 8.5 doesnot allow u to reference a file with out a prefix.
but other way around u can reference the file with string as the prefix lets say "temp"

then if you select the top heirarchy and say prefix heirarchy with a blank string u can retain your old names!!

[inspleak]

sounds like a plan.

Thanks very much. I will give it a shot tonight!

Jake

[inspleak]

Ok, I gave it a shot, but not surprisingly I got the error:
// Error: Can't rename a read only node. //

Which makes sense.

Is it possible to make the reference not read only? I don't know why they would let you do that, or how maya would still
keep track of the reference, but just in case I missed something.

Any other thoughts anyone?

Thanks again for the help!

[ogeorges]

In maya, you can create a reference file without namespace, but not directly with the UI.
If you use the command file to create your reference, use the flag -defaultNamespace, so, the file will be referenced without adding any namespace information on the nodes, but be carefull using this method, clashing name won`t be resolved.

description from the Maya`s documentation:

-defaultNamespace (-dns)
Use the default name space for import and referencing. This is an advanced option. If set, then on import or reference, Maya will attempt to place all nodes from the imported or referenced file directly into the root (default) name space, without invoking any name clash resolution algorithms. If the names of any of the new objects already exist in the root namespace, then errors will result. The user of this flag is responsible for creating a name clash resolution mechanism outside of Maya to avoid such errors. Note: This flag is intended only for use with custom file translators written through the API. Use at your own risk.

Olivier.