Most efficient folder structure

[Crayox13]

Thanks Vizioen, those look like what I'm after.

[PGD]

I go with the Job Number, which always starts with the year. Then the job number and it's name. Such as: 15-082 Uni of Chichester

Inside there is 3 folders:
Input - for everything client related, their plans, models, reference etc.
Max - Max files and project specific maps, such as an aerial site image which wouldn't be used anywhere else
Renders - On the top goes the finished Jpeg images. Subfolders for Test renders and PSD. Each will have a Superseeded folder to try and avoid mixups.

All assetts are in a seperate folder called 'Visualisation Resource' which contains all the maps, proxies, everything. All 3DS files then link to that.

A library to easily view a preview of the model files would be very handy!

[Oleg_Budeanu]

That's my project structure. This one is for static images, that's why it is Out_s. Animation folder structure is a bit different.
Also i have self-written couple of batch scripts for new project, because i have templates ready for interiors with different lighting setups , exteriors , animations. Presets have render settings ready , lighting setup and Nuke compositions with necessary nodes ready.
Another script is being run from output folder and overwrites Nuke file with paths of the outs and i have composition ready to edit in the end.
Like that i am keeping consistency of the color correction in projects. This can be done with after effects xml format also , but i find it quite limited.

A while ago i started to write my own project manager software in C#, which was capable of scanning and storing projects and outputs in MySQL database hosted locally, so you can find and sort projects quite fast, find latest outputs , comment projects and etc.
Planned to move this thing online with even more capabilities but that time company i was working in did not care about optimising stuff - they cared about amount of images and money So the project is frozen and i'm using simple batch scripts for that.
Also i've bought "Project Manager", but now i am looking towards Design Connected app , as it is standalone and quite good.

[pg1]

I freelance at big and small companies.

Most of the film/vfx's places I have worked at look something like this

/root/project/sequence/shot/dept/element/software/

They work this way as the file structure in large companies is very strict often you don't get to open or save files as you do in Max/Maya. Usually they build an in-house shot builder so for example you come in and open shotgun https://www.shotgunsoftware.com/ and see what shots you are assigned to work on.

I want to open a max file I get a dialogue box that asks what shot am on, I fill in a shot name that I get from shotgun something like QUX_1084 and the scene will pull assets ,spaceship or motorbike or whatever from a database and start to build the max file. The same rigidity goes for outputting files so you don't save your exr. files your elements and outputs will be auto-generated based off the shot name.

When your finished in 3-D open nuke same deal, in house dialogue box asks you what shot number your on and auto finds all the exr. files needed for that shot. Obviously this requires pipeline TD's to manage. I got really good over the years about being super anal about file naming because of how much hassle it is when it goes wrong but I have to say having a strong pipeline just makes all that stress disappear, it is brilliant not thinking about that stuff anymore.

When I ran my own company we decided on a folder structure that was

Incoming
-client communications

Pre-production
-references storyboards

Production had a bunch of sub folders
- Assets where you can be messy and make stuff then quality control and save them to
- Xrefs to be xref-fed into a
- Scenes ...Max files just lights and cameras
- Textures where you can save PSD and be messy and then quality control and save out to a
- Maps folder which get used in material/shaders.

Post Production
-Outputs (renders)
-Composite (Nuke,AfterEffects,Photoshop)
-Edit
-Masters

I built a simple folder structure for a models library took about a week to sort out the files then used project manager.

Pointed it at the models folder let it run overnight came in the next morning and had a thumbnail browser that I could drag and drop any model into a scene.
It automated the process of generating thumbnails and re-linked textures. It was really good.

Was a while ago now but think it can run scripts on the files too. As far as I remember I wrote some simple scripts to put the pivot to base of an object, ungroup and attach all, simple things like that. Obviously this kind of bulk processing messed up some models but out of thousands of models around 80 percent were find.

Edit-- Also cannot recommend highly enough to get a render manager of some sort. I use renderpass manager for Max http://www.rpmanager.com/RPManager_Download.htm worth every penny.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

I freelance at big and small companies.

Most of the film/vfx's places I have worked at look something like this

/root/project/sequence/shot/dept/element/software/

They work this way as the file structure in large companies is very strict often you don't get to open or save files as you do in Max/Maya. Usually they build an in-house shot builder so for example you come in and open shotgun https://www.shotgunsoftware.com/ and see what shots you are assigned to work on.

I want to open a max file I get a dialogue box that asks what shot am on, I fill in a shot name that I get from shotgun something like QUX_1084 and the scene will pull assets ,spaceship or motorbike or whatever from a database and start to build the max file. The same rigidity goes for outputting files so you don't save your exr. files your elements and outputs will be auto-generated based off the shot name.

When your finished in 3-D open nuke same deal, in house dialogue box asks you what shot number your on and auto finds all the exr. files needed for that shot. Obviously this requires pipeline TD's to manage. I got really good over the years about being super anal about file naming because of how much hassle it is when it goes wrong but I have to say having a strong pipeline just makes all that stress disappear, it is brilliant not thinking about that stuff anymore.

When I ran my own company we decided on a folder structure that was

Incoming
-client communications

Pre-production
-references storyboards

Production had a bunch of sub folders
- Assets where you can be messy and make stuff then quality control and save them to
- Xrefs to be xref-fed into a
- Scenes ...Max files just lights and cameras
- Textures where you can save PSD and be messy and then quality control and save out to a
- Maps folder which get used in material/shaders.

Post Production
-Outputs (renders)
-Composite (Nuke,AfterEffects,Photoshop)
-Edit
-Masters

I built a simple folder structure for a models library took about a week to sort out the files then used project manager.

Pointed it at the models folder let it run overnight came in the next morning and had a thumbnail browser that I could drag and drop any model into a scene.
It automated the process of generating thumbnails and re-linked textures. It was really good.

Was a while ago now but think it can run scripts on the files too. As far as I remember I wrote some simple scripts to put the pivot to base of an object, ungroup and attach all, simple things like that. Obviously this kind of bulk processing messed up some models but out of thousands of models around 80 percent were find.

Edit-- Also cannot recommend highly enough to get a render manager of some sort. I use renderpass manager for Max http://www.rpmanager.com/RPManager_Download.htm worth every penny.

Yeah , production - that's where things start to be complicated !

[pg1]

Yep its all chaos from production until Masters/Delivery