How do you organize files and resources?
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I've currently got a full time job as a 3d artist, part time teaching it as a second job, and a few commitments to personal projects like involvement in Beyond Skyrim. I'm finding it a little maddening, constantly clicking through an endless number of folders to find this or that thing that I exported on this day for that project, but wait was it this folder or was it a test bake I threw over here?... Was it baked in Substance, and if so did it export to the default location again or the project folder I keep re-selecting every time? ... etc etc. At the same time, that's two workplaces plus frequent remote work from home, and files passing from cloud to cloud. I know, of course, a certain amount of discipline is mandatory, and I do try to keep things clean. But with tons of incremental saves, different projects, and software that wants to store everything in its own Documents folder, reference or concepts that get sent to you, etc etc... do you have any tips or a system for how you keep things in as much order as possible? I've tried a couple of things and I get by, but Im looking tp improve my logistics a bit.
Replies
Project/asset type/theme/asset/resource type
For shared resources I treat each type of resource as a project
Look. I'm smart, sort of, but I find myself wasting a heinous amount of time re-searching for information I swear I already learned about two months ago and having to re-stitch together disparate info to the solution I originally used
WHEN INSTEAD
I could have taken the time to note down what I did in a way that makes sense to me so I can look at it later. Even add keywords, etc. for searchability later.
Of course it doesn't always end up like this, sometimes I just save whatever wherever (I usually regret it) but I do eventually format them this way later on.