Setting up Your Custom Studio Scenes

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Cameras

Typically you'd like to add a camera in the studio scene. Multiple cameras are supported, and a preview will be generated from each camera in the scene. Connecter will use the active viewport to make the preview if there's no camera in the scene. In this case, Connecter will apply a predefined zoom and margins to frame the preview.

Positioning the asset

When the asset is merged into the studio scene to generate its preview, it's placed in the same position it has in its source file. So, if the asset isn't placed at the center of the coordinate system, the preview studio scene will probably render the wrong preview with the asset being off the view. As a general rule of thumb, ensure you save your assets at the center of the coordinate system.

Add an object in the studio scene using the following naming patterns for further asset positioning options:

• Object name: RenderHere_AlignPivot.
• The asset is positioned to align its pivot with the RenderHere object's pivot point.
• Object name: RenderHere_AlignCenter.
• The asset is positioned to align its geometrical center (center of the bounding box) with the RenderHere object's pivot point.
• Object name: RenderHere_AlignPivot_Scale.
• The asset is positioned to align its pivot with the RenderHere object's pivot point. The asset is scaled to the RenderHere object's bounding box size.
• Object name: RenderHere_AlignCenter_Scale.
• The asset is positioned to align its geometrical center (center of the bounding box) with the RenderHere object's pivot point. The asset is scaled to the RenderHere object's bounding box size.

Helper object name: RenderHere_AlignPivot.	Helper object name: RenderHere_AlignCenter.
Helper object name: AlignPivot_Scale.	Helper object name: AlignCenter_Scale.

TIPS:

• Use a RenderHere_AlignPivot object well-composed in the camera view to automatically place all assets regardless of their position in the source files. 
• Use a RenderHere_AlignPivot_Scale object to automatically place all assets, regardless of their position in the source files, and scale to fit the previews optimally. 
• Use RenderHere_AlignCenter or RenderHere_AlignCenter_Scale objects with their pivots aligned to their geometrical centers when you want to position the assets in the center of the view (vs. placed on the ground), as this will align the asset's geometrical center with the center of the volume defined by the helper object.
• Any rotation transformation applied on the RenderHere object will be inherited by the asset.

Other preview studio settings

By following these rules of thumb, you make sure your preview generation tasks render correctly and don't fail:

• Ensure all external file references are discoverable by all Connecter instances in the team.
• Ensure the studio scene doesn't use plugins (most notably, rendering engines) that aren't installed on all Connecter instances in the team. 
• Consider using the same file units used for your assets. Units mismatches fail the preview generation tasks.
• Test and optimize your preview studios' rendering times. A preview generation task will fail if not finalized within 20 minutes. You can change this in settings, but consider this carefully to avoid excessive rendering time, especially when processing many assets in batches.

Follow the link for a detailed description of the "Generate previews" error handling. 

Generating previews for material (.mat) assets 

In addition to the 3d models, the Generate Custom Previews feature will easily create previews for your material libraries. It works the same way, with the only difference being that you must place a shader ball object in your studio scene that the tool will use to apply the materials. To set up a preview studio scene for materials, place a shader ball object named ShaderBall. Ensure it has unwrapped texture coordinates with the correct scale.