Saving Scripts and Recovering Back-Ups

You know the mantra: save and save often.

Nuke provides three ways to save your scripts, or comps, making it easy to version them. There's also an automatic timed backup, which you can turn off if you're feeling brave - but we sure don't recommend it.

Saving Scripts

There are three ways of saving scripts:

• To save a new script, select File > Save Comp as (or press Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+S).

• To update changes to a script already saved, File > Save Comp (or press Ctrl/Cmd+S).

• To save and upgrade to the next version, File > Save New Comp Version (or press Alt+Shift+S).

To Save a Script

Select File > Save Comp as.

The Save script as dialog opens.

Browse to the directory where you want to store the script. For instructions on using the file browser, see Using the File Browser.

In the field in the bottom of the dialog, enter a name for the script after the folder path, for example firstscript_v01.nk.

Click Save.

Tip: The _v01 string in the end of a script name allows you to use the Save New Comp Version feature. Selecting File > Save New Comp Version saves the current version of your script and increments its name (that is, saves the different versions under different names using _v01, _v02, _v03, and so on, in the end of file names). This only works when the file name includes a number that can be incremented.

Automatic Back-Up of Scripts

You can define where and how often Nuke makes automatic back-ups your files, or turn off the autosave function.

Article: See Knowledge Base article Q100158 for more information on incremental autosaves.

To Define Autosave Options for a Script

Select Edit > Preferences.

The Preferences > General panel opens.

Edit the following settings:

• idle comp autosave after - to define how long (in seconds) Nuke waits before performing an automatic back-up after you have left the system idle.

• force comp autosave after - to define how long (in seconds) Nuke waits before performing an automatic back-up regardless of whether the system is idle.

• autosave comp filename - to define where and under what name Nuke saves your automatic back-up files. By default, the files are saved in the same folder as your project files with the extension .autosave. To change the autosave location, enter /path/to/directory/[file tail [value root.name]].autosave to use a custom file path.

Click Save.

Note: For the automatic back-up to work, you must save your script first so that the autosave can reference the file. We’d hate for you to lose your work, so please do this early on in the process!

To Turn off Automatic Back-Up

Select Edit > Preferences.

The Preferences > General panel opens.

Set the idle comp autosave after and force comp autosave after fields to 0.

From now on, Nuke does not perform any automatic back-ups, and you are more likely to lose your work in the case of a system or power failure.

Recovering Back-Ups

After experiencing a system or power failure, you are likely to want to recover the back-up files created by Nuke’s autosave function.

Relaunch Nuke.

A dialog opens that asks you if you want to recover the autosave file.

Click OK.

Nuke opens the back-up file for your use.

There may be times when you don’t want to load the autosave file and rather need to load the last saved version. For example, consider a situation where you modified a script, but decided not to commit the changes and so exited Nuke without saving. In all likelihood Nuke autosaved some or all of your changes, in which case if you open the autosaved file you are not working on the original script, as intended. If you accidentally open an autosaved script, then simply close it and reload the last saved version.

Note: Breakpad crash reporting allows you to submit crash dumps to Foundry in the unlikely event of a crash.

By default, crash reporting is enabled in GUI mode and disabled in terminal mode. You can toggle reporting on and off using the --crashhandling 1 or 0 option on the command line or by setting the environment variable NUKE_CRASH_HANDLING to 1 or 0.

When crash handling is enabled in GUI mode, you can control whether reports are automatically submitted or not using the --nocrashprompt command line option or by setting the environment variable NO_CRASH_PROMPT to 0.

Crashes in terminal mode are automatically submitted when crash handling is enabled.