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  • 1.  Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 03-22-2023 17:15
      |   view attached

    I'm having trouble getting the Dynamic Material to work on a quad using Datalinq.

    For our sports projects we have individual player photos and I want to make a graphic that will grab the name of a specific photo and apply it to the quad. I have a text object Name and in the Dynamic Material setting on the quad I have \Images\@Name@.png so it will find a photo based on whatever the text in the Name text object is and adds .png.

    It works fine this way but when I try to link the Name object to Datalinq it stops applying a material. Since this would be used multiple times I wanted to use a Datalinq key so I added one ID and put %ID% in the row datalinq field for the the text object. In sequence view the Name shows the correct text according to the ID key, but it doesn't want to grab the picture.

    I attached a sample project with a working manual scene and the non-working Datalinq scene. Also attaching a csv file I used for Datalinq and the 5 pictures I used for testing.



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    Omar Reyes
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    Attachment(s)

    zip
    Dynamic Material Test.zip   550 KB 1 version


  • 2.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 03-24-2023 18:10

    Select the "Requery scene datalinqs on data change" option in the DataLinq properties of the Name object to read the scene's dynamic material after the datalinq value changes. That should help.



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    Juha Koivisto
    Tampere
    Finland
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  • 3.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 03-25-2023 10:01

    Hi Omar,

    what Juha wrote does the job. 

    You do not even need to use a text object name. If you import all the players pictures in a material group (_Image will be added) you can datalinq directly to it with the ID and put in Append the _Image as in the picture attached. Cheers Nicole



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    Nicole Schindeldecker
    FERNSEHGRAFIK
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    Attachment(s)



  • 4.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 03-27-2023 15:58

    Thank you both! got it to work now.

    Pixmaniac - I didn't know about that trick, will definitely come in handy!



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    Omar Reyes
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  • 5.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 5 days ago

    Will this work if I write the image path on an Excel Sheet? 

    I have an Excel Sheet with boxers' BIO information already datalinq to my scenes, but I would like to datalinq their headshots too.

    What would you recommend?



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    Alejandro Galvan
    LA36 LOS ANGELES TV ACCESS
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  • 6.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 5 days ago

    Yes, that will work. You can use either a local file path or a URL pointing to an online image. As long as the path or URL is valid and accessible, XPression can pull it in via DataLinq.



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    Juha Koivisto
    Tampere
    Finland
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  • 7.  RE: Xpression - Use Datalinq with Dynamic Material

    Posted 5 days ago

    You can take it a little further and use the fighter's name as a text macro in the path. That way when you change the fighter name, it will automatically change the path to the correct headshot. The headshot file name would have to be letter for letter the same as the fighter name. It's just fun to try. One thing I would note, instead of %name% use @name@. That's a text macro instead of a Datalinq key. (edit) I see that's basically what you are trying to do. I didn't read all the responses. 



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    Malcolm Thorpe
    xpression design
    Free Lance Xpression Designer/Carbonite TD
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