Naming conventions
 

Hi there.

I was wondering if you have ideas for a smart way to name the versions of you project as you go along.

I was at a SVFX seminar held by the Danish Film academy.

A German guy - Udo Smutny (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Alien vs. Predator and King Arthur) - talked about the ideas for the effects, and how they was realized.

Now during this seminar he mentioned that his company where using a naming convention for their projectfiles so clever, that other production companies (at least here in denmark) had him come and teach about this naming method.

Unfortunaly Udo didn't mention how the method works, he only mentioned that they where using it to avoid confusion about which file is the latest.

Now I was wondering if you yourself are using some kind of naming convention for your files, so you don't - like me - end up with project names like:

cow.mb
cow 2 edit.mb
cow 2 edit online.mb
cow FINAL.mb
cow FINAL FINAL.mb
cow FINAL FINAL REALLY FINAL THIS TIME.mb
cow FINAL FINAL REALLY FINAL THIS TIME 2.mb
cow FINAL EXTRA.mb

ect. ect.

Thank you.

°°°R303
daniel@martinezfilm.dk

I always just use version or date, and then break it into sections just incase I want to go back to something.

So say I am working on a new alien, I will start with:

AlienBlocking (for blocking out a body)
AlienBlockingV2 or AlienBlocking092206
AlienBlockingV3 or AlienBlocking092306
etc.

AlienDetails (for after blocking and doing muscle structure)
AlienDetailsV2 or AlienBlocking092406
etc.

AlienShaded (for UV shading after details are complete)
AlienShadedV2 or AlienShaded092506
etc.

AlienPose (for after rigging and shading is done)
*follow above format*

AlienFinalRender (for after posing and in an environment)
*follow above format*

Hope that helps.

Thanx for the inspiration. I think I'll take a part of your way and combine it with some ideas of my own.

Guys,

Overly long titles to search for.

Personally I use these methods for modelling eg:

Alien_01
Alien_02

and so on...

or with the dated method

Alien01_190906
Alien02_190906


For the rigged and texture ones it would be

AlienTxt_01 etc...
AlienRig_01 etc....

The last in the list aways being the latest saved version.

Then for the final completed version, I create a new sub folder called AlienDefault and simply place the model as Alien.


Cheers

Jay

what jay said.

plus i also like to prepend descriptive prefixes.


clean_marine_mesh
clean_marine_rig
delete_marine_rigTest


delete or sometimes del lets me know right away if its a garbage file.

the first prefix describes th file state, the last file type.
clean/mesh
clean/rig
as with my naming convention in maya as well,
R_armBicept_JNT
R_arm_PVCTR
right arm bicept joint
right arm pole vector
and in scenes i use del_testLocator
so rightaway if i see this locator somewhere in my scene, i already know its garbage and was used for some kind of testing purpose. in case i forgot it in my scene.

hey I like the locator idea, cool

Cheers
Jay

I simply use:

<modelname>_<date><version>

e.g,
brutus_20060927a
(date in reverse and UK standard as I do programming - at least its not in unix timestamp)

and then when finishing working, save it to that version and also save to the next (e.g, brutus_20060927b) so that when I next open maya I'll have a copy of version a to work on and more importantly two identical versions in case either gets corrupt.

Si

Having workied on process docs and control, asset control for a game and a testing environment the best way to deal with it is ticks version...

Modelname_date_ver

This can enhanced for assets that could repeat:

modelName_areaused_date_ver

i.e. :

hotel_minatorOutpost_02052006_1.5.mb
hotel_humanOutpost_12042006_2.2.2.mb

Really asset naming conventions are a file control issue and should be set out at the start of any project by the Technical Director or similar.

There are options for asset management control like Alienware or there is a free asset management tool called Tortoise, this acts like central repos.