DRA Archives and VFX ConnectYes, VFX Connect is not fully handled in a DRA.
If, when creating the VFX Connect, you choose a Custom Location, it will never be included in the DRA.
If you do not choose a custom location - meaning it goes into the CacheClip folder - it
will be included, and restored by the DRA, if "Cache Files" is selected when making the DRA.
However it will not then automatically reconnect when the DRA is imported. Upon importing the DRA and looking at a VFX Connect clip on a timeline, you will see the original clip, not any Fusion-rendered version. If you then choose to "Open In Fusion", it will re-render the media out of Resolve, and load up a blank Fusion composition.
This appears to be a bug or an oversight.
However it is possible, with a couple of manual steps, to restore a DRA and then move in the restored Fusion composition and any previous Fusion renders.
The heart of the problem is that the VFX Connect - like all cached media - is stored in folders named with Resolve database IDs:
These folders are backed up and restored through DRAs, as long as they are part of the standard CacheClip folder configured in Project Settings.
However, upon restoring the DRA, these database IDs change. The database IDs related to the VFX Connect Clips created when you import from the DRA are not the same as they were in the original project. Therefore any VFX Connect clips imported from the DRA are not seen by Resolve unless you fix this manually.
DRPs workThis DRA problem does not happen with a simple DRP export. If you export a project as a DRP, then import that DRP, the database IDs are still correct. All VFX Connect clips will work immediately - regardless of whether they're in CacheClip, or a custom location.
This means that a DRP combined with a generic disk backup should work fine.
How To Make And Restore A DRA Containing VFX Connect Clips1 To make this process a little easier, it's recommended to configure Project Settings with a CacheClip folder specific to this project:
2 When creating the VFX Connect clips, do not click "Custom Location". Your VFX Connect clips must be stored in the CacheClip folder along with Render Cache.
3 When creating the DRA, make sure "Cache Files" is ticked
4 Restore the DRA as normal
5 In Finder/Explorer, go to your CacheClip folder - the unique one configured in Project Settings - and notice that, upon restoring, it has created a new folder under CacheClip with a database ID. This Database ID is wrong for the newly imported project. Delete this folder
6 In Finder/Explorer, find your original DRA and open it - it's just a folder (at least on macOS it is). Find the Compositions folder.
7 In Resolve, open the newly imported project.
8 In Resolve, find one VFX Connect Clip and put the playhead over it. Notice that it is not showing any Fusion Studio rendered media, it shows the original Resolve media. The VFX Connect has not yet been properly restored.
9 Right-click on a VFX Connect Clip and choose "Render media". It'll take some time to re-render the Resolve media for this clip - so it'd make sense to do this step on your shortest clip, ideally one with no effects contained (Resolve effects that is - doesn't matter what the Fusion Studio comp does). We're going to delete it immediately, we just need to do this once to get the correct database ID for the newly imported project.
10 Go back to the CacheClip folder, and notice a new folder has been created, under which is a Compositions folder. Let's say this folder is
d5071cdb-71b6-44a4-aae0-bd81e7303565.
11 Delete the 'Compositions' folder you found in step 10 (under d5071cdb-...) and all its contents. Do not delete the main folder (d5071cdb-...) itself.
12. Drag the Compositions folder from the DRA, as found in step 6, under the CacheClip folder from step 10 (d5071cdb-...)
13 Go back to Resolve, and move your playhead to another VFX Connect Clip. You should now see your Fusion Studio-rendered media. The media is now fully restored.
14 Right-clicking on any VFX Connect Clip should now show all the correct options, and Open In Fusion should find and open your original, restored Fusion composition, including any changes you made to it prior to making the DRA.
I know that's a bit complicated, so here's a quick and dirty video demonstration:
Backup methodsShould you use the above method? You could, it's not
that tedious - especially given it's not going to be done often, or hopefully at all.
But no, personally I wouldn't even bother.
I would just implement backups that cover both the project database and all the media locations, including the folder where the VFX Connect clips are being written to/read from. That could be your CacheClip folder or, if you don't want to back up Render Cache, choose the Custom Location option when making your VFX Connects and include that location in your backup, but not CacheClip.
If you back up all that, then upon doing a full restore from a backup, you can't fail to put everything back the way it was and everything will work.
I think that's the point Dermot was making: if you restore your VFX Connect clips to the same location they're at now, then it will all work automatically.
I use Carbon Copy Cloner on macOS to do my backups. It can backup to another drive, and/or to a disk image, which could be on another local drive or a network drive. It's much more configurable and sophisticated than Time Machine. It also allows for making fully bootable backups.
If ever I lost all my drives, and assuming my backups weren't also affected, I could restore to the exact point I was at as of the last backup. No steps would be required other than restoring the backup, because it would include my entire database, all media, etc.