Copying Paint Nodes

[jan1]

The client decided to go in a different direction on the color of a project and we're re-doing the color as a result. 

One challenge is that there are a few clips that had skin cleanup with vector paint that I'd rather not re-do if possible.

I created a new project, opened the old .env file and copied selected parts of the timeline onto the new timeline. Including the paint vector nodes. But it doesn't look like any of the actual strokes came over. Are they not attached to the node directly?

I see that there is a load/save file. So I thought maybe I need to go to the old project and save each paint vector into a file? But unfortunately if open the old project (copied over from another system) any stack with the vector paint in it appears to ignore it. The eval tree doesn't even show the vector paint. My guess is that this is because I copied the files from my old system to the new system, and something didn't come along for the ride. I could try to go to the old system and run Mistika there and save individual files. But I'd also have to move my license back temporarily to do that. Becoming complicated.

It does pose the question, so archiving a project by it's .env file will not be be enough. What has to be saved to retain vector paint data?

[Javier Moreno]

For performance reasons some information like VectorPaint strokes, titles, morph, and data from 3rd party plugins are not saved in the .env file (which is a text file)  but in the PRIVATE folder of the project as binary data (which is faster). If you copy a project to other system you need to copy the whole project folder, not just the .env file.  

[Cristobal Bolaños]

Indeed, in this case scenario the best workflow would have been, instead of creating a new project, but to create a different folder for your brand new environment with the color re-doing. Hence, you wouldn't have lost the Private information (where the Vector paint data is located). Otherwise, if creating a new project is desired for organization purposes, as Javier said, copy the Private folder files into the Private folder of the new project. 

Cheers,
Cristóbal 

[jan1]

Ah that makes sense. Thanks Javier and Cristobal.

These are all the little nuances one has to learn on a new system. After quite a few client projects I'm making progress in getting familiar with Mistika and knowing how to use it well and efficient.

It's now too later to make a copy of the project, since we already graded again. I'll see if it's possible to copy private data selectively just for those nodes. If not I'll just have to re-do them this time, and know what to do next time.

In Resolve there is a function where you can export a .drp file which is an archive of a project that can always be imported even in different versions. Is there a function in Mistika (or some instructions) of what all the files are that need to be archived for a complete project to be restored? Of course it would be easy to archive the whole project folder, but often it contains renders and other temporary files that take up unnecessary space. So it would be nice to separate the required from the transient files.

Thanks as always,

Jan

[jan1]

Based on your answers, I was successful copying just the timeline specific files from the private folder of the old project to the new project and then copying the paint nodes from the old .env to the new one and everything came across perfectly. You saved me a lot of time ?

Jan