How Do You Organize Your Projects?

Urzaz

I'm currently trying to gather up a couple years' worth of school and job work, and of course it's just scattered everywhere. Photoshop doodles. References. Concepts. UI work. Zbrush hipolys. OBJs for baking. Bakes. Textures. Marmoset renders. Definitely makes the portfolio-crafting process harder than it needs to be.

I switched over to Maya recently, which seems to encourage at least a little bit more project organization, so that led me to do some quick searches on Polycount to try and figure out how to wrangle all this stuff together. I couldn't find anything, so I'm asking now.

Polycount, how do you organize your creative projects? Got any tips?

iadagraca

I would like to know this too as i'm considering reorganizing my working folder.

Trying to figure out how to organize all this stuff between different 2D and 3D projects and resources and such.

spiderDude

I separate my works in 2 main folders: Personal/Professional

Within them each project has it's own folder; when I finish a project I delete everything besides necessary files(textures, final ztools, etc.) and back it up on my external drive.

My professional work gets separated by client folders. That's basically how I organize my stuff.

Urzaz

Thanks spiderDude. It helps.

Do you keep Photoshop files with your bakes and final textures in them? How about sketchy half-finished, probably never finished stuff? Does they become their own projects, or just dumped together somewhere? Or deleted, I suppose.

I think part of my problem is my personal work (and my job work-- small team, lots of random things needed doing) is so scattered. Just thinking out loud at this point, delaying the inevitable sorting process.

Thanks again.

SnowInChina

make a "wip" folder
then move finished stuff to "final" folder
create "final2" folder and make adjustements
create "final3" folder and repeat

dump every folder in "old" folder and create new "final" folder
stop working on it because i dont even know where i was

Kwramm

when I'm not using revision control, then it's usually like this: projects/projectname/yyyy-mm-dd. E.g. on google drive I do this.

Whenever I want to work on something I make a copy of the entire folder with the current date. This way I have enough backups to feel safe. Eventually I delete or 7zip archive older work. Each project has their own internal folder structure though, so I'm more flexible. The only thing I really avoid is cross project references, like for textures. I want to be able to grab an entire project's folder and have everything that belongs to it.
This also assumes you have lots of HDD space, but HDD space is cheap these days.

spiderDude

Urzaz wrote: »

Do you keep Photoshop files with your bakes and final textures in them? How about sketchy half-finished, probably never finished stuff? Does they become their own projects, or just dumped together somewhere? Or deleted, I suppose.

I only keep final textures, all those psd add up and take a lot of space. All the sketches and practice stuff I keep in a practice folder, I usually only keep a jpeg image of it, takes up less space.

Urzaz

SnowInChina - Still an improvement on my current system. :P

Kwramm - I was thinking about some sort of date system, glad to see yours. I've heard of sorting projects my when they were made, as well. So basically it's: projects/yyyy/mm?/projectname but that gets awkward if you're making copies at later dates. On the other hand it might be easier to find things? I'll come up with something.

I really like the 7zip idea, I'm going to err on the side of cheap HDD space as well. If it's consolidated and organized I feel less bad about "wasting" it.

spiderDude - Separate practice folder. Excellent. My feeling is that I'll probably be streamlining what I'm saving as I go on and realize, "I don't need any of this junk!"


Thanks a ton guys, glad to have your insight.

Kwramm

Urzaz wrote: »

Kwramm - I was thinking about some sort of date system, glad to see yours. I've heard of sorting projects my when they were made, as well. So basically it's: projects/yyyy/mm?/projectname but that gets awkward if you're making copies at later dates. On the other hand it might be easier to find things? I'll come up with something.

I had date/projectname before but it's not as good as projectname/date. I usually ask myself "what do I want/need to work on?" first, and then "where did I stop at?". Also I can easier back up projects that way: I grab the entire folder, delete the old dates I don't want to keep and burn it to DVD / zip & upload to cloud storage.

For finding things, use good naming conventions (avoid crazy abbreviations and non descriptive file names like tex02.tga) and a search tool like Windows Search, Everything or Spotlight, etc. This approach also forces you to eventually name folders and files properly, which is a very good habit to adopt!

Fwap

Desktop/rughreiughrwefo3fu.jpg

Urzaz

Kwramm wrote: »

and a search tool like Windows Search, Everything

All of that logic makes sense. I actually have Everything mapped to a Launchy command, so I type "Find", Tab, and then the search string and it opens up Everything with that search. It's super nice.

Right now everything is spread between different folders, flash drives, flash drive backups, Dropbox and Google Drive, and of course my work computer. Once I get a master project folder set up, I'll probably have the most current project or two on Dropbox so I can get at them, then take them down and add them to the big project folder later.

Brygelsmack

I keep all my projects split into Personal and School, now since I'm not in school anymore I'm probably just going to scrap the school folder since I won't need it. I keep all my projects separated in the personal folder, then different folders for each prop within a project. Then depending on the complexity of the prop I split it up into another few folders called refs, textures and exports. That's basically it.

For the final export to engine I just dump everything (textures, model file and material files) to one place.

RobeOmega

I used to be organised but I decided its fine as long as I keep a project or an asset in its own folder and know which files I need.

Lazerus Reborn

I usually make the file structure before i start a project.
Consistent, clear organisation is a key principle for yourself and clients.

Currently using this:

/Project_Folder
->/Project_Concept_art
->/Project_Textures
--->Texture Files
->/Project_PartName
--->Up to date files related to part (3d)
->/Project_PartName_Backup
--->I keep save on increment on, so about 100 or so additional files a day, get dumped here.

You can then just Rar the whole thing up and send it off when you've cleared out any backup folders.

I use a standardised structure for all my other projects such as daily practices or parts etc.
/SketchBook_01_ProjectName
/VectorSketch_01_ProjectName
/KitBash_01_ProjectName
/3dSketch_01_ProjectName

OCD has some positives when it comes to work.

mazz423

Robeomega wrote: »

I used to be organised but I decided its fine as long as I keep a project or an asset in its own folder and know which files I need.

(only kidding )


But seriously, I use the same folder structure at work and at home, helps keep it consistent mentally.

Pretty similar to lazerus' structure:

Project Folder/

/Concept Ref

/Concept

/Ref

/Geometry

/Base

mesh_base.whatever (obj)

/High

mesh_high.whatever (obj)

/Low

mesh_low.whatever (obj)

mesh_cage.whatever (obj)

/Reto

mesh_ref.whatever (obj)

mesh_reto.whatever (obj)

/Textures

/Bakes

mesh_name_01.whatever (tga)

etc

/Textures

texture_name.whatever (psd)

Project_File_basemesh.ma

Project_File.ma

Project_Sculpt.ZTL

I find that works pretty well in terms of keeping everything organized, which is really important, especially when in the situation you're in now and having to go back through old work.

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel

Personally I keep a projects directory with a folder for each asset, structured like:

project//
--- backup - autobacks
--- bakes - baked maps, and meshes to rebake from
--- export - the outputs of the project if any
--- img - refs
--- import - the inputs of the project if any
--- out - screenshots / video to send to client / internet
--- scene - model files
--- texture - texture files


Not too complicated since max userprefs handle it all once you set it up. makes it easy to get to files by their intended function in the overall project imo

MiAlx

That is pretty much my usual project folder. My naming convention is:

a0X_projectName_status (e.g. a02_jackWalk_blocking) for animation
r0X_projectName_ status (e.g. r03_jack_skinning) for rigging
m0X_projectName_status (e.g. m04_jack_fixedTopo) for the models

oglu

i create a maya project and will it with my stuff...

http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-A570696B-95A4-4ED7-87EE-A7EAB63156CF