Backup? I don't need no stinkin' backup

[Rodney]

No. I didn't lose an important file.

No. I didn't corrupt a model I had been spending days to create.

No. I didn't save over the top and overwrite my beautiful project.

 

Well. Not recently at least.

 

It just occurred to me that it had been a long time since a warning was put out and I hope that by spreading the word we can save people the trouble of learning the hard way. I'm not sure that I've ever emphasized backing up to new users. TIme to do something about that.

 

If anyone would care to elaborate on their backup methods I'm sure others would be greatful for your time. It might even save them a scream or two.

[Dearmad]

LOL. Being in the middle of a project that''s taking years has made me PARANOID about backups, so maybe I'm extreme, but here's my system:

 

CD-RW:

On one I keep a mirror of my work folder for the project. I remove things that won't fit into the CD that are not important to the project such as rotos and test footage, but ALL models, materials, actions, choreographies, material maps (not that many as I use a lot of procedural textures), go in this CD, obviously. Also script versions and reseach images I've used.

 

This CD gets updated about every month with a new image of my critical data. Not so frequently as you might suspect due to:

 

CD-RW:

On another CD-RW I keep an image like the above but keep it updated after EVERY time I make any significant progress on my work. So if I worked on an action, or redid a few details to a model, etc... when I'm done at the end of the day, I load up the CD-RW, delete the MODELOLD and ACTIONOLD folders on it, rename the ACTION and MODEL folders to ACTIONOLD/MODELOLD, then drag the ACTION/MODEL folders from my HD to the CD-RW to copy them over. This way I have the last previous version of anything that's changed as well as the latest current version.

 

On a CD-R:

I keep staggered copies of my MODELS, ACTIONS, CHOR, and occassionaly the MATERIALS folder. The MAT folder doesn't change much these days. I keep these CD's as archival reference and can consequently go back to any iteration of anything in my project. So far there are 5 of these CD's; not too many for the years of work invested... and certainly no price to pay for peace of mind.

 

On a another series of CD-R's:

I keep source recordings for the soundtrack, edited sounds ready for inclusion. One CD is for dialogue, another set is for music and sound effects. These don't need updating very often at all.

 

Backup-backup:

I do this data CD-R in duplicate.

 

Procedure:

I keep the CD's in a CD travel case that was the best one I could find that money could buy- reason: it has no cheap plastic parts that can scratch the CD's, is constructed in a way that makes removing cd's replacing them minimally dangerous to scuffing them, is waterproof (not too big a deal, but who knows). I TAKE THE CASE WITH ME WHEREVER I GO!!!! Yep, I'm this paranoid. Hey, the house next door burned down a few weeks ago (seriously), so now I even take the damned thing up to bed with me and keep it on the nightstand. If there's a fire, it's the only material thing I have to grab (well, I grab my wife too) and I'm out the window!

 

One duplicate data CD-R stays at home at all times in case I lose or have the travel CD's stolen.

 

Wow... what a process, but once it's all in place it's no big deal to keep up on. Takes about 5 minutes of my time each day at most when I've worked on my film.

[reason808]

For me, the problem is primarily psychological. When you're working on the compluter and trying lots of different options, interrupting your train of thought to save and name what you're doing breaks up the creative flow.

 

My defense against this is to think "How pissed will I be if I lost everything since the last change?" Then I hit the save key.

 

However, after 20 years of professional experience making art on the computer, its still pretty hard to step out of the flow and remind myself to do this.

 

So I also use my other defense plan: name all my different creative tangents numerically, so I didn't have to worry about naming schemes too much. If I'm playing with color, I just name all versions:

 

Model_ColorPlay_1a

Model_ColorPlay_1b

Model_ColorPlay_1c

 

ColorPlay_1 could all be shades of orange, ColorPlay_2 purple, etc. I sort them out later when I've stopped brainstorming and started editing.

 

Yes, this creates a file mess on the computer, but it doesn't have to make sense to anybody else at this point. Hard disk space is cheap, losing work is expensive.

 

Even when you're in a group situation, the habit of making separate files for each milestone, no matter how small, translates well for a more formal naming system - the type found in the real world where other people are working with your files.

 

I still lose work - I still get lost in the creative flow of things. But I've found these two approaches have made my losses much smaller.

 

-mr

 

P.S: Since I can't offer A:M technical advice on this forum - yet - I can at least chime in on this issue. Hope it helps save the work of some people starting out!!

[Reikster]

I was just doing some goofin off last night and had a fairly nice 3 finger + thumb semi-alien hand modelled, but never saved. For some reason I hit space bar in the model window and AM disappeared.

Somebody should teach me to:

a) save even goofy junk you're just playing with....I was actually starting to like the look of the hand I made....it's gone now.

don't hit silly keys if you don't know you need them.

c) backup!

 

eric

 

p.s. when I'm working on something for reals, I always do the incremental prj saving...so I'm halfway there...

[wwoelbel]

OMG!

 

This is something that cannot be overstated. I am seriously paranoid about my data. I may not have produced anything that is going to appear in Nick at Night but what I have done is very dear to me and is the result of counless hundreds of hours. Recently, AM and my video driver had a minor disagreement. AM disappeared without a peep. When I reloaded AM, it turned out that it had completely digested my project with all of the models, materials, and the tweaking and tweaking and tweaking in the choreograophies. All gone. Thanks to my habit of saving the project file with a date and time in the file name after I do anything even remotely consequential, I lost about 15 minutes of work (which was a bit of texture orientling). Every week I cut the weeks worth of project files to a DVD (A CD would do just fine but I keep forgetting to buy them) and take it to my office for storage.

 

Preach on Good Rodney!

 

The message is needed.

[ragtag]

I've been testing an interesting approach to backup. I'm using a repository/version control system, most commonly used by programmers. I'm using Subversion with Tortoise, both are open-source and free.

 

I have my working copy of the project on one disk and the repository on another, and I burn backups about once a month (my comp is not connected to the internet, which does wonders for stability ).

 

A repository is basically a storage from which you check files in and out. It only stores the changes or differences between old and new versions, so it doesn't eat too much disk space. The nice thing about it is that each time you check in a file you can add a comment to that version, so that if you later want to go back, you know what you've done with each version. It also means that I'm not storing multiple copies/versions of the same file in my working copy, so the file structure there remains very clean. All the versions are stored in the repository.

 

It's a bit of extra manual work, as I need to check in files I've changed and comment them, but I think it can be worth it in the long run. If you have multiple people working on the same project, Subversion would be a great way to organize the files.

 

Ragnar

 

p.s. Subversion is a command line tool and cross platform, while Tortoise is a graphic interface that I believe is only available on Windows. If you're not freaked out by a command line interface, Subversion works fine without Tortoise too.

[Rodney]

I've used Phil Knox's backup program a little.

For those interested he was seeking feedback to improve the program's usefulness.

 

I've added it as a tool that I can click on under the TOOL menu in A:M for times when I'm working on larger projects. As I've only been on small projects and tests lately it hasn't seen much use.

 

Right now I have it set to backup only one file; Project1.prj.

I set Saver to create an incremental backup of the file in the C:\Backup directory where it can be copied elsewhere if needed. Each time I save a little experiment it is hoped that I'll have them all available later just by saving the one file.

 

So far this has worked rather well.

 

You can see the discussion on Saver here:

Phil Knox's "Saver" Program (For PC Only)

[wwoelbel]

Ragnar - What a wonderful idea! I have MS Visual SourceSafe installed on my machine. It should work well. I'm going to give that a try tonight.

 

Bill

[ragtag]

Bill - Just make sure it supports binary files too if you want to include textures. I used CVS before for some coding stuff, and it didn't support binaries.

 

Ragnar

[AndyDavis]

Current CVS does support binaries.

 

Another thing that I found out recently is that the XP Home CD actually contains the same backup program that comes with XP Pro. I forget the exact path to the installer, but it is something like extras or bonus. I was blown away by this as it is one of the reasons that MS states for using Pro.

 

-Andy

[Tunesy]

OT, but reason808, are you the Mike Robinson of Squidink? If so, glad to see you bringing your talents to AM.

 

Edit: Just checked your web site from your signature. Wow. Very nice work even if you're a different Mike Robinson

[reason808]

Thanks tunesy. Glad you like my work - I'm planning to switch gears and move into animation. Enjoying the ride so far.

 

Looks like I'm a different MR. Curious who my twin at squidlink is, though.

[wwoelbel]

Just make sure it supports binary files too if you want to include textures

 

Hmmm... Have to check that part out. Good catch.

[Fuchur]

I would make numbers... I have a longer project in progress and I used to use letters etc.... At the end I was at something like: "Projectzzzzzzzzs" or something... use numbers and the problem of confusion will fade away... (there are invinity numbers but just 26 letters...)

 

*Fuchur*

[ragtag]

Yesterday I found a simple way to add automatic backup to my Subversion system.

 

First I made a .bat file containing the following:

 

svn commit -m "Automatic commit."

 

Then I used MS Scheduled Task (in Control panel on windows), to run the .bat file from my project folder every 15min. I'm sure some similair tool exists on OS X.

 

That's it.

 

That way I get automatic incremental backup of any changes I do. The main down sides is that I don't get a comment telling me what I did with each version, though I can still do manual commit of files with comments if I want to. And that a command line window pops up on the screen every 15min, for anywhere from a fraction of a second to a couple of seconds.

 

Works fine so far,

 

Ragnar

[Rodney]

Ragnar,

That sounds interesting. Definitely going to have to check that out.

The MS Scheduled Task thing could definitely be useful for automating some tasks and basic project management.

 

Thanks for reminding me that was even there!

When it comes to automation my brain is still living in the DOS days.

Rodney