Smart Save for Softimage?

[mike_b]

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

[Hirazi Blue]

The one I have been using for quite a while now, from SI's own "Chinny" can be found here ( Link to Area). Not sure if it will be able to replace your old tool (as the "append user initials" isn't present for instance), but it does it's trick quite nicely... ;)

[mike_b]

Thank you! I will check it out

[mike_b]

Ah!
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 whome, and restore the file in need be.
Will keep looking
Mike

[Hirazi Blue]

Hmmm, shouldn't be all that difficult to code... (famous last words!!! )

[mike_b]

Im going to try get one of our guys to write a version in-house. If it works, I'll put it out for everyone.