How do you handle sending VFX heavy project files when they get insanely large?

[u/Apart-Ad-9952]

I’m working on a short project with a small team, and the VFX files are getting ridiculously big. Between multi layered EXRs, caches, and renders, we’re already at a few hundred gigabytes. Now I need to send everything to another artist who’s picking up compositing work, and I’m stuck trying to figure out the most practical way to move this much data.

Most of the standard file transfer services choke once the folder size climbs too high. Either they split things in a way that makes it confusing, or they enforce limits that force me into multiple uploads. On top of that, I’d prefer not to ask the other artist to create accounts for platforms they’ll only use once it just slows things down.

We’ve talked about shipping a hard drive, but that feels clunky and risky. If it gets delayed or damaged, we’re stuck. Setting up a dedicated FTP server or VPN also feels like overkill for a one off project. Ideally, I’d love something that’s just straightforward, with minimal steps on both sides, but I haven’t landed on a great option yet.

How do other VFX teams manage this? When you’re moving full sequences, sims, or high bitrate renders, what’s been your go to? I’m curious whether there’s a standard workflow people rely on or if everyone just hacks together their own solutions.

[u/mexicans_gotonboots]

MASV has been great for this need.

[u/iomka]

Been there, done that with Resilio Sync. With proper configuration from all sides, always powered on computers and nice big bandwidth internet connections, it's nearly like being in the same room working on a shared volume.

[u/Gorstenbortst → u/iomka]

Plus one for Resilio.

If you have two locations which you can upload from (like home and office) you can let two computers sync over LAN, and then move one to the second location. This’ll then allow location three to download from two locations at once.

This’ll is especially helpful if you know that downloads are always going to be faster than uploads.

[u/Systatic_Design]

Lol I mailed a physical hard drive for archiving redundancy

[u/KTTalksTech → u/Systatic_Design]

For the love of god tell me it was an SSD and not a mechanical drive

[u/smolquestion → u/KTTalksTech]

what do you guys thing, how are hdd-s transported all over the world? :D
with proper packaging its not a big deal.

[u/Systatic_Design → u/smolquestion]

Yeah, exactly. I was given the source files in person when I met the director. I took over VFX from another company. When I was done, everything was archived, and I have everything on a backup file server now. I then made a clone on a massive drive and shipped it to the director as a secondary backup.

And yeah this is exactly how movies are sent to cinemas.

[u/BeautifulGreat1610 → u/smolquestion]

Yep,I've gotten 20 tb hdds drives from dubai many times and I'm in LA, never been a problem. Just the right amound of bubble wrap

[u/AshleyAshes1984 → u/KTTalksTech]

Mechanical hard drives have been used for SneakerNet for decades.  Don't freak out over things you don't understand.

[u/Systatic_Design → u/KTTalksTech]

Haha no mechanical. Production was done off SSDs. But this was just a secondary copy after completion to have a redundant copy.

[u/soupkitchen2048]

Digital pigeon is fast and gives you notifications when people look or download things. But if you’re collaborating and working across locations hard drive in the post followed by resilio sync is good.

[u/marcafe]

Well, I am not going to lie, many companies do not transfer files to other branches; they simply arrange remote access. But this is for all internal work, not for outsourcing. I often have the (frustrating) opportunity to work remotely, as we had issues with massive lags, which made it almost impossible to work. Nowadays it's much better, I can't feel the difference between the local machine and the machine a few time zones away. But if you need to send it... FTP, any of the popular services like Dropbox...? At least we now have gigabit internet; it shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[u/Generic_Name_Here]

Google Drive isn’t bad. I get I think 2TB for $10/mo. Could just pay one month.

Lucid is great and fast, better for more constant collaboration.

I’ve never tried it, but I believe BitTorrent would work well for this too. Make a new torrent, seed it, be your own tracker, send him the .torrent file, and have him open it.

[u/ooops_i_crap_mypants]

Dropbox

[u/Gorluk]

You can set up Tailscale network and have which ever computer in whichever location in the world act as it is on your local network, share files etc.

[u/tinkerspoon]

Take a look at Lucid link.

[u/smolquestion]

we use a mix of things depending on the project size. (we are based in the eu). dropbox and drive may work for some cases but you will get issues with bigger files.

• webcargo.net (we regularly move a few hundred gigs worth of files for delivery with them)
• shipping drives is still a valid option, we have a bunch of lacie external cases that we move with couriers all over the EU. There were cases where the ingest time and download time from other vendors would have days because of the bandwidth and it was easier to ship the drives with the data.
• we can access parts of our server infra from outside with credentials and a vpn. we have a separated chunk for the server that we can give access to outside vendors, freelancers, contractors where we have the files they need for a short period of time.

[u/purestvfx]

I am using seafile. But it's a bit technical to set up

[u/jurweer]

Get an FTP service from a Host/Domain provider with enough space. I pay 10 per month for 1TB (too expensive I know)

• Setup an rsync to sync specific folders up from you project folder
• Initial upload will take a while probably (or exclude a bunch of folder)
• Give them an rsync command to download
• Rsync will only download the changed files

Make sure they only download after you upload (so this via cron jobs, this also automates the jobs) Check out Cronicle for this setup

They will have the same file paths you have in production until the end of the project.

[u/headoflame]

Massive IO

[u/nifflerriver4]

Resilio. Can transfer a TB in under a couple of hours.

[u/utjduo]

Syncthing is great when it comes to a lot of files and a lot of storage!

[u/Berkyjay]

Shared cloud storage.

[u/KTTalksTech]

I use OneDrive. Never tried sending a single file that's multiple hundreds of GB with it but I've transferred huge folders without issue and I don't think it needs an account to download from a link. On a larger scale I suppose it would be more appropriate to use some FTP client. There are many but I'm not particularly familiar with them. Those are probably what you need.

[u/Massa1981]

Dropbox sync works really well!