by Jojishi » Sun Nov 27, 2016 6:51 pm
How do you make your stick-figures? Errors can happen if you make dynamic segments past 128 segments, apparently (OblivionFall explained this). You can get an invalid floating point error if you try moving the joint.
I make all the dynamic segments first (which is nowhere near 128) and then for all the static segments, you can go up to 255 no problem. I avoid putting dynamic segments on static "branches", so for example, making a leg static and then adding a dynamic foot probably isn't a good idea.
One way of backing up is to save a new file each time, so "Project backup1", "Project backup2", "Project backup 3" etc. If it's taking up a lot of space you can remove the older files (there's a date sorting option if you're unsure, and also be sure to actually check the dates).
You can also keep a third back-up, like saving to a hard-drive, external drive and then to cloud storage. A saving method could be saving each time to hard drive, saving once a week to external drive, saving monthly to a third place. But basically, you don't want to save to back-up every time you save.
If you're still worried, keep your current Pivot window open after saving, open another Pivot window (so you have two) and then on the one you just opened, open the file you saved recently to see if it works. If it doesn't, you can still save what you've made (although it won't be the Pivot file). Back in the window where your file is still accessible, click on the file drop down menu and click export animation, so then you'll at least be able to export an AVI or GIF file. If any errors pop up when exporting, simply click "ok" and it will keep exporting.
If you don't mind losing up to a week of progress you can just use the PIV back-up you had.
I hope this helps. I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I've had similar things happen to me years ago, which is why I've learned so much from it. If anything it builds character and discipline, plus now you can make it better. :)