Binary assets repo strategy

[david-fgs]

Hi,

I'm doing some research to see what is the best option to store big binary asset files for our current project. In a Plastic Cloud server + local repos setup, is there any way to avoid syncing the binary assets from the cloud to my local repo? I know that the cloaked files feature will save me from updating those files in the workspace but I'd prefer to not even have to download the files and their history. The only way I can think of this working is to have a branch in the repo where the assets are checked in and then developers could exclude this branch from their sync views. This would be a hassle for the artists who would have to commit the source assets in a branch and the project assets in a different one. Am I missing any other possible solutions?

Thanks!

[calbzam]

Hi David,

When you run a sync you are actually syncing branches (and changesets) not specific assests or files. But then you can select the content to download to your local workspace. Please check the following link to review the differences between a Plastic workspace and a repository:

https://www.plasticscm.com/branch-per-task-guide/gui/whats-a-workspace.html

If you can separate the project in different parts (libraries...), you can use different repositories and Xlinks if you need to reuse the existing components:

https://www.plasticscm.com/documentation/xlinks/plastic-scm-version-control-xlinks-guide.shtml

Also are you aware of Gluon? Some artists prefer to work centralized against the cloud server (not replication needed) and they can select the files to download via Gluon configuration:

https://www.plasticscm.com/gluon-in-detail.html

Regards,

Carlos.

[david-fgs]

Hi,

I'm aware of the differences between workspaces and repos and I know I can avoid copying certain folders from my local repo to my workspace, but what I'm trying to do is to completely avoid the huge download and local repo for the developers if the binary assets are part of the project repo. I was kind of validating my research that there isn't really a way of doing this with just one repo so I'm going to go with two, one for artists managed using Gluon, and one for the Unity project managed using the regular Plastic GUI. I may even have an xlink between them but I don't think it'll give anything other than proper version tagging.

Thanks!

[manu]

Hello David,

I think you can do the following in order to prevent the following issues:

* Pulling assets history from the cloud.

* Prevent downloading the assets files to your workspace.

Which if I understood properly is what you are trying to do.

You can create two cloud repos, one for the source code and another one for the art/assets. As there will be people wanting to have everything inside a single repo you can tweak this two repos setup using xlinks.

You don't want to download the assets repo history so just pull the code repository.

Now, just before the first update operation working with your code local repo create a "cloaked.conf" file and write the path to the xlink:

/assetsRepo

Then update and start working with the source code, the assets won't be there and will not bother you.

 

[david-fgs]

Hi Manu,

Yeah, that seems like the best strategy.

Thanks!

[manu]

Great!

Let us know how it works for you!