Directory Structure for game project?
polycounter lvl 13
I've been working on and off on a project at home for almost 2 years now, and i've decided to clean things up a bit and re-do the directory structure (previously, there was none..). Project Management and versioning are separate issues imo. I'm using SVN for versioning. What I would really like to hear about is how people structure their directories when working on a complete, a-z game. I was thinking:
-/Builds/
--/(By date + version)/
-/Documentation/
--/Concepts (original concept art)/
--/Reference (images, notes, etc.)/
--DesignDoc.doc etc.
-Art
--3dsMax*
--Interface
--Models
--Textures
-Code
--Client
--Common
--Server
--Tools
*=3dsmax has a default project structure that I usually use. The most up-to-date assets are kept as FBX or whatever in the main Models folder.
...any comments?
-/Builds/
--/(By date + version)/
-/Documentation/
--/Concepts (original concept art)/
--/Reference (images, notes, etc.)/
--DesignDoc.doc etc.
-Art
--3dsMax*
--Interface
--Models
--Textures
-Code
--Client
--Common
--Server
--Tools
*=3dsmax has a default project structure that I usually use. The most up-to-date assets are kept as FBX or whatever in the main Models folder.
...any comments?
Replies
But i think you structure looks good but maybe you will also need subfolders e.g. in the Textures folder (psd, tga, dds, ...)
- short folder names, more close to back end dev conventions (3-4 chars if possible often close to filetype extention)
- camelCase so no underscores or no spaces so we can send it around without character escape issues
- max 2-3 hierarchies
- split at root more close to core sections (producers, designers/ artist, coders), so each group can adjust the sub folders to their needs for the project.
Developers are kind of the exception sometimes because they are often already forced to functional structures to begin with. So source files and compiling related folder structures (/bin, /src, /lib,...) have their own folder or rule.One major result of this change is that we might have more files in folders but with a good naming convention and list view booth in Windows / OSX that should work well. For big projects you often rely on good filenames instead of thumbnails anyways - because there are just to many files to process or to slow connections to the fileserver.
Things like this always takes years or months to explore depending on the company size and the kind of people being involved.
Whenever I am involved at big projects at work with max or other authoring tools I write my own exporter scripts so we don't have to watch out to much making mistakes with filenames, folder targets and lots of other settings one might forget or oversee in the export process.
If you have a sexy pipeline with automated scripts you can cut of so much time and stress caused by tedious and repetitive tasks with details.
I recently suggested at work writing a commandline tool or UI for creating those new folder structures. SO that only folders that are really needed will be created on the server with the correct writing conventions with the variables of the project details. Because we pump like 20-40 projects a year that need their own folders. And with so many people involved its just to easy to make mistakes.
would have been nice if you could have max use a txt file like the .mxp file with the folder structure you need.
You can adjust the created paths, take a look at the 3dsclean scripts; edit the max ini to redirect various filetypes to folders of your choosing.
http://www.kxcad.net/autodesk/Autodesk_MAXScript_Reference_9/MAX_System_Directories.htm
http://www.kxcad.net/autodesk/Autodesk_MAXScript_Reference_9/PathConfig_Struct.htm
you can set it using a full list of available directories is listed in the first link.
I am not a fan of project folders of max, they are messy and almost in the way if you want to do something quickly. So most of the time I just write scripts that do just what I need.
nah sub folders for file types is a horrible thing, fine if you use the thumbnail view in windows all the time, but not a option with lots of files and if the default view is the list view.
+1 The most painless projects ive worked on used version control. none of the 'which file version is the most recent' bullshit. and providing people comment their commits its a pleasure to use.