We recently wrapped a large feature project and are archiving set-ups on our various home systems and, being at home, we’re all a lot more aware of how large our archives are.
All of are artists worked fully cached, all shots done in batch, no timelines at all.
When I go to archive, I noticed that the estimated size is larger than the system framestore. Curious, I switched all versions to used versions and it dropped a significant amount (from 5.8 terabytes to 3.5).
I had always thought that this toggle was only related to multi-version clips…is there something we’re missing here?
I don’t know much about that All Versions/Used versions button.
I try and avoid any double ups in my archives. If your source media is sitting on a central server and is getting backed up, does the Flame archive need to contain that media also?
Also Flame archives are always much bigger in archived form than when it’s on the storage. When archiving, everything will be stored as raw files, instead of exr/prores/dnxhd (what you set in your project settings).
Workaround but could you not archive your setups? Or do project archives with no media included then archive just your source media (and exports of yoi choose)?
Not optimal but working in long form I find that I usually only end up restoring a project to get the title setups for the next series. I only remember revisiting a comp on one occasion and only restored the setup anyway.
We do the opposite here and avoid doubling up by having the media in our Flame archives. We’ve just found it an easier restore to know that everything is there when we unarchive from Flame.
We were working with EXR’s and kept everything raw, I guess the potential for size difference there might explain some of it?
This is also an unusual case as there is a good chance this project will be resurrected as they are in negotiations with a distributor right now and are hoping for more money to allow for some more time and work on some of the shots.
I guess the thing that I’m most interested in is why the significant size difference with All Versions/Used Versions? Makes no sense to me.
@Quinn Yeah, I thought something similar but we didn’t use pattern browse, open clip or multi-versions. The main plates didn’t change 95% of the time and were all imported and cached on import. Shots were versioned up quite a bit within batch (sometimes as high as 50 versions). I’m starting to wonder if it has something to do with that and whether or not it keeps every batch version? But if it did, I find it hard to believe it would cause that much of a size difference du to the consistency of the elements across the project.