Hi everyone!
I have a bit of an issue to solve. I've started my new job in a company with no 3D experience. Basically I am responsible for visualizing all the products and creating animations. As a consequence I had the difficult task ahead to create a pipeline and an environment within the restrictions given by IT to work in. This needs to work on my office workstation and my office notebook that I can take home to work remotely.
At first I though hey, that's going to be easy, I'll just leave all the files and my asset library on a network drive, link that in the files and we're golden... but then I learned that C4D still doesn't support network drives. I have some VERY strong words for how ridiculous it is that a software like C4D doesn't support a simple network drive in 2025, but I will keep them to myself. Apparently they are working on it, but still.
Currently I have the following setup:
I have two folders on the network drive, called:
active_projects
This is where the projects I'm currently working on are
libraries
This is where my C4D settings / materials / etc. library is located. It also contains another subfolder with non-C4D-specific files like HDRIs and textures
These two folders also exist on my workstation desktop on my C drive and this what I'm ACTUALLY working with, so I don't have the network drive issue and faster workflow, due to the C drive being an NVME drive an not a NAS.
I have a script running on my workstation desktop (using Robocopy) that periodically copies changed files from these folders on my local C drive to the "mirror copies" of these folders on the NAS / network drive. This is basically just a backup and the only way to make these files available on my notebook.
To make sure I am not overwriting new files on the NAS with old files from my notebook (since I don't use it very often) this script does NOT exist on my notebook.
So what I have to do when I want to work at home is:
Turn on the notebook
Connect to the company network via VPN
Copy all new files from the NAS (libraries AND active_projects) onto my notebook
When done, copy all the changed files from my notebook back onto the NAS
I am REALLY unhappy with this setup since its prone to mistakes and really unwieldy. Does anyone here have experience with a setup like this and can give me a pointer?
Remoting into the workstation in the office is sadly not an option right now, as the only IT approved remote desktop software is WAY to low quality for 3D work and doesn't work with C4D at all really. If only C4D supported goddamn basic network drives...
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