It is an issues when i came up with we had lots of referances to a scene. We had a scene where we had nearly 15 characters were referanced. the size of the total (combined with the referances) were nearly 150 megabytes. But the time it took to save is was around 4 minutes! I first tought it was an network issue so i tested if a single 150 mb of file was transferred in 4 minutes? Our netwrok was capable of 1 Gbps. In windows operating Systems, you can can look at what your current network speed is simple by opening the TASK MANAGER and choosing the NETWORKING tab.

or MS, in the Network Preferances, in the advanced section you will find your speed in the ethernet section, probably you are using an ethernet connection.

The other part is that the place where you are writing your data or retrieving your data from os important, if that one is 100 mbps, and you are 1Gbps, your speed is still 100mbps. I have to give an extra info here. If you are using a hub, than if one of your devices is at 100MBps, then all of you will be there automatically no matter 1Gbps, conections, you have. But if it is an switch you are using, than all you can/might have different speeds. So be careful when you develop your network on. I have established the network in my company so, those came by experince :) Of course keep in mind that, i assume you are saving your data to a server, data server or a NAS server, this network stuff is just for that...

So, where are we? ok we have a scene that is only 150 mb but it takes 4 minutes to open and save...

First, check, if you are on a network to transmit data, get out of maya, and use windows explorer to send and receive a file around 150 mb, if your network is 1Gbps, it should take around 3 secs., if 100 Mbps, it should take 30 secs. ( but not 4 min). if it not a network issue

Save your scene, as a maya ascii data, that is .ma files. it should take another 4 minutes but now you have the ability to look into the maya file.

Now, open your .ma file with a text editor. I recommend you to use Notepad++, it is free, and its multitab ability is very useful. And of course it has no problem to open a 174 mb ascii data, with notepad you will get a bad performance. Now i tested it, it took my 55 secs to decide to kill Notepad process, as it was trying to open the file. Notepad++ opened it in 3 seconds... aha, aother great property is its multiple undo capability!

With our .ma file opened, search for the term "lightlink" (without the " " ).

~ ABOUT THE LIGHT LINK, it defines the relations between the lights, or lightsets and the objects, or nodes. Which object will illuminate what, whose shadow will cast on whom, like that. So if your light link information is not important in the scene, you can erase this information since it kills youwith its patience energizer weapon! In my scene there were nearly, 75 000 light links! i deleted them all and my scene save time decreased from 4 minutes to 11 seconds!!!!!

the first line you will come up to is sth like this, delete them all,

createNode lightLinker -n "lightLinker1";
setAttr -s 48466 ".lnk";
setAttr -s 1123 ".slnk";

the bottom setAttr -s 48466 show how we are infected with! when you create a file first it is just 2, and whatever howmany objects you add, without light linking it should be just 2!for example the bottom example has 144 objects in it but the numbers are just 2
createNode lightLinker -n "lightLinker1";
setAttr -s 2 ".lnk";
setAttr -s 2 ".slnk";

now, continue the search and you will get up to these guys:

connectAttr ":defaultLightSet.msg" "lightLinker1.lnk[0].llnk";
connectAttr ":initialShadingGroup.msg" "lightLinker1.lnk[0].olnk";
.
.
.
.
connectAttr ":initialShadingGroup.msg" "lightLinker1.lnk[46684].llnk";
connectAttr ":initialShadingGroup.msg" "lightLinker1.lnk[46684].olnk";

kill'em all !

then delete all

connectAttr "JuriOda:Ofis:pen6:lambert3SG.msg" "lightLinker1.slnk[559].solk";
connectAttr ":defaultLightSet.msg" "lightLinker1.slnk[560].sllk";

lastly delete all the :

connectAttr "lightLinker1.msg" ":lightList1.ln" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:areaLightShape1.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:spotLightShape1.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:spotLightShape2.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:pointLightShape1.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:pointLightShape2.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:pointLightShape3.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:pointLightShape4.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:spotLightShape3.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:spotLightShape4.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;
connectAttr "konferans:spotLightShape5.ltd" ":lightList1.l" -na;

type stuff.here you see maya creates a node called "lightList1" connected to "lightLinker1"

Finally, make a search including the term "lightList1"

so, we have cleared up the stage :) Now save the file in the editor. I have added a screenshot of the detailed view of the files in the explorer.See that there has been a 7 mb of useless data has been eliminated.

ok, i have opened the file again and made a rought test render, everything is just fine.I made another save within maya, and opened it, now there are just

createNode lightLinker -n "lightLinker1";
setAttr -s 1121 ".lnk";
setAttr -s 1121 ".slnk";

far far better then the 48466 style :) and it just saves the file in 8 secs!

I tried to gather my knowledge about light and color for this Saturday. I hope it is usefull for some people on the planet :)

If you have and problems, comments, additions, requests or recommendations please contact me via email