Sometimes what i do to “workaround” this is duplicate my lib to a new library and then just unlink everything in that new lib…clear everything you want…and then archive that still with uncached checked…its a dumb workaround but works when this does happen…I would do this all the time for my archives in the past when artists just need to open an archive to just grab a timeline effect or something small and dont have time to open a 1TB archive…so they always have a unlinked archive and an archive with all the media…
Just putting it out there, but don’t we think that batch renders should work like bfx renders. I mean we have the ability to add history to the batch render so before archiving we could just flush the render and keep the clip with its history and archive sizes will drop dramatically.
History renders are unfortunately rarely used in the industry. It is an ass-saver.
[quote=“cnoellert, post:2, topic:5491”]
You’d would want to prune out all of the unneeded renders to bring things down… or explore an unmanaged workflow.[/quote]
Refining my archive strategy and came across this very helpful discussion.
One thing I haven’t been able to sort - some projects have a BFX in almost every timeline clip. And in these clips I do have some render nodes (for denoise caching, recurive ops, etc.). They all appear in the Batch Renders group on the desktop which makes sense.
As I’m archiving the library at the end of the project, I’m trying to save the Batch Renders that are still in use, but it seems like there are some orphans from early earlier timelines I purged. Hard to tell without opening every single one.
Is there a good way to pruning Batch Renders in Reels that are no longer referenced in any timeline? I always delete old renders if I replace them. But I tend to keep older revisions of the whole timeline for a while and then they’re easy to prune, but not the batch renders that go with them.
I was hoping there would be something similar to ‘show source segments’ that tells you which timeline or batch a batch render is referenced in, so you can quickly through and find the orphhans.
Could see anything in the usual videos and manual.
Not sure if this helps, or if you already know it, but Shift-Ctl B on a selected segment will direct you to the batch that created it. Smoke keys. I’m not in front of the box, so it might be a different flame key.
Thanks, that didn’t work for me. But I think I muddied the waters with my description.
I’m looking to trace them back from the Batch Renders folder on the Desktop, which I’m trying to cleanup pre- final archive to avoid bloat. Trying to copy only those to the library which are still in use.
I see . . . I render my batches to a folder in the batch group. Shift-Ctl b will get me to that batch group, at which point I throw away everything but the last render. Usually, however, at the end of a job I just go through each batch render folder.
Can you actually export the MV Cache clip in a format that is re-importable and usable? My understanding of MV Cache clip, is its kinda a proprietary format that needs to stay native in flame.
Actually I think you’re right on this.
Having exactly the same problem as Jon.
I have a project that was pretty much a 2minute Batch animation job, with sections made up from pre-rendered batchs and video edits.
No Machine learning, no motion vectors.
I have unlinked all the media, saved the final batch separately, then deleted from the project. No batch renders in the project (they were exported and re-imported during the final animation).
So i am left with a project that is nothing more than an edl - but which claims needs 370gb to archive! I’m trying to save storage space not throw it away for nothing.
What is wrong with Flame that it thinks it needs to use so much space to save a list of clip metadata?
adam
edit: forgot to say - i went through every clip etc and flushed renders, flushed caches etc.
Do you have any iterations in your batch ?
I don’t think so…i’ll check tomorrow.
Thanks for the tip
I feel your pain. A year or two ago I put in an FR to “find all media created by flame” since unlinking only dumps anything with a file path associated with it. Anything that’s taken a trip through batch or a desktop tool is off of flame’s search radar. Stealth clips dropping gigabyte bombs into your archive.
I don’t know that this would solve your issue per-se, but it would at least automate a version of the “metadata only archive” we are all trying to write.
If I find some time I’ll put in a second request for “metadata only archive even if it contains un-sourced (aka stealth) media”
I would pay good money for a “convert to unmanned media” python script which would allow you to right click on a clip in a batch and export it as a dpx or exr into the batch’s shot folder in a predefined template.
1 Like