Paths
File Assets
Using the Add Folder button, new asset paths can be added, which will then be displayed in the list. How this interface element is used is explained here.
Cinema 4D searches for material texture files and other assets (e.g., sound files) in the following locations:
- In the same folder as the scene
- In the Tex folder within the scene’s folder
- In the Tex folder within the Cinema 4D folder
- If a given asset was saved to an absolute path, Cinema 4D will, in this case, only search within this path, and will ignore all other defined search paths.
- If assets from Cinema 4D libraries are used, the corresponding path can be set directly to this directory and the texture(s) will only be searched for here.
- And finally in the path entered here.
It can occur that certain assets cannot be found in these paths (e.g., if assets are accessed across a network). Even though you can correct individual paths this can become quite laborious when numerous texture paths have to be corrected.
This is why Cinema 4D lets you assign up an unlimited number of alternative paths. If the Viewport or raytracer cannot find a asset in one of the paths above, the alternative paths will be searched (the Bitmap shader will additionally search all corresponding sub-folders).
Avoid assigning paths that lead to DVDs or network locations. Searching these paths is most often a very slow process. An error message will only then be displayed if the asset cannot be located in any directory.
Add Folder
Click on this button to add an asset path in which files will searched for. The paths will be added to the list above.
For Node Materials, no recursive search will take place through all subfolders. Relative paths, e.g., in the following format, can be used.
./directory1/directory2/textur.tif (the path will automatically be created when the texture is selected). This path will then be searched in all search paths (see above).
Databases
The databases are Asset databases. All directories defined here will be searched for assets. Assets that are saved to these paths will be listed in the Node Editor or found by scenes that use the respective assets.
Information about how this interface element can be used can be found here.