So… when working freelance and handing off projects to another Flame artist to finish, I’ve been making a regular archive without media and then supplying that separately as DWAA compressed .exr media. Seems to work fine, bit of path fiddling.
But now that flame_backup exists in 2027. Should I switch to that? I read somewhere in the notes that it isn’t meant for ‘copying’ projects. But I think that applies to copying on the same system.
Then more broadly, with the whole metadata shift, does that mean Flame will retire the old archive system and beef up the new flame_backup system going forward? Or am I missing the point. Is flame_backup purely an extra option to keep uncompressed-media-phobes happy?
This is possible but not recommended. It’s more intended as an archive to restore on the same machine.
From the manual:
Important: flame_backup is not intended for copying projects. If you restore a project on a workstation or project server where a project with the same UUID already exists, the restore process will delete the existing project before restoring the backup. Also, flame_backup can only be used with projects created in a database configured with the trust authentication mode.
The main goal with the flame_backup tool is to ease daily data management task and avoid large archive to be created and managed. Projects have a unique identifier (UUID) and you need to ensure that the project only exists on one host in your studio to avoid issues.
The beauty with an archive is that you can browse the content and load/save. With a backup, you get a full project. So, I see no issue using the back up to share project between workstations / studio BUT it requires the receiving end to understand the difference between an archive and backup.
With this knowledge, you should be able to decide which mechanism is the best for you and you collaborators.
Thanks @Slabrie. Are you able to add anything about the roadmap, given that metadata isn’t currently supported in Archives? i.e. will metadata work in archives down the track, or will there be a more flexible flame_backup in the future? Just so we know where to invest pipeline energy…
I sadly cannot disclose much at the moment since we are in planning stage for future releases but our goal is to make the project / archive managements.easier. For now, go ahead and use flame_backup.