SceneVault

-Save scene versions, see them, compare them-

If you finish a scene by saving a lot of versions along the way — product_v3_final, product_v3_final_2, product_v3_lighting_test — SceneVault is built for you. It keeps every saved version of a scene in one tidy vault folder per project, gives each one a real rendered thumbnail, and lets you compare any two versions side by side. You stop guessing which file had the good lighting, and your project folder stops filling up with mystery copies.

What it does?

• Save Scene

one click saves a copy of the current file into the vault, numbered automatically (_scene1, _scene2, …). Your working file is never touched.

• Rendered thumbnails, not screenshots

every saved version gets a thumbnail rendered in a separate background Blender process, using the file’s own render engine (Cycles, EEVEE or Workbench) and your GPU settings. You keep working while it renders.

• Compare A vs B

pick two versions and SceneVault opens a dedicated compare window: A on the left, B on the right, nothing else in the way. Switch versions from the thumbnail picker in each editor’s header, or just click a version in the list — the compare window updates instantly.

• Auto Save Scene

optional. Turn it on and SceneVault saves a version at the interval you choose (default 15 min), but only when the scene has actually changed. A keep-limit (default 20) removes the oldest auto-saved versions so your disk doesn’t fill up. It always starts switched off when you open a file.

• Safe restore

before any version is restored over your working file, the current state is saved as a _last_state safety copy. One click back if you change your mind.

• Load Blender Auto-Save

restores Blender’s own auto-save, but only the one that belongs to the file you have open.

• File management built in 

one vault folder per project, three naming styles (scene / version / date), optional retention cleanup (delete versions older than N days), and a button that opens the vault folder in your file browser.

• Works across Blender versions

the vault lives outside Blender’s version-specific folders, so a version saved in 4.5 is right there when you open the file in 5.2.

Who it is for

Product and lookdev artists, archviz, motion designers — anyone who iterates on one scene through many saved versions and wants to find, see and compare them without opening each file.

Requirements

• Blender 4.5 – 5.2, installed as an extension
• Background thumbnail rendering with EEVEE needs a GPU. Without one, SceneVault falls back to a viewport capture automatically.

About thumbnail render time

Thumbnails are real renders, so they take as long as your scene takes to render at thumbnail size. Rendering runs in the background — you can keep working, and the list shows a “rendering” icon until the thumbnail appears.

• Heavy scenes (large textures, volumetrics, many lights) can take a minute or more per thumbnail. Lower Thumbnail Samples (default 64; 16–32 with denoising is usually enough) or reduce Thumbnail Width in the preferences.
• Auto Save Scene queues one thumbnail per save, so a short interval plus a heavy scene can build up a queue. The panel shows how many are waiting and you can cancel at any time — saved scene files are kept either way.
• The background render loads the scene into GPU memory a second time. If that slows you down, enable Render Thumbnails on CPU, or switch Thumbnail to Viewport Capture (instant, but viewport shading instead of a final render).

Where files go

Default: …/Blender Foundation/Blender/SceneVault_projects//. Point it at any folder in the add-on preferences.

Made by want shot, a 3D product photography studio. GPL-2.0-or-later.