Thread: I am seriously bummed out

Yeah, that frustration is a mega killer. But then, look at the bright side. I was well on my way to making a pretty cool map when I accidentally saved the small flat jpg I used for uploading as the main psd file. I was about to choke myself but after a week I started a new map and it became The Butcher, The Baker, and That Other Guy...one of my best maps ever. So while you will choke yourself for a while, you've got a chance to do something even better...every map is a learning experience.

Originally Posted by Ascension

Yeah, that frustration is a mega killer. But then, look at the bright side. I was well on my way to making a pretty cool map when I accidentally saved the small flat jpg I used for uploading as the main psd file. I was about to choke myself but after a week I started a new map and it became The Butcher, The Baker, and That Other Guy...one of my best maps ever. So while you will choke yourself for a while, you've got a chance to do something even better...every map is a learning experience.

Yeah, I read about your mistake, and then I thought "Poor guy", specially because, as you said, it is one of your best maps. But the problem for Jaxilon is that he was working on a comission, so I guess he has a limit time to finish the map.

But that is it, we are always learning, even when the knowledge comes from a bad situation.

Jax, if your on linux (you are aren't you???) or you can compile your own windows version, there is this Perl Plugin: http://registry.gimp.org/node/20875. it's still not automated by "default" but once you turn it one after you start GIMP, you should be good to go...

Note that I have not tried it yet....

Originally Posted by Jaxilon

Well after a nights sleep I do feel a little better.

Normally I do what you guys do and save often but when I get really absorbed making art I tend to hyper-focus and time goes out the window. This was one of those sessions. It would be nice if there was an auto save feature where you could save to a temp file just in case. I wouldn't want it to save over my actual file. I can do that myself but an autosave file would be perfect. Not sure how that would function if you were in the middle of running a filter when it hit however.

RobA?

I don't like "autosaves" because my files can get pretty big.

I wrote this script: http://registry.gimp.org/node/14246

It will save a backup copy of your active image as [imagename]-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM.xcfgz in the same directory as your active image, so you need to have saved it once with a real filename.

It can be accessed quickly by Alt-F,B which is what I do every now and then...

I combine that with Alt-F,S to just save (overwrite) the file I'm working on with its real name.



If you have python there is this: http://www.mail-archive.com/gimp-dev.../msg18118.html but I've never used it. You just "start" it:

- start GIMP from a terminal (so the script's messages become visible)
- toolbox: File->Activate Autosave (activate only once)

Every 30 minutes the script saves backups of all opened images to a temp folder.
The backup files won't be deleted when GIMP exits, so some manual clean-up will
be required from time to time.

-Rob A>

What Ascension said.
I ran into a problem recently too with a map crashing out.. no autosave in photoshop and when i went reading through the photoshop reuqests and dev forums, no apparent future plans for autosave (lots of debate over the 'at least let us recover TMP files' and 'it saves crap to the scratch disks all the time in the background so why not save in the background' etc)

Ended up spending a few months playing Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Bioshock etc and ignoring the mapping, all the while blaming my lack of artistic feeling on the day job. Finally wised up and realized it was a form of depression (not as magnified as the manuscript incident, but still there). Been slowly getting back into it and boy am I glad.

By all means go and blast the hell out of some alien menace to work off some frustration, but don't stay away from the art too long, we would miss you (and eventually your muse will kick you in unexpected places)
(I say we because I suspect others would feel the same as I do.. there's a long list of members here that whenever I see a new post by them I go OOH and have to run check out and see what's going on. You're on that list. I'd miss getting my map/art junky fix!)

Hey thanks C - I really hope you get back into the thick of things soon as I for one want more from you as well

Your's were some of the first maps I was really impressed by when I joined up. I remember thinking how I wish I could get my ocean's to look like yours, etc.

The sharing of my pain with all of you is pretty much why I even bothered posting this sob story in the first place. My wife heard me yell at my PC and when I explained I suppose she felt sorry for me but it didn't really seem to hit home with her like it does with fellow artists who have been through it.

This sort of thing is like getting punched in the stomach and having the wind knocked out of you emotionally. It's hard to get back in the saddle right away. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, this is for a commission so I don't have the luxury of sneaking off to pout. I also have a bad case of follow through (probably not a bad quality) which makes it hard for me to walk away when the going gets tough. I will probably be back at it sometime today if not tomorrow.

I just hope it comes out even better this time.

I agree with everyone else, especially Coyote. It really is soul-killing to have spent that much time and effort on something only to see it disappear as if it had never been. I've lost more than one map and yeah, it makes you die a little inside.

The worst experience I've had: I'm an aspiring novelist, and about five years ago I had a novel roughly three-quarters done when my computer bit the bullet. The computer techies at the shop I took it to were able to recover about half of the stuff on my hard drive, but my novel was completely corrupted. There was just enough left to make me insane, not enough to let me rebuild. All my notes, my outlines, the novel itself, gone. It completely broke me - more than two years went by before I could even think about writing without getting this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Now, instead of not having any external backups at all, I've swung the other way - I've got a fire safe with about 70 flash drives meticulously labeled and stored.

I'm still not saving my art like I should though, mainly because it takes up so much more room. And I know one day I'll regret it...

So if nothing else, Jax, I guess you can take away from this thread the fact that you're not alone, at least.

sorry to hear Jax, and yeah you're not the only one here. Just lost 2 hr work (ok not soo much, but it was a part I'd been struggling with for a couple of weeks and finally got it right ) yesterday. I found a tool: Autosave I may try. Anyone any experience with this? it's a 3rd party thing that runs in the background and can schedule specific key-strokes (e.g. the save function of the app). Not sure if it works ok, but it could be a real saver if it works. cheers, DJ

ps. lol my browser just noted me this message was autosaved

Jax, would it help when you resume, to consciously do this map differently? Since you can't put it back just like it was Before Carto Catastrophe, would it keep you from that jab-in-eyeball pain, if you dodge the echoes somewhat?

Add me to the list of eagerly awaiting whatever you come up with, btw.

I screw up so regularly I might as well name every map I start Ragnarok and just go with the flow.