Opening Scenes

You can only view one scene at a time in Softimage. Before you open a different scene, you are prompted to save any changes made to the one that is currently open.

As the scene is loaded, Softimage looks for all its referenced files using the files' full path names. If any fileis not located using this method, Softimage looks for the file name in the current project folder. If the file isn't found here, the users path, then the workgroup paths, and finally the factory path is searched. If the file is still not located, then you must manually correct the file's paths. It is therefore important to make sure that all the files you use in a scene are stored in a folder that Softimage can easily locate. See Managing External Files.

To open a scene in a project that is not on your project list

If you open a scene in a project that is not on your project list, a dialog box prompts you to add the project to your list. Answer Yes or No as you like. In addition, the dialog box lets you specify the behavior when opening other files in the future:

Always Ask continues to prompt you to add new projects to your list.
Always Add New Projects automatically adds projects to your list without prompting.
Never Add New Projects does not add new projects to your list. You can still add projects manually using the Project Manager.

You can also control this behavior by setting Add New Projects to the Projects List in your Data Management preferences.

To open a scene from the browser

Choose File Open from the main menu.
In the browser, go to the location of the project file you want to load. You can use the Up button to locate folders at higher levels.
Select the scene file to be loaded (its name appears in the File Name text box) and click OK.

You can also double-click the scene name and it opens.

To open a recently-used scene

Select it from the File Recent Scenes menu. This menu contains the last few scenes you worked on.

To open a scene from the Project Manager

Choose File Project Manager from the main menu.
Select a project from the Select a Project list box.
In the Select a Scene list box, double-click on the scene you wish to work on or select the scene name and click the Open button.

To open a scene by dragging and dropping

Drag and drop a Softimage scene (*.scn) file from the Softimage browser or a Windows Explorer onto the background of a 3D view to load and replace the current scene.
Note
- If you drag and drop using the Ctrl key, the scene is merged with the current scene (see Merging Scenes).
- You cannot drag and drop scenes from external windows on Linux systems.

Toopen a scene from the command line

To start Softimage and load a specific scene (*.scn) file at startup. Type:
```
	xsi <scene_file_name.scn>
```

To open a scene with a particular version of Softimage (Windows only)

If you have more than one version of Softimage installed on your system, you can choose which version of Softimage opens scenes when you double-click on an SCN (*.scn) file.

Double-click an SCN (*.scn) file.

The Softimage Chooser dialog box opens (if several versions of Softimage exist and none have been set as default yet).
Select the version of Softimage to associate to the .scn file.
Softimage starts and loads the specified scene. (If only one version of Softimage exists or a default version has already been set, Softimage starts automatically).

You can also access the Softimage Chooser from the Windows Start Menu and select a default version from there: choose Start Programs Autodesk Softimage Chooser.

Opening Locked Scenes

When you open a scene file, a temporary "lock" file is created. The lock file is deleted when you close the scene.

Anyone else who opens the file in the meantime is given a warning that the file is currently in use. The purpose of the lock mechanism is to let you know that somebody else is already working on a scene, and to avoid concurrent saving which can lead to data lost.

You can still open a "locked" scene, but in this case, the scene is loaded as a "shared copy" (which is displayed in the Softimage window title bar) and any changes you make to the file need to be saved under a different name.