When I work on a project, I often start out with a file named something like this:
cube.blend
Then I F2, num+, return each time I've reached some sort of milestone, in order to save a new .blend.
After the project is done, I end up with a bunch of .blend-files:
cube1.blend, cube2.blend etc.
While this works nicely as some sort of backup-system, it's not easy to keep track of which changes were in which files. Also, the difference between each file is usually relatively small, so a lot of space is wasted.
I tried importing one of my projects into git, starting with the first.blend, committing, adding the next .blend, committing, etc. The result was that I had a nice little comment for each commit and I also saved a lot of space.
Git is an efficient version control system developed by Linus Torvalds, where you don't need a server, but can have freestanding repositories. (as a directory)
Now, if Blender could have built-in support for saving to and loading from a git-repository, it would be wonderful! One could even gzip up the git-repositories so that Blender could read and write to .gitzip files or something similar sounding.
If Blender also had a way to store a thumbnail of the last rendered image (or even render a tiny thumbnail if needed), or possibly a screenshot, it would be so incredibly helpful.
For Joe user the result would be that:
- His files took _a lot_ less space
- He got a comment and image for each milestone-save
- He could actually find his way back to an earlier save
[....]
