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Saving your work

Three kinds of save — autosave, named local versions, and cloud source scenes — and when to reach for each.

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3dCMS has three ways to keep your work, and knowing the difference saves headaches. (See Core concepts for the short version.)

Autosave — always on

Every edit is silently written to your browser, and a refresh restores it. A "Saved Xs ago" pill near the menu bar shows recency. Autosave is tied to this browser, though, and the browser's storage tops out around 5 MB — so a scene with a heavy imported or generated model can outgrow it. When that happens, 3dCMS tells you to use Save As.

A crash can't lock you out Because the editor auto-restores your last scene on every visit, a scene heavy enough to crash the tab on load could otherwise leave you stuck. If 3dCMS detects that the previous load never finished, it parks that scene and offers a choice: Load my scene (try it once more) or Start without it (open fresh — your parked scene is moved safely into your saved list, never discarded, even when it was too big for normal autosave). So the editor always opens, even after a bad scene. If you later reopen that parked scene from your saved list, 3dCMS reminds you it's the one that failed to load before, and suggests a more powerful device or an immediate Save As to move it to your account.

Save As — a copy on your account

File ▸ Save As… stores your scene as an editable source scene on your account, with no size limit. Open it from any device via your Account page. Saving again updates it in place; Save as new copy… forks a fresh one. This is the durable home for anything you care about.

Saved versions — named local snapshots

File ▸ Save (Ctrl+S) prompts for a version name and tucks a point-in-time snapshot into this browser. Handy for "before I try something drastic" checkpoints — but, like autosave, browser-local.

Two tabs, same scene? If you open the same scene in two tabs, 3dCMS won't let them silently clobber each other — it pauses background autosave and shows a Reload / Keep banner so you choose which version wins.

The Object Library

Separately, you can save individual objects (not whole scenes) to a per-browser Object Library and drop them into any scene later — handy for a logo, a signature prop, a reusable arrangement.

Spotted something off, or want a topic covered? Email buck.rackley@gmail.com.