Simple, artist friendly version control?

Alex_J

Anybody have a recommendation for some version control software that's relatively easy to pickup and foolproof?

I only need it for local backup and revisions, no collaboration.

I have some storage space with unity collab. That might be easiest thing because its dead simple. But it's also kind of buggy and I don't really trust it. Mostly I am backing up assets, but there is some scripts as well.

spacefrog

I would use SVN ( TortoiseSVN to be exact ) for anything that involves large binary files

sharsein

Perforce https://www.perforce.com/downloads/helix-visual-client-p4v is good for backing up art assets, I use it for both work and personal stuff. What's nice for artists is that it tracks revisions per asset rather than having branches where the assets are at a certain state that need merged with your revisions (which would be better for prototypers). 

Alex_J

Thanks for suggestions guys. Somebody turned me on to a program called BeyondCompare which fits my needs almost perfectly. It's not a real version control, but basically automates identifying changes between folders and then can merge items as well. So for just backing up maya files mainly this is good for me.

zachagreg

I have personally had issues with TortoiseSVN in regards to Unity and it's meta files on multiple occasions. I recommend Perforce. Which is free for one man teams and less than 5 people. As for storage space for a depot I'd recommend just getting a new SSD if need be rather than one of the services. Better for your money in the long run.

Alex_J

@zachagreg , if it's just as a backup device, any reason for an SSD versus regular hard drive? I assume SSD is more expensive.

zachagreg

SSDs are generally safer and less prone to failure. Faster read and write times make a difference when you're having to move potentially large amounts of backup data around. You are correct that they are more expensive but it depends on how often you've been touching said backup data. If its more for archival sake and your just dumping legacy files into it a mechanical drive should be fine.

I say an SSD also because if you are source controlling it helps to have the extra read write speeds when doing your commits.

Alex_J

@zachagreg , thanks.

If you don't mind one more question... any reason you prefer to backup to a local device like that, versus some cloud storage like dropbox?

zachagreg

It's just a matter of money for time and storage if that makes sense. If I know I just need more storage I'd rather sink the money for a physical drive I can use in the future rather than essentially rent space for the time I'm using it. Nothing wrong with cloud storage services and some like box and OneDrive have built in source control too more or less.

It's mainly just a preference of having the space and device for future use or needing some space now and not necessarily later.

Eric Chadwick

I highly recommend getting a NAS device, and making sure your backups are redundant. I know it's a bit of a cost, but it's saved my ass many a time, and most of them have versioning built in. Plus it works as a great media server, for movies, pics, etc.

Shrike

Tortoise SVN is probably the simplest with full manual version control

Create syncronity is the cheap ass solution, just writes backups each X hours to another harddrive but no versioning

I used a cloud drive from Sync.com which has versioning when I worked by myself, that worked very well but such should not be recommended for teams. There can be sync errors but so far I got everything back, and this is automatic no annoying manual versioning, as such I would recommend that, as you have to do nothing and can bring it with you.

Obscura

Perforce is ez but not free. I find it easier than tortoise svn. Easier to resolve issues if they occur, but they also occur less. At least with Unreal, which has it integrated inside the editor so it throws warnings in your face if you touch files that are checked out by someone else. You can also submit and check things out from inside the editor.It also works better with large files.

Eric Chadwick

Perforce is indeed free, for small teams.
https://www.perforce.com/products/helix-core/free-version-control

Alex_J

@Eric Chadwick

can you elaborate what you meant here :

"making sure your backups are redundant"

Do you mean that I should have two separate back up locations? or like, sort of like rotating stock? in that before you overwrite backup A you save a backup B first?

Eric Chadwick

Backup Golden rule is: 3-2-1 (at least 3 copies of your data, in at least 2 different machines, with at least one off-site copy)
https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/dehngo/how_to_protect_your_data_raid_is_not_a_backup/

Alex_J

awesome, thanks

gnoop

zachagreg said:

SSDs are generally safer and less prone to failure.

Surprisingly  my experience is quite opposite.     J have just  had my 4th  SSD    bricked  since  2015.      All of them  showed perfect health and then suddenly just turned to a brick   after  a sudden electricity  off   or just reset button pushed .      While I had HDD  issues too   usually they work  decade at least .

With HDD you at least get some warning of bad sectors or something before they die

Alex_J

gnoop said:

Surprisingly  my experience is quite opposite......

Mind sharing brands?

I am still on my first since 2017. It's covered in dog fur.

gnoop

First it was small SSD  128 gb  connected to motherboard m2 slot.  I can't recall  the brand. Died after BSD and reset

Then  Toshiba  250 gb .    Died after a black out

Then  Samsung 500 gb    After sudden electricity off  for couple minutes

And just now another Samsung  on my older PC   after I had to reset  it several times during re-booting.

My impression  SSDs  don't like any  sudden power off  .    Perhaps with a battery  power unit they could be safer then HDD  but I never had one.

Alex_J

Mine is a brand called "Crucial." Just anecdote but I know it's been through a couple outages that I can remember. Its 256gb. Somebody who is hardware savvy told me that SSD's perform best when they remain something like 25% below capacity, so I always keep it that way. Dunno if that makes any difference but its something I do.

And you use a surge protector? That is supposed to protect for that sort of thing, right?

gnoop

I use a typical APC branded thing with a row of outlets.     I think it does have  some surge protection   but  not a battery   like  UPS .    And I have HDDs too  in same PCs.   A couple of them actually .   They  are always just fine   after sudden power off.

zachagreg

So you're basing this off a bunch of electrical shorts? An exception doesn't really mean its the rule. For instance I have never had an SSD fail on me, but I've had several HDDs fail. SSDs do have the draw back of NAND flash memory having a limited use but the massive bonus of no moving parts and that limited use being at least on par with the lifespan of HDDs. They draw less power, they have higher read/right speeds, but they are more expensive by a considerable margin. Which is why you should look into how much you are reading or righting. If your just setting up a nightly back up and redundancy then yea use HDDs. If you're using it for moving data around a fair bit I recommend SSDs and also Eric was spot on with a NAS device. Haven't thought of one for my home use but having them at various work sites were amazing lifesavers.

Alex_J

yeah i did some reading on the NAS after eric mentioned it. had never heard of that. I look into getting one as soon as I got more spending money. For now I use the extra external HD plus the dropbox storage. I also have to pay for some experts time to really explain that to me because there is a lot of greek that I donntt understand.

one question though about read/write speed: If I am writing from an SSD (where I do the work) to a HD, is the work sort of split between the two?

And, in my case right now, probably the most data I am dealing with is a few hundred gb give or take. But Im not sending that all at once of course. When talking about the importance of read/write speed, when does that really become a factor?

gnoop

zachagreg    it wasn't electrical shorts .  Just reset button sometimes after a random pc hang up in zbrush.    It seems they just don't like sudden power interruptions  and always needs to be switched off safely.   Same as flash drives  with only  difference a flash drive could run through checkdisk and then  be ok again   and SSD just turns dead  and invisible to bios.

poopipe

perforce is great, 
svn is shit by comparison but it's better than git for art stuff

Tldr: just use perforce  - it's free

On storage.. 
SSDs are expensive and AFAIK have a shorter expected lifespan than magnetic disks, as such they make very little sense for mass storage. They're fast but since any network is significantly slower than the access speed of even an ancient IDE disk you're gaining precisely fuck all in practice. 

If you need mass storage invest in capacity and  redundancy, not speed. Go for the raid options that duplicate data, back anything really vital up to a cloud service and save up some spare cash for data recovery in the future. 

The above is not to say it's impossible to have superfast mass storage but it's not the sort of thing you buy with your own money 

Eric Chadwick

The benefit of SSD for me is having the OS and apps running on it. Boot speed is terrifically fast, compared to HDD. Apps load very quickly too. Active project files also go on the SSD for quick saves/loads.

Once a project is complete, or inactive, it gets stored on HDD. Which for me is NAS.

SSD is automatically backed up on the NAS as well. It just works.

Our NAS also has home movies of the kids, all our photos, our bank and tax documents. All encrypted, so if someone steals the NAS they just get a brick.

Yes, takes a bit of work to learn all the options, and set it up. But ultimately very worth it. Data and memories are irreplaceable IMHO.

Klunk

I gave up on version control, it's just too much of a pain in the arse, And quite frankly it's just shit (unless you pay $$$$$). (to quote jurassic park "hacker crap!") I just run  a Windows scheduled task that runs a batch file that creates a winRar archive of what i need backing up every evening, I keep the recent versions local, and burn off later version to disc over time. I don't keep any any data I want to keep on ssd, that's for apps and the operating systiem.

Alex_J

Klunk said:

I gave up on version control, it's just too much of a pain in the arse, And quite frankly it's just shit. (to quote jurassic park "hacker crap!") I just run  a Windows scheduled task that runs a batch file that creates a winRar archive of what i need backing up every evening, I keep the recent versions local, and burn off later version to disc over time. I don't keep any any data I want to keep on ssd, that's for apps and the operating systiem.

What are the major issues you face with version control?

Klunk

it's just overkill for 99% of what i need

for example I have no use for anything in that menu,

poopipe

Part of the problem is probably that you're using svn  

But yeah. Unless you actually need revision history on the files it's a waste of disk space and simple backups are sufficient.