Revision control for artists

Writing code and sharing code we become used to using revision control. Mostly in the form of TortoiseSVN or TortoiseCVS. Comes in very handy when working on multipage code and code that can encompass many scripts. But it is a bit of overkill for most of my LSL work and I have been looking for alternatives. Found a new one that has been working perfectly for the last week called FileHamster.

For the tie in to Texturing Tips it takes a basic understanding of what revision control does. Every time you check out and work on a file and commit it again it stores a completely new copy. You have access to every single version you have ever done in the project. You can also decide mid-project to head off in a completely different direction only to find later that this was a mistake. With version control you can just step back in time and start again at any point.

You of course can always do the same on your on by using Save As and renaming each version by whatever scheme you want to use. Unfortunately we get lazy doing that and I know personally that it has come back to bite me in the butt a few times. Time is way too precious to needlessly waste hours having to start a project again when you decide to change directions.

File Hamster does it a slightly different way. You assign a file or directory to watch and it will automatically backup a new copy of the files when they change. Hit the save button in Photoshop and you also have all previous saves stored and accessible. Per the website:



Hopefully some of you will find it useful.

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like a scaled down, lighter, alternative to Adobe Version Cue.

Very cool, and free, thanks!

Does it integrate with VSS on Windows, or Time Machine on OS X?

Made for Windows 2000 / XP / Vista. Needs net 2.0 and does not integrate with VSS. After playing with it for a week I would guess that it is a fairly simple program that was probably written with C#. I could probably write my own version given a week or so. Watch directory, if file changes check against list of types to backup and if so, move copy of file to backup directory and append name with date/time stamp. Throw in some plug-ins to zip if needed or tie into a mini calendar that will show revisions per date, etc. Pretty basic stuff.

But like LSL, it is the idea that is important and then anyone can execute it. This works with PS, Maya, 3DS files, just about any file type and just so happens to work for my lsl, isl, esl and nc files also, plus the properties files for Scite.

Looks like a very nice tool. I wish there were a Mac version. Mind you, it would probably have to be coded in Sanskrit to work on OS8.6.

Since Maya was mentioned, let me just state for the sake of completeness, that no external revision tracker is necessary for that program. Maya has its own built-in incremental save function. All you need to do is switch it on, and every time you save a file, it will save to a new version, with an automatically appended name, rather than overwriting the original. This makes it possible to track the entire progress of a project, from start to finish, so you can step back to an earlier version at any time, very, very easily.

Incremental save is an incredibly useful feature. I really wish more programs would build it in.

Yes, Adobe, I'm talking to you here. Version cue works well, but it's a bit over-complicated, just for this purpose. It's meant more for studio use, where lots of people would be collaborating on projects together. For the individual, it's overkill. Third party solutions like File Hamster here are a good option, but really, they shouldn't be necessary. Incremental save is something Photoshop, and all other Adobe programs, should have incorporated years ago. It's almost embarrassing that it's not in there.