HELP PLEASE ! UNABLE TO "SAVE AS" my project for time-to-time backups, in my workflow!

Hi !

I am a “Decently Pro-skilled” advanced renderer who has just envisaged transitioning from Lumion 2025 Pro to D5 2.10 Pro, and being new to D5, I may have some basic queries regarding D5 though I think I have sorted out almost 99% of them and co-related Lumion functions to their revised locations in D5. I am pleasantly surprised and very happy to report that I am finding D5 edge-wise better than L2025Pro though some features of Lumion outscore D5, though D5 outscores Lumion in many many more ways which is the GREAT PART. I am thoroughly enjoying working on D5 !

Coming to my query: -

My modeling software is Sketchup Pro and I almost ALWAYS keep LIVESYNC ON.

As part of my workflow, since the projects I work on are large, I need to keep saving them to disk on a timely basis, swapping their “Save As” names. The main file keeps the original name, while the save as version contains a “-Backup” extension to it. So if the main file is named “XXX.drs”, the backup version will be named “XXX-Backup.drs”. I keep swapping the “Save As” names back and forth between the main and the backup names every now and then, whenever I feel that the project is due for a save.

I understand that D5 creates a folder by the name of the main file which contains the .drs file inside it, and also, if the file is saved by the “Save As” option with a different name, it AGAIN creates another folder with the different name, with its own .drs file inside it.

Now the problem is, that this process of “Saving As”, ONLY WORKS THE FIRST TIME. After I make a backup version of my project the first time, it lets me do that. However, if I want to later again do a “Save As” by providing the .drs name (of either my main or the backup file), THE “SAVE AS” PROCESS FAILS.

Although initially the Popup window does inform that "XXX-Backup.drs already exists… Do you want to want to replace it? “. When I click on “Yes”, it says " WRONG SAVING PATH… PLEASE SELECT A CORRECT SAVING PATH”. (Please see the attached screenshot below).

The “Save As” function ONLY WORKS WHEN I KEEP PROVIDING NEW NAMES TO THE SAVE AS FILE EACH TIME… !! But that means that each time I save, I will create a brand-new project file, and will have hundreds of project files, obviously something that I don’t want !!

FOR SAVING MY PROJECTS, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO SIMPLY SWAP BETWEEN 2 PROJECT FILES… THE MAIN FILE, AND THE BACKUP FILE.

Is this a bug in D5…? Or am I doing anything wrong…? Please advise how can I save ONLY 2 VERSIONS OF MY PROJECT (the main one and the backup one), and keep working on either of them while developing my projects.

Thank you so much in advance !!

ANS

Hi there @ANS

You’ve mentioned that at most, you want to keep two project files (main and backup) and usually use both of these files back and forth. By chance, have you tried using the “Save” function instead of “Save-As” whenever you are going to update the main and the backup file?

  • Additionally, just to clarify, how are you using these two files? Do you work with the backup file, then override the main file and vice versa? Or do you simply keep the changes as it is in the designated file where the changes were made?

D5’s “Save As” function is not designed to overwrite an existing project folder but rather to create a new, independent project.

Suggestion:

1. Work on your Main Project:

  • Open your project (e.g., C:\Projects\Test1).
  • Regularly hit Ctrl+S (Save) in D5. This just updates what’s inside your Project Folder.

2. Make a Backup:

  • When you want to save a backup, CLOSE D5 RENDER completely.
  • Copy your entire project folder (Test1).
  • Paste it and rename (e.g., Test 1 Backup).
  • You can now open D5 again and keep working on your project from the main project folder.

3. Go Back to a Backup (if needed):

  • CLOSE D5 RENDER completely.
  • Delete your current Main Project folder (Test1).
  • Rename your Backup Project folder (Test 1 Backup) to Test1 (the same folder name as the main folder that was deleted)
  • Now, when you open D5, your “main” project will be the backup you just renamed.

Hi !!

I observed that you have marked my last post as to-be-moderated.

I understand the reasons for your having done this, and please rest assured I am with you and D5… not against it. I really, really am impressed with D5 and would love to contribute to it in the future to really make it the very best rendering software for architects and interior designers like us.

And for sure, I will not be able to do this if I am unable to put in my ideas and recommendations to you guys to incorporate, if those are subject to approval.

To prove my value-additive intent and spirit, kindly delete this post and thread completely (so that future D5 users for generations to come, are not taken aback and disheartened by D5’s incapability of not being able to “save as” existing files… they are normal users who will obviously bear the brunt and follow your recommended procedure, which will eventually become a pain even for D5, if users were to be inconvenienced due to D5’s this limitation).

And do please, in the meanwhile, please correct the “Save As” function, to work as required.

I remain with you and for D5, always, as a big supporter and fan ! It is because it truly is, the BEST rendering software there ever has been. I truly believe so.

Thanks.

ANS

Just stop writting half of the post on caps, you really don’t need to, we can read you anyway, and you seem very angry hahahah

Thanks for replying… :slight_smile: Deeply appreciated…

And, sorry for writing in all caps… will edit it right away.

ANS

Hi Clov, thanks for your reply. Thank you so much.

Dear friend, I don’t really buy your argument of D5 not being “designed” to overwrite an existing project, because why would then the message “XXX.drs already exists. Do you want to replace it ?” come on the screen ? Please see the below screenshot.

On the contrary, I am inclined to believe that this is a bug in the software coding (which had remained unreported for years altogether till now, since nobody cared to notice it), and whose coming to light has now become achilles’ heal for D5 programmers to admit, now that D5 has come such a long way in becoming the very best rendering software that exists for architects and designers like us. (By the way, correcting this will not be a big deal, since it only requires maybe, a minute of the programmer’s time to remove the erroneous code line and replace with the correct line… this could be done overnight and bundled with the next update).

I say this and maintain that ALL architects and designers like us and other users, (who for value of their worth as earning money by designing and rendering), ALWAYS want to keep saving a SINGLE backup copy of their ongoing project from time to time, and that we do for several reasons other than only keeping data safe in times of (a) System freeze owing to heavy complexity of the large model being worked on; (b) System response latency making the system chug and stagger resulting from an erroneous command/ decision taken by us (like importing a heavy polycount model etc) which compels us to crash the ongoing session and re-start a new one; (c) UPS issues resulting from heavy power drawback from our overclocked systems using 4090/ 5000x series cards with CPUs running at over 5 Gigs (d) Power outages (though rare, but the UPS can but only provide a limited-time sustenance, and if the power isn’t restored soon, we risk to lose all data hence we are compeled to simply save a backup ASAP); etc. etc…

Hence, we HAVE to have a single backup of our projects while work is ongoing on an assignment, which we religiously EVENTUALLY DELETE, once the project gets completed and delivered to the client, and the file is only required to be kept for record-keeping. Then, only the main file remains; which is always the latest version.

So, for us, shutting down D5 every now and then and follow the procedure described by you by renaming the folder etc etc… would be so much very counter-productive and a waste of time ! Wouldn’t it be…?

Moreover, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, if it really were the case that D5 wasn’t designed to overwrite an existing project folder but rather to create a new, independent project, that would unfortunately make D5 the ONLY software in the history of all software in the world (and I am not speaking of just rendering software, but ALL software in all genres and types, since software code started being written - past and present), that does not allow overwriting an existing project.

It would make it somewhat of a rarity, and COMPLETELY COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE for usage. I am certain D5 designers would not want this to happen; it is always better to correct minor errors and move on…

Being such a TERRIFIC SOFTWARE that D5 is (now that I am getting to know of it as I am uncovering it layer-by-layer), and ALSO THE FACT THAT D5 SPORTS SUCH A BRILLIANT COMMUNITY, I am sure D5 coders would really look into correcting this in the very next update and put an end to this, dear friend.

In my humble effort to really make D5 THE VERY BEST OF THE BEST RENDERING SOFTWARE, I will, shortly, create a thread in the “Ideas and Requests” category in which I will post my own created rendered images, and put in my two cents ideas and proposals that will strive to emphasize on small, but VERY IMPACTFUL value additions to the software that we, professional designers would love to see in making it the very BEST in its class. I am REALLY IMPRESSED with the D5 capabilities that have developed off-late which compelled even me… a HARD-CORE Lumion professional & supporter/ user of more than 12 years, to change over to D5.

Thank you so much, dear Clov !

Best wishes,

ANS

Hi there @ANS

I appreciate you bringing up the point about D5’s file saving behaviour, and I understand how the current structure might lead to some confusion regarding the “Save As” function.

Currently, when you save a D5 file, it doesn’t generate a single .drs file. Instead, it creates a folder containing various essential assets, including model information, textures, and backups. This differs from applications that might save all data within a single file, where a simple “Save As” command can easily overwrite an existing file. Given D5’s multi-file structure, overriding a file via “Save As” isn’t as straightforward as with single-file formats.

I also want to address your statement regarding our programmers, “whose coming to light has now become Achilles’ heel for D5 programmers to admit

I believe there might be a misunderstanding.

We are very transparent about our software’s limitations and are continuously working to improve them. As mentioned, We currently do not support ‘saving as’ to override files because D5 archives currently exist in folder form, but our team has plans to research consolidating all archive data into a single file. We will also pass on your feedback to the team.

Thank you.

I have worked on architecture visualization for several years and never EVER I have needed that backup copy, I’ve never used that particular workflow or its file-and-backup process, and I haven’t had any issues over the years with D5 and the way it handles saving. I think this really comes down to you being VERY accustomed to a different work and file-management system, and you’re seeing it as more complicated than it actually is.

Nevertheless, it’s good to hear other points of view in this forum of how users from another programs aproach D5. Your first post here is from Dec 23’, did you actually have this problem recently?

Hi 8m, Clov

@Clov => Thanks for clarifying; deeply appreciated. Also, great to learn that the team will consider unifying the file structure. That will definitely greatly help !

@8m =>I personally, and the visualization team at my architectural firm have been a fan of D5 for long and have been watching it develop over the years. However, it was only until recently (about a couple months previously) we started taking a serious look at D5 after the buzzword went along the industry corridors about the ground breaking innovations D5 was bringing about offlate.

After spending some time on detailed analyses on where our current softwares’ functions (Lumion Pro, V-Ray etc) were located / placed on the D5 UI and whether all of the functionality we were already getting, were actually present in D5, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that D5 went way beyond in many areas, while in some, it lacked behind a bit. I’ve tried to make a soft note of those areas below, believing if that might help in giving a positve direction to make D5 the best, coming from a person having more than 25 years of architectural design and rendering experience. (I’ve been rendering since we used to work on pentium systems using v-ray without graphic cards).

By the way, some of our recent work can be seen at https://3daarch.portfoliobox.net/

D5 outscores others on a factor of 5:1 on

  1. Assets Library: It is humongous; though a better categorization and keyword search structure and some important textures are needed. For instance, a search for “Chrome” (a very common and used metal texture) leads to monchrome tiles, although the needed metal texture is named “Mirror Stainless Steel”; Velvet fabric category is devoid of a desaturated version (usually white) which we can colorize etc… minor issues. Otherwise, it is great, having many more assets such as Neon, Holographic projections etc. which is unbelievable)

  2. Real-time Path tracing (Big Deal): WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) capability of D5 : not present in real time in others at all. Also, quality is 2x better.

  3. Scatter functionality: Tremendous for Landscaping and building context around the building: Unsurpassed !

  4. D5 Studio Curated Environment Templates: Unsurpassed !

  5. AI Post processing: Industry Leader and ONLY software doing this. This is bound to develop into something huge soon.

  6. DDRx Memory management: (This is really game-changer over Lumion and others): I’ve never seen even the complexest of files consume more than 8 Gigs of Graphicard VRam, let alone paging to the shared (DDR) onboard Ram which always remains at 1.4 Gigs (great stand-by). So, presently, our 12GB cards run beautifully with plenty of FPS even with decent scattered items in the project. Lumion chugs, having consumed ALL the Vram, it starts paging. They need to re-think memory management seriously. Also, D5 is the only rendering software that nVidia officially mentions in its WHQL Studio Driver release updates being compatible with. Quite an achievement.

The above is only a shortlist, however, there are many more areas where D5 scores heavily over Lumion, Twinmotion and V-Ray. I am not counting Unreal engine, Max (Corona), Unity, Blender etc since I feel they are more catered to the “general” rendering pipeline as opposed to these three which are more suited for the architectural and interior design rendering industry.

D5 falls back a little, on the below (just my 2 cents): -

  1. Weathering Effect: Our renderings should look as real as possible, not as computer-generated slick-and-shiny images. In real life, we are bound to find imperfections such as aging, dirt in crevisces and where perpedicular faces meet each other, rust in iron, whiteness in leathers, ruffleness in velvets, roughness in metals such as aluminum and steel, green patina over copper and brass, white patches in plastics, etc. Lumion offers this as a slider, with your choice of weathering effect being applied to the material in one go. Please see the screenshot below: -

Solution ? : [PLEASE read my comments marked in Yellow, on the screenshot image above] : Actually, it is VERY EASY for D5 to build this into their software, since it ONLY involves using an additional MAP (which could be the dirt/specularity map) into the list of maps under their Custom Template. That is how Lumion does it. Problem solved.

  1. Navigational Jump in the model (Hugely required in D5): Being architectural designers and working on projects that range several square kilometers, we need to quickly jump from point to point inside the model. Though the focus tool in D5 offers you to click an object and jump to it, if the model itself is far-zoomed out, you cannot individually select an object distinctly knowing what you are selecting in the jumboree of icons (even after being filtered). The other two workarounds are either to (1) Keep saving scenes, but that makes the scenes list even more un-workable and untenable (I’ll come to that later); or (2) Choose an object from the Objects list (which already is unworkable and untenable, since it, the Layers list and the Scenes list are VERTICAL lists which have to be scrolled up-and-down (a HUGE waste of time in scrolling) to make a selection and then use the zoom tool.

Lumion offers a brilliant (and such a simply-thought-out) way to make navigational jump around in your model : Double Right-Click. As soon as you double right-click your mouse cursor to a point in the model, you are immediately transported (zoomed-in) to that location. It is a tremendous time saver… believe me ! And, something D5 can easily incorporate even in their very next update !

Also, Lumion offers their scenes in horizontal format, distributed over sets of 10 each, (i.e. 1-10, then 11-20, etc) which are easy to navigate (Please see the below screenshot). In D5, we are only able to see 3 or 4 scenes before we start to scroll up and down, and if the scenes are more than fifty or sixty (almost all architectural projects have at least 30-40 images to be rendered… not just 3 or 4), then it becomes a pain to scroll up and own to reach your desired scene.

Solution ? : You could make the scenes (and the Objects & Layers) panels as “Poppable” windows; i.e. they could pop-out in a floating window (like you have the assets window currently). Very simple, and easily doable ! Once popped out, the layout could be made horizontal, where a user can see all the scenes in one go, distributed over sets of 10, 20 or 50 (as per his/ her choice). The same analogy could be applied to the Layers list and the Objects List as well, navigating which currently is a huge, huge pain. Lumion screenshot of their scenes panel is given below: -

  1. Asset replacement tool for Lights: D5 offers it for Assets, but then Lights are not part of the assets library. Hence, we have to work-it around by using Sketchup D5 Livesync’s lights panel, which costs valuable time and wasting more valuable Graphic Vram resources in including Lights in the LiveSync pipeline; exporting them as a separate model and then manually replacing them individually.

Solution ? : Simple. Make lights also be used for the asset replacement tool. Easily doable.

Apart from the above major limitations, I don’t feel D5 lacks in any other way presently; rather, it is ahead. Though I will keep posting our renders as well as 2 cent ideas every now and then…

Thanks for everything, Cheers.

ANS

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Hi @ANS

Thanks for your detailed insights and feedbacks, we will be forwarding this further to our team. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.