Can I get Blender NOT to overwrite my renders?

Support Basics & Interface
1

In the output, I set a render directory relative to the project - but my problem is that it always renders under the same name and does not warn me about overwriting…

Is there a way to avoid this?
(A simple confirmation dialogue would do nicely - if not an appended number like Windows)

Thanks!

2

Disable Overwrite here …?

RenderOverwrite
RenderOverwrite333×526 15.8 KB

3

Disabling the Overwrite doesn’t really notify you of it skipping all the files though. So if you don’t know, it would just render the whole sequence, without saving anything.

4

That also sucks … but @Okidoki , if I am not mistaken this is for saving images, no? A render to MP4 will not be affected, right? (I saw that option in the manual, but didn’t have it available when rendering)

Thanks!

5

Well… yeah… that’s what happens when you don’t overwrite. If you don’t want to overwrite existing files, I don’t really understand why it’s a bad thing that this option doesn’t overwrite existing files?

6

@Laserschwert : My Blender 3.6.8 under linux is telling me for ever existing frame… and for this rendering nothing… :

skipping existing frame “/tmp/… .png”

@Yogimeister:

Well… if you want to save some already made renders… then you have to save (backup) them… :person_shrugging:

7

Yup, I’m adapting to the workflow :wink:

8

For me - I want a warning.

It’s more than common that I’ll start a new scene, by opening an existing and then turning it into something else.

Unfortunately, at some point in “new scene” i hit Render to check something and completely forgot that i had a full comp set up, which has active output nodes. Now I’ve just overwritten something that I rendered 2 weeks ago (and still need for a project.)

(awesome, now let’s track down what I just ruined, open the original scene and render it again)

It’s happened a lot. So the choice becomes:

  1. Just never forget, and ALWAYS check the compositor the moment I open every scene, before rendering. (Which is what I do now, if i don’t forget).

  2. Always have “overwrite” disabled, until I finally want to render. Which risks rendering 300 files, none of which are saved, if I forget to turn it back on. A warning of “FILES WILL NOT BE SAVED” popup would be nice…

  3. To prevent 300 renders not being saved, I have to go back to Step 1.

None of that is user-friendly in production. When I’m in AE or Premiere, and start at render - it CHECKS the destination and says “WHOA, you sure you want to do this?” Wish Blender was considerate like that.

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