Copy Textures to Library

[ACAaron]

I'm working with an external company to help me create my as-built Perspectives, which they are creating custom textures for.  When they send me the backup file and I open it, the custom textures are located in the folder they sent me, as opposed to the CA library.  Due to, when I create the working .plan file (copy the the As-Built), I now have to associate everything to the texture file location, or manually copy items to the library.

 

Is there a way to tell CA to copy all textures NOT in the library, to the library?  Or any other suggestions for dealing with this?

[scottharris]

Aaron, you might try:  3D > Materials > Create Plan Materials Library.  That will create a folder with all of your plan’s materials in your User Library.

[MarkMc]

20 hours ago, ACAaron said:

Due to, when I create the working .plan file (copy the the As-Built), I now have to associate everything to the texture file location, or manually copy items to the library.

IF you keep working in the folder they sent you there is no need to associate textures since Chief will be looking in that folder. To do that:

In the existing folder copy the plan file, rename it and use that to create the as built. 

20 hours ago, ACAaron said:

Is there a way to tell CA to copy all textures NOT in the library, to the library? 

Not exactly. The method Scott suggests will copy ALL of the textures not just the ones not in the library.

One way to deal with it if it's important to get the new textures is:

Copy the plan file to a different folder and open it in Chief.

Then create a backup that includes "All referenced files"

\A DBX will pop up that says

One or more files needed for this export could not be found. That will be a list of textures not in the library (well mostly, you may have some of them but Chief can't find em.

Do a screen shot of the list, 

then go to Plan Materials, ctrl select the noted textures and "Add to Library"

 

An easier solution would be to ask the supplier to name all custom textures in a way that they are easy to find. I often use a space and the first few letters of the project. The space makes the texture show at the top of the list in Plan Materials. (Note the WGH2_3 back listed- that goes back to when I first though of doing that for clients some years ago)