Quicksave Plugin
Sparrowhawke3D
Posts: 102
A new plugin can now be downloaded for free on my website - the Quicksave command.
I'm developing the Quicksave plugin to create a means of making an instant backup of large scenes in Carrara, particularly with mulitple figures and lots of key frames. Such scenes can take minutes to save, especially if your system is getting on a bit and you don't have a solid state drive. This cuts into productivity and discourages saving but if there is a crash or power interruption you could loose a lot of work while posing and animating after you have put the objects into the scene.
Quicksave creates a temporary file in your Carrara folder. It doesn't save the objects, vertex models or morph deltas. It only saves the position and key framed information, the morph dials - all the stuff you can see in the Universe section of the Sequencer tray and most of the stuff in the properties tray. Other modeler primitives like the Spline Modeler are not quicksaved. Other such objects and shaders can be dropped into the browser if they are part of a larger scene and you want to make a quick backup of important changes. NLA and Sounds are not saved by the plugin so put them into the clips folder.
If you get a crash you can reload the most recent scene that you were working on and then use the Quickload command to get back all the changes that were made to any objects that were included in the fully saved scene file. Any objects that are added after the full scene save cannot be recovered.
So please try out this plugin when you are positioning, shaping and posing figures and arranging a scene to make a Quicksave of your work in the Assemble room with some peace of mind that any lost work can be recovered.
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Comments
Great idea. Thank you for this and everything else.
Cool - many thank-yous !!!
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thanks Sparrowhawke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! great idea!
Wow, have you been reading my mind? I have a 3GB scene (which I really need to break down into sections and make separate scenes) and it's not that slow to save, but still it freezes sometimes. This is brilliant.
Thank you for this, I'm really looking forward to test it, I thought it was not possible!
I came up with the idea for Quicksave when working on scenes with a number of posed figures. When working on just about anything I'm in the habit of saving after I type in a sentence sometimes and making backups and rotating backups after any major changes by the hour. If saving a large scene takes more than a minute that starts to cut into productivity but runs the risk of loosing work. I've never found the Genesis figures to be 100% stable so the main purpose of the plugin was to backup the key frame positions in the sequencer. There is Fenric's plugin to save in Poser format but not a fast way to get that back in so I wanted to figure out how to do that for myself and created the Quicksave plugin. Once I got going I wanted to add as much information as I could to the backup file to rebuild the changes and learned more about poking around inside Carrara to see what else I could access. Getting all the way deep into a complex shader structure is one of the next challenges and figuring that out can help with a few other requested plugins like turning off the texture map filtering setting.
Be aware that you still have to do a full scene file save and get up from your workstation and take a break every hour.
Selinita, regarding the Follow Polyline plugin, I'll take any suggestions on my plugins and consider what is possible. The plugins in my Laboratory are all experimental, unfinished, undocumented and used at your own risk. If they get enough interest and feedback I can improve them.
To your points:
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OK, I have a wee problem with it now. I had to roll back my Nvidia Quadro K2200 drivers to the original ones that came with the machine. Somehow I'd gotten into a fix where I was losing my signal to the monitor sporadically and not always when doing Carrara, I could just be surfing the net. Anyways... now that I have a fresh rolled back install of my drivers for the graphics card, I could not get Carrara to open. It just 'hung'. on the splash screen. I could open Zbrush, DS10, Blender, Poser, World Creator, Sketchup (yeah, I have a lot of stuff) and they open faster than with the updated drivers, so will keep the roll-backs for now. So I wondered what was 'new' that I'd done with Carrara... I added the plugin. So I removed the two files from the Extensions folder and...wah-lah... Carrara opened immediately.
I did this a couple of times, put the Quicksave files back in, and same hang up thing again. Took them out, and Carrara opened quickly. I was not having that problem before I rolled back, so this is confusing. I really liked having it. Any idea if there is a causal relationship going on?
Fingers crossed there's an explanation.. it's so useful!
Yes plugins usually the first thing I check too if Carrara doesn’t open
some perfectly ok by themselves but clash with others
I had to remove YaToon! For example as gave me issues with Octane and the UV uncheck one interferes with the VWD plugin
OK, that's good to know. Hoping there's a fix for it.... it is one that I really find useful!
Silene
Hi Silene, going with the assumption that there is a conflict between Quicksave and another plugin I've made an alternative build with different ID and menu command numbers and I removed the default hot key. Replace all of the 3 Quicksave files and test if this alternative works.
The normal error when there is a plugin conflict is for the second one that loads to be greyed out or not appear at all in the menu.
If you can do a text in all files search in your \Extensions folder (with Quicksave removed) and see if any other .dat file contains "scmdSHQs" then there is another plugin using the same ID.
Wendy, I'll look into any clash with VWD next.
Confirmed there was a clash with VWD and UVUnWrap. My mistake, I gave one of the calls the wrong number. I've done an update which you can download from my Laboratory. Report any suspected bugs to me directly for a more rapid response if you think there is a problem. Don't assume user error, there are lots of ways for me to make mistakes that won't immediately show up.
Thanks SH... I will look later today and give it a go. I always assume user error... 99% of the time it IS me!
Cheers, Silene
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The update is for the UVUnWrap command which now shouldn't cause trouble with the VWD Bridge for Carrara when both are installed. If you have VWD and want to use UVUnWrap get the new build 0.11. The Quicksave is an alternative build which may fix possible unknown conflicts with another plugin. The only change to both plugins is in the internal numbers used for the menu commands and the special four character class code which must be unique.
Fantastic!!! You Rock!!!
OK, I searched and hope I didn't go wrong doing it. For searching .dat files, I had to change how they were opened from Windows Shell Common Dll to txt (Notepad) as Notepad did not come up in the dialogue box as a way to open .dat files. Anyways... I got no results on the search for scmdSHQs.
Can I leave Notepad as the file used to open .dat in the Extensions folder? Will that affect the file function? I did not see a way to put Windows Shall Common Dll back again. If this needs to be done, I'll need some help!
Don't worry about the text search Silene. If "scmdSHqS" didn't get a result this confirms that there is no clash with the plugin class. .dat files are unknown to Windows but by looking into their contents, in the right way, we can see what codes are used by Carrara plugins from other developers. Opening these files in Notepad reveals more information - windows doesn't need to recognise them, they are a special dll.
If the alternate files for Quicksave don't work for you then the problem is something more complex than a plugin clash so try those out.
SH...Installed your alternate Quicksave and Carrara opens fine! Cheers
Silene
thanks for fixing the UV unwrap
Also can you add a paypal donate to your page, I refuse to use patreon for anybody
thank you Sparrowhawke
Great to hear that the Quicksave plugin is working now. It would be good to know exactly what the conflict was with.
If you open up the UVUnWrap.txt in a text editor you will see
COMP {
RsID 915
Strg "UV UnWrap"
Strg "Sparrowhawke3D"
}
and if you open up the .dat file in a text editor then between the unreadable characters you will see the unique scene command ID for the plugin S3UW.
°scmdS3UW 8.0 (c) 2001-2008 DAZ 3D, Inc.
In the case of UVUnWrap I used the resource ID 915 but in the code, based off a template, I worked too quickly and mistakenly left in:
short UVUnWrap::GetResID() {return 150;}
If you open up VWD.txt you can see an entry:
COMP {
RsID 150
Strg "Go VWD Cloth and Hair"
Strg ""
}
So that is how it went wrong with two commands using the number 150 and UVUnWrap messed around with the operation of VWD. I put up a post a while back in the SDK forum section with a list of my IDs and Alberto added his. This can stop us getting our wires crossed.
With Quicksave and Quickload I was using SHQs with 912 and SHQl with 913. For the alternative test version I've changed those to sHqS with 1912 and sHqL with 1913. Scene commands are not saved so if these values change there is no trouble reloading a scene.
I assume you are not talking to me when you talk about the UV UnWrap. I have several other of your plugins, but ... I don't have that one.
No Silene, I was just getting a little bit technical to point out where the clash could occur. I don't have all the other plugins for Carrara that are out there or have been released in the past. If anyone suspects a problem related to two plugins this is an example of what might be the cause and a way to help find the conflict so it can be fixed. If you find that removing one plugin gets the other working then checking the files for these numbers and IDs could help to rapidly solve it.
UVUnWrap is a simple scene command to turn off the default UV wrap settings in an vertex model, which is most useful for imported content.
OK, I picked up UVUnWrap as I didn't know about it before (doh?), and downloaded some earlier plugins that I'd not done before. I will add them one at a time to see if any conflicts pop up.
Also PP'd you some $$$.
Cheers for your hard work for Carrarians!!
Silene
Silene, thanks for your feedback and support.
New and improved plugins (from my other project) will be coming out each month. Other plugins in my Laboratory page can be dusted off and tinkered with where there is enough interest. They range from the practical and simple tools to some crazy half baked ideas. Some additional information can be found in my infrequent Lab Report.
Thank you!
Thankyou Sparrowhawke
Follow Polyline
Further suggestions to your follow polyline plugin (made here - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4555966/#Comment_4555966.) Ignore request 3.
The banking was added to the cube, by grouping it and unselecting the alignment options for the parent and manually adding the correct rotations to the cube itself. Any time saving addition to your plugin would be most welcome.
Thanks again for all your efforts.