Sharing your projects

As of ArtEngine 2021.4, you can export your projects, including all project assets and data, directly from within ArtEngine. Exporting projects in this manner gives you more control over the export content when compared to manually copying project files between machines.

ArtEngine can also export the Node Graph of your project for use with the CLI tool. A Node Graph exported in this manner contains the node flow and individual node properties, but does not include any associated assets or data. It is designed for use as a template for processing multiple different assets through the same node pipeline.

Exporting a project

ArtEngine saves the project with all of the selected export components as a .ZIP folder in a location of your choice.

You can re-import a project by unpacking the .ZIP folder and opening the .ART project file in ArtEngine, as you would for any other project.

To export a project, follow these steps:

  1. Select File > Export Project in the menu bar.

  2. An Export Project as Zip dialog box appears where you can configure the export parameters. By default, all options are enabled.

  3. (Optional) If you want to exclude the source texture assets from the export, disable the Source Bitmaps option. When disabled, ArtEngine won’t export any of your project’s Asset Library content.

  4. (Optional) If you don’t want to export the cached outputs of the nodes in your graph, disable the Node Cache option. When disabled, ArtEngine will not export any of the node execution results currently in your graph.

  5. Enter the output file path, or click Browse to choose an export location.

  6. Click Export.

Exporting a Node Graph

ArtEngine can export the Node Graph of your project as an .XML file to a location of your choice. This file is intended for use with the ArtEngine CLI tool.

To export a graph in this way, follow these steps:

  1. Select File > Export Graph from the menu bar.

  2. A file explorer window appears. Navigate to your desired export location.

  3. Type in the name for your graph and click Save.

The Export Graph feature only supports some ArtEngine nodes. Other nodes are not suitable for batch processing or use with the CLI tool, and are unsupported. Attempting to export a Node Graph that contains unsupported nodes will result in an error.

See the list of unsupported nodes below. This list is subject to change in future releases.

Unsupported Nodes

ArtEngine cannot export the following nodes using the Export Graph option:

You may still export ArtEngine projects containing any of these nodes using Export Project as detailed above.