SUMMARY
Artists are often required to share their projects with others, or backup their work to network drives. This article describes when to use each available method, and which approaches should be avoided to ensure efficiency.
MORE INFORMATION
The Project Location
A Mari Project does not consist of a single file. Instead, a Project is a folder in the Project Location that mostly contains a large number of small encoded files, which are often called the Mari Cache, or the DDI Cache Blocks. This structure improves performance and allows Mari to handle massive projects.
The directory where these Project folders are located can be found by selecting Edit > Preferences > Data > Project > Project Location.
In a studio context, it can be tempting to set this Project Location to a network drive, so that all artists have access to each others' Projects. Unfortunately, this can cause the following issues:
- Mari needs to access this cache directory while working on a Project, so if this cache is in a network drive, Mari won't be able to read it as quickly as if the cache was on a local drive. This can lead to performance issues.
- Network issues or overloads, such as those that can happen during crunch times, can cause irreversible project corruption and loss of work. For this reason, the Project Location cache also shouldn't be used as a network backup.
As such, artists should keep their Project Location set to a local drive, such as an SSD on their computer. To efficiently share Project data between computers or network drives, artists can use Backups, Archives or Session Scripts instead.
NOTE: Some individual users may have their Project Location in their personal computers set to a directory that is being synced with a cloud, such as a OneDrive or Google Drive. This setup may even occur automatically, as the Project Location is placed in the user's Documents folder on Windows by default. For similar reasons as described above for Network Drives, Mari's Project Location should not be synced and uploaded to a cloud storage app.
Automatic Backups
When turned on, the Automatic Backup & Restore system creates a Backup of the Project every time a save or autosave is triggered. Just like a Project, a Backup isn't a single file. In a Project's Backup Path, you will find the same same file and folder structure as you would in the Project Location, with a few additional files that are specific to Backup management.
This is a tool new to Mari 7 that provides various advantages:
- The Backup Path can be safely set to a network drive, so that all artists can access them, making it one way Projects can be shared in a studio context.
- It's faster and more practical to move between different versions of a Project. Opening a different Backup uses the same Project, while extracting an Archive creates a separate Project.
- A process separate to Mari called MriBackup handles Backup generation. As such, creating a Backup doesn't stop artists from continuing working, and a Backup creation won't be interrupted halfway even if the user closes Mari.
- Due to the incremental nature of this tool, multiple Backups are lighter than multiple Archives.
The main downside compared to Archives is that individual Backups don't typically exist on their own, as their data is in the same folder as other Backups for the same Project.
For more information about the Automatic Backup & Restore system, please refer to the following documentation:
Mari Docs: Using Automatic Backup & Restore
NOTE: The AB&R system differs from the automatically generated Project.mri.bak file, which can occasionally help users recover unexpectedly lost work. To learn more about this alternative method, please refer to the following article:
Q100039: Restoring a Mari project from a backup
Mari Archives
Mari Archives contain the entire project in a single .mra file. They are a practical, secure, and efficient way to store all the data within a project. This makes them ideal if the user wants to send their Project to another artist who would review or continue the work, and they are also the safest and most practical option as the long term backup for the Project.
An example use case would be when the Project has been finished, and the studio just wants to keep a backup of it for future reference. A single .mra file is lighter and more practical to store than keeping the whole Backup Path folder.
However, archives can become very large files, while Session Scripts can be lighter and provide other advantages.
Additionally, users should not Archive/Import directly into/from a network drive. Archiving and Importing would be much slower and the risk of Archive corruption arises, both for similar reasons as described in the Project Location section of this article. When archiving, the recommended method is to Archive to a local drive, and then copy the Archive to a network drive if needed. When Importing, the recommended method is to copy the existing Archive from the network drive into a local drive, and then Import it into Mari.
Note: Archives can be opened through the Open Archives button in the Projects tab. For more information on Archives and how to create one, please refer to the following documentation:
Mari Docs: Managing Projects
Session Scripts
Session Scripts allow artists to easily export chosen parts of a Project that can then be imported into other Projects, such as Light setups, specific Objects, or updated Shaders. As such, they're recommended when the goal is to share only a specific part of the Project to be used by other artists. A Session Script consists of a .msf file along with a few folders containing all the exported data.
Note: Please be aware that there is currently one limitation with Session Scripts, which is described in the Session Scripts section of Mari’s online documentation.
Additionally, the following documentation describes how to export and import Session Scripts:
Mari Docs: Exporting Session Scripts
Mari Docs: Importing Session Scripts
FURTHER HELP
If you are experiencing difficulties or have any workflow questions, please create a Support ticket and provide us with the information requested in this article:
Q100090: Information to send Support when reporting a Mari issue
For more information on how to open a Support request, please refer to this article:
Q100064: How to raise a support ticket
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