Pro tip: never trust a cloud save when you're 8 hours into a big piece

My tablet crashed last night and the backup file was totally corrupt, lost a full day's work on a character portrait. Has anyone found a good way to auto-save locally every few minutes without bogging down the program?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_diana3d ago

Ugh, that's the worst feeling. I save a new version with the date every time I take a break now, like "project_oct22". It's a bit messy but at least you only lose a little bit.

linda_dixon493d ago

Actually that sounds like a great way to end up with a hundred files. The auto-save feature is built for this exact reason. Just set it and forget it, then you never have to break your flow.

tessa_murray3d ago

My old laptop ate a 6-hour landscape painting last spring, same exact problem. I started saving manually every ten minutes like clockwork, but it's easy to forget in the flow. Some art programs have an auto-save feature in the settings you can tweak for shorter intervals. It's a painful lesson to learn the hard way.

wood.eric3d ago

Yeah that "painful lesson to learn the hard way" line hits home, @tessa_murray. I lost a whole character design once and felt sick. What finally worked for me was setting the auto-save to every five minutes in my program's preferences. I also got in the habit of hitting save right before I do any big, complicated step, like adding a new layer for details. It becomes a quick reflex after a while.