Media/Asset Management

[elburz]

Been searching the forums and digging through the wiki but haven't found anything definitive written about media/asset management in a project. I'll be running this project from my own computer, but am looking to move my media folder onto another hard drive for the performance. Was wondering if there was any sort of way to manage media other than manually moving everything and relocating them 1 by 1 from inside the project.

I'm talking about something similar to Ableton's "Collect All and Save" feature, although I don't see one in TD, thought maybe it might be hidden!

Thanks!

[ben]

There isn't a built in dialog or preference for it, but you can easily create your own.

If you open the Variables Dialog, you can create a variable that points to your main media folder. Then you can use that variable in all your file paths and when you change the location of your media you only need to update the variable's value.

For example;
In the variables dialog, select the "Root" tab and create a variable with any name you like and use the path to the media folder as the value. Root means this variable lives at the root of the .toe file so it will be accessible everywhere in your project.

MEDIAFILES C:\Users\Myname\Projects\Media

Now, in all your filepaths, use the variable as a path prefix so it starts looking for files in your media folder:

$MEDIAFILES\Images\pic1.jpg
$MEDIAFILES\Audio\thriller.mp3

These paths when expanded would point to
C:\Users\Myname\Projects\Media\Images\pic1.jpg
C:\Users\Myname\Projects\Media\Audio\thriller.mp3

When you move it or use another computer, just update that variable and everything is sorted.

Hope that helps!

[elburz]

That's actually better than having the computer try to keep track of everything on its own! Is anyone allowed to edit the wiki? I'd love to see that make its way to either a little page specifically about media management or even as an example on the Variables page (and I dont mind getting it there!). Let me know your thoughts.

[elburz]

Great, just put something together with some pictures, let me know if anything needs changing.

http://www.derivative.ca/wiki077/index. ... Management