Chrissyjoy

Having a busy life I find saving a draft the perfect way to continue with a picture another time BUT having saved a nearly finished draft I have just opened it to find not all of it had saved! Very disappointing as I will have to redo the last few hours work and was really pleased how it was coming along. Is there any way of knowing in future when it is not wise to save a draft because not all of it will be saved? Has anyone else experienced this problem?

clorophilla

When I'm in the point of save or submit a draft, I check the net connection before, and check the TD site is working, by clicking on another TD link page (I usually have many pages open on my desktop). This saved me to click the button "save" when the net isn't working well, with disastrous results...

ps - pay attention: I sayd I make the check on ANOTHER page, not on the drawing page, or you could lost all your work!!

Chrissyjoy

Thanks clorophilla, I've not had a problem saving a draft just saving all the draft. It is like TD is only able to save, say, 200 palet pieces and no more. have you experienced this?

clorophilla

Personally didn't; but you can ask to Inked_gemini that's one of the most gifted artists on TD but very able to make the system tilt for too pieces... it's the nightmare of playback - often impossible to see the PB of Inked's pics and may be he experimented something similar to you.
and look also what happened to this pic of chompersaurus (go to the link!):
http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=74410

clorophilla

Sorry Inked - I wrote "he" but I suspect you are a "she"!

inked_gemini

No apologies necessary clor; I am a ‘she’ however. As far as saving a draft, I have had that problem in the past. It didn’t happen all the time, but occasionally I would save a draft, and, when I would reload it, not all of the picture would load. This happened to me once or twice maybe. But it has not happened to me at all in recent months, and I have saved drafts with a pretty heavy pixel count. I saved a draft of my Santa Claus, and I remember crossing my fingers when I hit the ‘load draft’ button, wondering if it would load the large amount of work I had already put into it. Thankfully it did without any problems.

As far as an explanation, I have no idea… I think it has to do with the number of pieces in the picture. I have done two pictures in the ‘beads’ theme, and both of them are chock-full of single pixels. Neither of them will play back, but both of them loaded from a saved draft with no issues. Of course, the finished picture has way more pieces in it than the draft did.

It may also depend on the theme you are using. If I remember correctly, I think it was said that the ‘avatars’ and ‘beads’ themes can hold a higher pixel count than other themes. But I could be wrong about that.

I wish I could give you better advice besides simply hoping your pictures load correctly. But when it comes to saving and loading drafts, snafus are bound to happen. It is immensely better than it used to be though. If the problem persists, I would email Rachel in feedback. She is both graceful and prompt about helping us with our various issues and complaints. I wish you the best Chrissy, and I hope this problem works itself out for you.

Chrissyjoy

Thank you clorophilla for showing me chompersaurus's picture. What an incredible amount of pieces they used. Thanks too Inked-gemini, I have always been impressed with your work which take so many pieces. I am very suprised you've not had many problems saving pieces but as you say maybe it is because of the pallet I'm using. I have sent a message to Rachel about this. It is disappointing as I'd saved a much nicer Mona than the one I had to redo to enter. Never mind, i'm sure these kind of things happen to us all in someway. Thanks for taking the trouble to answer and I hope to see more of your wonderful art on here when you feel inspired! Chrissy

clorophilla

I also have no advice than crossing fingers when you save a draft...
I'm so terrified at the thought I could loss a draft when saving, that prefet not to swich off the PC at all. But once the worst thing occurs: after 3 days of uninterrupted drawing (I'm drawing my beloved cat that I lost after Hristmas! Draft every hair and every feeler and quite finished, except than a ear), the computer simply swich off abruptly and I lost ALL - repeat - A L L.
It was the worst think I never experienced on drawing, also bc my cat Kim miss so much ant I was so in pain for her, triyng to keep at least the memory of her...

OK - I cut off this pitiful story and conclude that keeping the computer on line for days in NOT a solution!

Chrissyjoy

That is such a sad and painful story. Because so much feeling is involved in creating a picture it evolves and becomes real, and part of us. To lose it is very hard and for a while feels almost like taking a part of us, the emotion that we have invested in it is gone... And for you it took a wonderful memory of your beloved cat. If leaving the computer on to finish a draft isn't the answer and saving a fairly full picture isn't the answer I guess we just have to allow enough time to finish it in one go. I think this is why i don't do many complicated, time consuming drawings. TD is however great for many different kinds of drawings and the main thing is to enjoy and have fun. Who really cares if a quick, fun drawing only gets 2 votes?