how do you do it? collaborating with dev/production team

i_like_pie

you finished making the asset/character in maya/blender/3Ds etc

then what? 

how do you handle hand-off? where do you do review/feedback with production/dev/marketing teams? is this even an issue? 

Eric Chadwick

Depends on the team.

Most use production management software of some kind, for tracking assets and reviews. Ftrack, Jira, Hansoft, Shotgrid, apps like these.

The artist uploads their finished asset into the DAM (digital asset management system, for versioning and source control) like Perforce or Git or etc.

Then the artist clicks a button in the production management UI that lets the next person in the chain know that it's ready for them to do their part. 

Many of these prod management apps have a review system built-in, so people review renders and write comments, send it back to the artist for more work, or approve it for further work down the pipeline.

Fabi_G

Hi! When you start working on a project, typically you get an introduction how things run. If not, I would ask about it. Ideally there is also some written documentation of processes, conventions, rules.

For tracking tasks and dependencies, projects I worked on often used Jira. Tasks would be assigned via ticket, allowing to write notes, tag people, change the tasks state (like mark it for review). In projects working that way, there were typically project-managers involved who kept an overview, also in regards to deadlines and communication. Also frequent check ins with leads.

On smaller projects, with fewer people, meetings and notes were sufficient.

I think especially with interdisciplinary tasks communication is key. Talking to the other people working on the same thing, helps to figure out challenges/potential issues early. And you can tell each other what you need in order to work smoothly. Can save time and nerves - and increase fun

Alex_J

it's probably worth mentioning the teams composition. if solution is not proportional to the problem you may create new problems.

poopipe

it varies a lot but what Eric said is the general theme. 

The main thing that determines whether the system works or not is whether the people designing the system took requirements from the people doing the work into account rather than just the people tracking it. it's not uncommon to find breaks in a pipeline - eg. there might be no connection between character modelling and rigging tasks which leads to riggers being unaware that changes have been made to a mesh and the charcter artist's work not appearing in game. 

The choice of software is pretty much irrelevant (you can do it all in excel if you're feeling sufficiently masochistic).

if you want to set it up at home/for a small team a simple kanban thingy in trello (or equivalent) is enough to keep you vaguely organised - it's only when you have lots of people involved that you need to move to something more complicated like hansoft or jira 

i_like_pie

follow. thanks everyone. clear on dependancies 

full transparency: trying to explore collaboration tools. are any of these good or noise? 

1/ https://mudstack.com/features 
2/ https://sketchfab.com/ 
3/ https://www.echo3d.com/

what do you think about the 3 above? please be blunt 

iam717

BLUNT: 

if you use any 3D model viewer the models/textures basically everything put into them, can then be taken out of them by "talented" five finger discount people...  

(that is all i am adding here i would like to see how your journey goes if you remember "us" on p.c.)

jStins

i_like_pie said:

follow. thanks everyone. clear on dependancies 

full transparency: trying to explore collaboration tools. are any of these good or noise? 

1/ https://mudstack.com/features 
2/ https://sketchfab.com/ 
3/ https://www.echo3d.com/

what do you think about the 3 above? please be blunt 

Alex_J said:

it's probably worth mentioning the teams composition. if solution is not proportional to the problem you may create new problems.

How big is your team? I'm not familiar with the tools you linked aside from SketchFab (not sure that even does what you're looking for). Trello (project management) and Github (source control) are enough to get started if you have a small team. 

I quoted Alex_J here just to emphasize that you want a solution that solves your current problem. Mudstack and echo3d look like enterprise level solutions. They probably have some helpful features, but those features come with additional cost and complexity that may slow you down if you're a small team. 

Alex_J

I'm not sure this is a real person. I saw same question on reddit and it has very odd replies similar to above. not like any english as second language grammar I've ever seen. 

the account also has very strange post history and a lot of links. 

i_like_pie

alex = am a real person. give me a break. just exploring the space and trying to understand tooling. i type off-hand and am not an artist. sorry if i offended anyone.  

joel = thank you. helpful perspective. agree and makes sense 

poopipe

opinions..

there is basically no value in model viewers - anyone qualified to review the model has the same software as the person submitting it for review and they'll be better off just loading it up in that where they can inspect it properly.
 in the case that you want to look at finished work that needs to happen in context (i.e in engine)

putting things on sketchfab is basically just giving them away for free - if you have any interest in privacy/security of your data then just no

mudstack is suspiciously cheap so I'd be asking where they're actually making their money.  secure, private cloud storage costs more than that
echo - hard to say, the pricing is much more realistic than mudstack 

honestly though, I've never seen one of these all in one systems actually work.  you're far better off picking something you like for task management,  something you like for version control and then establishing a set of processes for using them together. 

david_arel

Another part of the process that was not mentioned is the integration. If you are part of a small team that uses a game engine, once the asset is finished, it needs to be integrated in the engine's project. That's an important step to be sure the asset is really done.

One simple way is to notify a programmer that the asset is ready (Slack, Trello, Jira, a tap on the shoulder etc.), and he will integrate it and maybe come back with feedback.

Ideally the artist would integrate it himself. That way he can iterate more, catch problems earlier and be sure the model is perfectly integrated and rendered correctly with the correct settings. Since the game engine project is most likely saved in a version control system (Git, Perforce, Unity Version Control), you need to add it there first.

For people choosing to use Git with Unity, it's not always easy to use, so I made a plugin to help with that: https://crafty.creatiel.ca

Neox

david_arel said:

Another part of the process that was not mentioned is the integration. If you are part of a small team that uses a game engine, once the asset is finished, it needs to be integrated in the engine's project. That's an important step to be sure the asset is really done.

One simple way is to notify a programmer that the asset is ready (Slack, Trello, Jira, a tap on the shoulder etc.), and he will integrate it and maybe come back with feedback.

Ideally the artist would integrate it himself. That way he can iterate more, catch problems earlier and be sure the model is perfectly integrated and rendered correctly with the correct settings. Since the game engine project is most likely saved in a version control system (Git, Perforce, Unity Version Control), you need to add it there first.

For people choosing to use Git with Unity, it's not always easy to use, so I made a plugin to help with that: https://crafty.creatiel.ca

Integration done by a programmer, is that still a thing? I haven't seen that in... I dunno almost 20 years