Hi,
I was wondering if anyone here knows of a good incremental saver. I come from a Lightwave background and we used an excellent one that worked very well on our projects. It was called Smart Save by Simon Coombs. http://www.simon-coombs.com/items/index.htm
The great advantage of it was that it makes sure that the latest version of any file has the same name as the original file - older versions are stored in a user defined backup folder. So operators do not have to keep track and update incremental versions, and the most current version has no incremental number attached.
In addition to the incremental number, it automatically appended the user’s initials to the filename.
This is really useful for production and making sure that the latest version is always the one used or referenced by other operators. It prevents them getting confused about which is the most current version, and who made it.
The other big advantage of this tool is that it also created a log file that stored info on the date/time any changes were made, who made them and any comments that they might have wanted to add.
I really found it invaluable and I hoped to find something similar but without much joy so far.
I did come across IncrementalBackup by Philip Smolka, but it doesnt have quite the same workflow that we’re used to.

Anyone got any suggestions - I’d really appreciate it!

Cheers,
Mike

There is this one too: Incremental Save v2.0

Thanks - I have come across this one too.
It is pretty cool, but not quite what I’m looking for. Ideally when you save, MyScene.scn would be overwritten, and also be copied to a user specified backup folder and appended with timestamp and user initials. So MyScene.scn would be saved in backup folder to MyScene_(timestamp)_(User).scn
At the same time when saving there would be an option to add comments if necessary, which would be stored in a simple text log file along with date and time of change.
It just really helps keep track of a scene in a pretty simple fashion.
Everyone knows that MyScene.scn is always the most current scene and its name won’t change so any other scenes that are dependent on this wont break. And they can always go in to the backup folder or check the log to see when a change was last made, by whom, and restore the file if need be.
Thanks - will keep looking :)
Mike

Sounds like you’re looking for asset management software (eg: AlienBrain, Shotgun, Project Overlord, Perforce, ...).

While it may seem like unnecessary overhead at first, it’s exactly what you want because you can scale up to large projects and/or inventories without having to search around for tools like you’re doing now when you change 3D applications (you don’t want your source control to be application specific, trust me).  Data is protected with logins and user accounts.  You’ll always know who touched what as every action within source control is usually logged.  Files don’t get renamed either....unless you go in there and manually rename it.

With the rising complexity of 3D, source control is practically mandatory these days.  It’s a very complex arena of software development as it’s all about maintaining dependencies and relations of your files, not just file versioning.  For example - given a texture file, what models and scenes use it?  What shots use a particular model? or conversely, given a shot, what models are in it?  If you upgrade a plugin, what content will it affect?  A good source control software will keep track of those relations.  It’s asset management.

The nice part about asset management software is almost all the makers provide free licenses for professional use in small quantities.  Alienbrain gives you 5 seats free, Perforce gives you 2 (I might have that backwards).  Anyway, check around and try some out.  They all have their pros and cons.  Some asset managers only handle file versioning.  Others do everything including relations and data mining.  You’ll have to decide what’s important and go from there.

Yes- you’re right - asset management is really what I’m trying to do on a small scale. Ive been thinking more and more about Alien Brain but it is expensive! Dont think I’ll be able to squeeze it into this project’s budget.
We’re trying to build our own system here, but our planned software developer has fallen thru at the last minute and I’m looking at my fallback plans.