Upgrading to multi publish

.

Introduction

Before Multi Publish, each engine had it's own bespoke publishing app which, in addition to publishing, would also typically include functionality such as Snapshot and Versioning tools.

Multi Publish provides much more powerful and flexible publishing functionality but doesn’t provide Snapshot and Versioning. Instead, separate apps have been released to provide these features.

These additional new apps are:

Multi Snapshot (tk-multi-snapshot) - with this app you can create local snapshots/backups of your work files. Using the Snapshot history tool you can then easily restore from a previous snapshot
Multi Work Files (tk-multi-workfiles) - with this app you can save any file as a new work file and easily manage the version of an open work file. Additionally it also provides the new Work File Manager which lets you change your work area/context and open/manage publishes and work files.

Nuke - Tank Write Node

For Nuke, the Tank Write Node has been split out from the Nuke Publish App into it’s own app ( tk-nuke-writenode ).

Note! Because the Tank Write Node provides a Nuke Gizmo, it isn’t valid to have both tk-nuke-publish and Multi Publish + tk-nuke-writenode installed together.

With the release of this suite of apps, the engine specific publishing apps are now being deprecated. Below you will find instructions on how to upgrade an existing config to use these new apps.

To upgrade, you will need to do the following:

Step 1 - Backup Existing Configuration

It’s advised that you back up your current configuration before upgrading to Multi Publish as the upgrade steps will remove the old publish app settings and you may need to refer to them if something goes wrong.

To backup your current configuration, just make a copy of the directory:

/my_project_root/tank/config

Step 2 - Install New Apps

Use /my_studio_root/tank/install/core/scripts/install_app.py to install the new apps. For example, to install all of the new apps for the Nuke engine in the Shot environment, run the following commands:

cd /my_studio_root/tank/install/core/scripts
python install_app.py /my_project_root Shot tk-nuke tk-multi-publish
python install_app.py /my_project_root Shot tk-nuke tk-multi-snapshot
python install_app.py /my_project_root Shot tk-nuke tk-multi-workfiles
python install_app.py /my_project_root Shot tk-nuke tk-nuke-writenode

(Using your studio and project roots respectively)

Enter any settings that aren’t provided as defaults where prompted, typically these will be the templates required by the different apps.

Step 3 - Update App Settings

You will probably want to update the settings for one or more of the new apps to match the behaviour of the old publish app. This may depend on the publish app you are replacing.

To update/edit settings:

Open the environment configuration in a text editor. For the Shot environment you would open:
```
/my_project_root/tank/config/env/shot.yml
```
Find the entry for the app in the correct engine. For example, if you have just installed tk-multi-publish into the tk-nuke engine then you should look for the entry:
```
engines:
  ...
  tk-nuke:
    apps:
      ...
      tk-multi-publish:
        ...
```
Edit the settings as required. If you need to, you can refer to the settings for your old publish app which will still be installed at this stage.

Nuke - Tank Write Node

To support publishing of Tank Write Nodes in Nuke, it is necessary to modify the default settings for tk-multi-publish. To do this, change the secondary_outputs setting to:

secondary_outputs:
- description: 'Render output from Tank write nodes'
  display_group: Renders
  display_name: Nuke Render
  icon: ''
  name: render
  publish_template: nuke_shot_publish
  required: false
  scene_item_type: write_node
  selected: false
  tank_type: 'Rendered Image'

If you have defined additional Tank Write Node profiles in your tk-nuke-publish settings, you should also ensure that these are copied across to the new tk-nuke-writenode app's settings.

To do this:

Find the app settings for tk-nuke-publish and copy the write_nodes section.
Find the app settings for tk-nuke-writenode and replace the write_nodes section with the version you copied.

Step 4 - Remove Old Apps

Now that the new apps are installed and configured to match your previous engine-specific app settings, you are ready to remove the old apps from your configuration.

To do this:

Open the environment configuration in a text editor.
Find the entry for the app in the correct engine.
Delete the section for the app
Save the file.

Step 5 - Ensure Everything is Up-To-Date

Finally, you should ensure that the core and all other apps are up-to-date as there have been a few changes in order for everything to work correctly.

To do this for the Shot environment you would run the following commands:

cd /my_studio_root/tank/install/core/scripts
python check_for_platform_updates.py /my_studio_root
python check_for_updates.py /my_project_root Shot

Step 6 - Test!

You are now set up and ready to go with the new Multi Publish pipeline - if you have any problems please contact Tank support.

tk-multi-publish Documentation. This was auto generated on 2013-04-26. Click here for Release Notes.