Mitch Posted October 14, 2021 Report Share Posted October 14, 2021 Hi, I was curious how one would replicate the functionality of a cloaked.conf file in Gluon. My specific use-case is that we have a repository for the artists on our project, and while I need access to some of the character Maya files for animation, I don't need all of the Zbrush/Substance/etc files. In PlasticSCM I would just add 'Zbrush' or '*.ztl' to the cloaked list and never have to worry about it. But with our directory structure, where each character folder has its own Zbrush folder, I have to manually exclude it for each character, and remember to do so any time a new character is added. Ideally, I'd like to be able to just configure Gluon so it never downloads any folders named Zbrush/Substance/etc rather than manually excluding them. Is this possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted October 14, 2021 Report Share Posted October 14, 2021 Hi. As you know Gluon by design has this functionality without the need of using a "cloaked.conf" file. You can configure your workspace to download the items you actually need. But I'm afraid it cannot be preconfigured via configuration file. I'm guessing if you could share your ".plastic/plastic.wktree" with a coworker, this was you can have the same configure rules predefined. But this workaround needs to be tested ( I'm afraid it's not officially supported). Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted October 15, 2021 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2021 Sorry, I might have phrased my question a bit poorly. I'm not actually trying to share a workspace configuration with anyone else, I just want to be able to configure my workspace so that I can exclude particular file-types or folders of a certain name from ever being downloaded from the server, similar to putting them into the cloaked.conf with the regular Plastic client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted October 15, 2021 Report Share Posted October 15, 2021 Hi, I'm afraid the only aproach in Gluon is using the configure rules to decide what items you want to download to your workspace. Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted January 11, 2022 Report Share Posted January 11, 2022 Hi! I'm evaluating PlasticSCM Gluon for our art-team, and we're in the same situation as @Mitch, except that we'd like to configure which file types are downloaded by default for the whole team. Reading through the docs, I thought cloaked.conf was supported by Gluon. As I now know, it is not. We'd only use Gluon, since little to no code is involved. We're adding new asset folders on a daily basis. Each contain the big source files, like ZBrush & Substance Painter files, as well as the lightweight export format, e.g. GLB. Ideally, we don't want to separate working files from export files, to avoid maintaining parallel folder structures. I expected the following behavior: Add file types to cloaked.conf, and when selecting a folder in the Gluon workspace configuration, it will not select (load) those file types, even though the parent folder was checked green. It would still show the file types to be able to select them manually, if needed. On 10/14/2021 at 9:36 AM, calbzam said: As you know Gluon by design has this functionality without the need of using a "cloaked.conf" file. You can configure your workspace to download the items you actually need. With current behavior, when we'd update the asset library (consisting of lightweight formats), all (hundreds) folders would have to be configured in manual mode by all team members, several new folders a day... just to avoid the big files. This is not the same behavior as with a cloaked.conf. The file search only allows for positive matches of a single file type. It can't exclude files from the search. Doing the search numerous times for all kinds of files that we do want to download (e.g. different image formats), just to avoid a few certain other files, is also not feasible. Can this situation be made easier with Gluon? Right now, it's kind of a show-stopper for us. We wanted to switch to PlasticSCM/Gluon to make things simpler and more comfortable, not more complicated and cumbersome. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted January 12, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 12, 2022 Good to hear it's not just me. This is still a regular issue for me, to the point that I'm finding Gluon to be more cumbersome than just dealing with regular PlasticSCM client. Constantly having to manually manage which folders to include and exclude whenever new assets are added is a real problem. Gluon is presented as a tool tailored for artists, but this is something teams of artists need to be able to do. Would really appreciate a way to get similar functionality as the cloaked.conf file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted January 12, 2022 Report Share Posted January 12, 2022 Hi, cloaked.conf is a configuration file only available for the Plastic GUI. If I properly understand. you would like a similar feature so you can configure similar rules than the supported in Plastic GUI (file types...) but in Gluon? Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted January 12, 2022 Report Share Posted January 12, 2022 22 minutes ago, calbzam said: If I properly understand. you would like a similar feature so you can configure similar rules than the supported in Plastic GUI (file types...) but in Gluon? Thanks for your answer. Yes, be able to have certain file types configured in Gluon to not be downloaded/updated by default, but have the option to manually download them. This would allow our artists to not be downloading several GB of data with each update (newly added folders to the library), but still get the smaller files they need from these new folders, without manually configuring many folders before each update. 14 hours ago, Olaf said: when selecting a folder in the Gluon workspace configuration, it will not select (load) those file types, even though the parent folder was checked green. It would still show the file types to be able to select them manually, if needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted January 13, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2022 As an example, this is what I have been having to manually configure every time a new asset is added to the repository. I am only interested in syncing the "Maya" folder under each asset, but the character artists need the Zbrush (*.ztl) and Substance Painter (*.spp) files. Those assets are gigabytes in size and so anyone who doesn't need them shouldn't be syncing them. Currently, the character artists need to say "hey, there are new folders you need to add to your config" whenever a new asset is created. This could be solved if I were able to specify file types or folder names to exclude. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted January 14, 2022 Report Share Posted January 14, 2022 A curious thing just happened: Gluon seems to care about the cloaked.conf when you try to delete a cloaked file. Tried to delete a file in Gluon which type is listed in the cloaked.conf and got an error message that the file cannot be deleted, because it is cloaked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted February 24, 2022 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2022 No updates on this? Still having instances of wondering why I'm not getting new files before remembering that I have to yet again edit my Gluon workspace configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted May 20, 2022 Report Share Posted May 20, 2022 Hi @Mitch, Can you clarify what is your current problem? If you have a Gluon workspace that is not fully checked but you just have configured a few folders in your workspace, only the changes that happen in these folders will be automatically updated to your workspace. Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted May 21, 2022 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2022 Our situation is that we have a repository for the source art in our game project. It contains source files for our characters (e.g. Zbrush, Maya, Substance, Houdini), animations (Maya), environment (Blender, Houdini), and more. The animation team (my dept) need access to some of the character assets for rigging and animation, but not all of the gigabytes worth of Zbrush sculpts and the like. The folders are structured so each character has its own subfolders for different types of assets. I only want to sync the Maya folder for each character. I want to just say "Sync the characters folder, excluding these file types" which is trivial to do with the regular client. With Gluon, I have to configure the workspace, and only include the specific 'Maya' folder for each character. Then, when a new character/outfit/prop/etc is added, I need to go back into the workspace configuration and manually include its respective Maya folder. Same goes for any other type of file stored under the 'Characters' folder which I want sync. It needs to be manually added to the workspace, because I can't just tell Gluon to keep the whole folder up to date. The cloaked.conf (or something like it) would make this incredibly simple, because I could just tell it to skip .ztl or .spp files, and wouldn't need to continually reconfigure my workspace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted May 23, 2022 Report Share Posted May 23, 2022 On 5/20/2022 at 1:45 PM, calbzam said: Hi @Mitch, Can you clarify what is your current problem? If you have a Gluon workspace that is not fully checked but you just have configured a few folders in your workspace, only the changes that happen in these folders will be automatically updated to your workspace. Regards, Carlos. Hey @calbzam. I thought the problem was quite clearly explained. Having the same issue as Mitch in our team, I can also just repeat what had been said before, and why your suggestions with the current functionality aren't a solution. Example of current problem: Create a new repository. Artist 1 starts working on an asset in folder asset1/, and adds zbrush, substance, Blender files, and texture maps. Another artist 2 ( eg. rigger or tech-artist) only needs the blender files and textures (put otherwise: everything except certain folders or file types), so they configure their workspace to only include those files in asset1/. Meanwhile, artist 1 checks in a missing texture map. Artist 2 doesn't get the update, because they had to manually load the files. Furthermore, artists 3, 4, and 5 added folders for asset2, asset3, and asset4. Artist 2 has to repeat the same step for each of them, as with asset1/. Every once in a while, artist 2 may need to check a substance or zbrush file. Now scale that up to more artists and assets. It's missing a functionality where you can simply define files/folders to not be loaded by default, while keeping in sync with the rest of the repo (load root) when new folders and files are added that you do need to have, without micromanaging them each time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted May 27, 2022 Report Share Posted May 27, 2022 Hi, @Olaf I will share your feedback with the product team. Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Posted October 4, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2022 Hi @calbzam So it's coming up to a year since I posted this question, just wondering if there's been any discussion about the issue internally? It's still routinely an issue that we come up against in our production workflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted November 15, 2022 Report Share Posted November 15, 2022 Hi @Mitch, I'm afraid something like this is still not in the roadamp for the near future but let me share it with the product team again. Your feedback is welcome. Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted December 2, 2022 Report Share Posted December 2, 2022 We laid out in this thread how a very similar functionality to cloaking would be super useful in Gluon. Our team is still asking me about it! Now I see, in the latest release notes, it's mentioned that "cloaked rules don't make sense in Gluon" which I strongly disagree with! Quote The Gluon Incoming changes is not affected by this behavior (cloaked rules don't make sense in Gluon) since the operation works in a different way. What's the alternative? Click configure workspace select folders you want to load search files -> *.ztl -> hit spacebar to unload all search files -> *.psd -> hit spacebar to unload all search files -> *.zip -> hit spacebar to unload all search files -> *.mb -> hit spacebar to unload all ... do that again and again for all file types or folders you don't want to load, and you probably forget some of them. Do the whole process each time you want to update, because you don't want to miss new files and subfolders when your workspace is marked as partial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calbzam Posted December 2, 2022 Report Share Posted December 2, 2022 Hi Olaf, The release notes refers to the fact that cloaked rules cannot be applied in a Gluon workspace because the workspace structure is very different than a regular Plastic workspace. cloaked.conf rules are not working on a partial workspace. It doesn't mean at some point it could be added a feature to easily configure the Gluon workspaces per file type... Regards, Carlos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now