Saved Scene States (Model Components/Layer Visibility with View Set Cam)

[GregL70]

Adding the ability to save scene "states" (not to be confused with scene "sets") in order to setup a variety of model component views linked with a specific camera (or view set camera) would be extremely helpful! Scene States are a commonly used feature in 3ds max, and I would absolutely love to see something like this within KeyShot.

The huge difference between scene "states" and scene sets, is that scene states do not create duplicate copies of all the model geometry. Instead, scene states save only the visual state of the model's component layers (i.e. hidden or visible) in combination with a specific camera. Any chance that something like this might be on the horizon for a future release?

[DriesV]

Scene Sets are already doing this.
Under the hood, everything is instanced. So when you are creating a new Scene Set, you are not actually duplicating the geometry. I.e. The file size does not double.

The big benefit of Scene Sets, is that they can have unique materials, unique animations and unique tranformations.

Dries

[GregL70]

That's very interesting, because every scene set that I've created, (and I'm currently working with 15) seems to contain a completely new (and unrelated copy) of the initial scene's model geometry. The materials are all linked of course, but the file size does indeed explode as a result of the operation. I was also able to reduce the file size by deleting the unwanted geometry from each additional scene set. In addition, when renaming design tree items to reflect a more descriptive name, the changes only occur in one scene set. Therefore, they are not related instances, but unique and independent copies. Otherwise, the file size would not dramatically increase with each new scene set and the model component names would still match across all sets. I would simply love to be able to save the visibility state and camera view of specific model object layers, while being able to organize an extremely complex model as one master assembly. Does this make sense? Am I missing something perhaps? Thanks!

[GregL70]

Further testing this morning shows that while the file size does not actually double with the addition of a scene set, in does increase with each new instance. However, file size is really not the issue. My primary inquiry for this wish list is to be able to work in a wide variety of scene states (i.e. layer visibility/camera/environment conditions) while maintaining access to the same layer names and hierarchies across all variations. Basically, "scene states" in addition to scene sets. A variety of "scene states" would simply reflect one, complete, individual model assembly, with certain elements displayed or hidden in a variety of on/off visibility conditions.

While I completely agree that the big benefit of scene sets is that they can have unique materials, animations and transformations, I also need to be able to rename hundreds of thousands of objects and groups within some extremely complex models in order to give cryptic part numbers and sequential "mesh_123" items more descriptive and identifiable names. If every layer in the model could be renamed within the Default scene set, BEFORE creating any additional scene sets, then there wouldn't be much of an issue. I simply need to be able to use the same layers across multiple scene sets, without creating totally isolated names for every object in each scene. Does this makes sense?

Thanks for the consideration,
Cheers!
~Greg