I’ve been reading up on Plastic recently, as an alternative to Perforce, and found that they had some interesting ideas on how an artist is to interact with it.
It’s from 2014, the final GUI is called “Gluon”
Some key highlights, contrasted with Git.
- Large files is OK, like scene files and caches
- Central database, with remote browsing (including over the web) and selective downloads (like Dropbox)
- Built-in diff on images (which might be limited to just images; would be interesting to consider 3d geometry, caches and other complex data as well)
This particular GUI is called Gluon and is separate from their main offering, targeted specifically towards artists, as opposed to their main and original GUI which is more like SmartGit, SourceTree, Git for Windows etc. that are more complete and thereby more technical.
What I’d like to see if how this could apply to film.
One of the major differences is, like with Perforce, that versions are made by overwriting an original and having the source control software manage each change.
I especially like the idea of browsing the multi-terabyte asset library locally, and selectively downloading the parts you are to work on.
They have some more info on their site.
Here’s another more recent video, that surprisingly is less informative.