Workflow - Game Making

sama.van

Hi Guys,

I dunno if I should open in General discussion but anyway.

I would like to speak about workflow when it comes of Game Making.

Please do not see that as a noob question, this is very serious.

I know very lot of artist here are working directly in the game industry and I just would like to know if you could share rules about the workflow in the company.

Keep it very simple to stay under NDA stuff. 5 lines max. (a little more if you have more to say ^__^)



For example from my experience as what I think is the best :

===============

- Working data on one side (Maya data + Psd file, etc...)
- Game data on another side (Exported file or package asset + Texture files in their final version (no PSD) )
- and a "test" directory only for me I drop all my shit for test, crash things, etc...
===============


Main motivation to open this thread is about new and easy game engine like Unity, etc..
People see a good way to insert Maya's data and PSD file directly in their game project (the engine will do the conversion automatically)


I do not want to say I am right here but I just would like to know more about the experience of everyone.


Really thank you for the share!

Eric Chadwick

The workflow is different from company to company, usually depending on how user-friendly the toolset has been made to be.

There are a ton of documents and presentations about what companies do for this, have you checked out these links? What have you read so far?
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryWhitepapers

Also I have some stuff here about workflow, and especially make sure to check the links at the bottom:
http://ericchadwick.com/img/techart_guidelines.html

rollin

sama.van: you're working on your own game right?


anyway


I think what you've wrote is actually very good. I'm not a fan of having my working files directly in-game (auto convert). Simply bc this gives you an additional step of security.

Also you can restructure your working material without affecting the game-content-dir-structure


but all in all it's bases a lot on the tool-workflow you have like Eric mentioned. Even with Unity and co you might need additional tools to speed up specific parts of your workflow and this is very dependent on the project

sama.van

rollin wrote: »

sama.van: you're working on your own game right?

On my small freetime yes, but the day for clients as everyone...



Eric Chadwick & rollin : Thanks you for url and your opinions!


I just would like everyone share his experience to have a a better view of the different possibilities... and maybe new way I didn't think about yet!

Lamont

All of the assets used to create things, from code snippets saved in text files to PSD's do not go into the same directory as the files used for the final product. I do not let Unity convert to it's own format (like using PSD's). I aim for target input all the time.

I save data into a folder just for Unity (only 3D files). Textures do not go there, I save out of PS right into that directory.

Chai

I make sure ingame and sources are separate.
I setup pipeline scripts to export textures/assets in one click. (see my sig)
This helps keep things clean ...