Naming Standards

Animation Department

In this document you will find all necessary information regarding the folder structure and naming convention for our projects.
Please read all information at least twice and follow the instructions carefully.
If there are any questions concerning the documentation please contact Paul Dreisen or Stephan Krause for further information.

Overview

All projects are stored on our centralized network fileshare found under
\\pslsrv10\pslsrv10
(typically mapped to drive X:\ on windows machines)
All projects have their own subfolder in the 'Projects' folder.
Since every machine has writing rights, please pay extra attention so
you don't accidently delete/move the wrong files or even whole projects.

The initial name for a project is created inside the Agentursoftware.
Usually this is done by one of our inhouse producers.
After a project is created a simple script will automatically create the folder structure on the server.

Project Naming

Our projects names contain the following information:
Customer, year, department, projectnumber, project title
Since this information is too long to be packed into a single folder name, it is shortened.
Consider the following example:

Customer: Parasol Island
Year: 2013
Department: Animation
ProjectNumber: 5
Project Title: Demo Project

This translates to the project name: PSL13_ANM05_Demo_Project

Project Code

The project code is a special identifier, which uniquely identifies the project amongst all others. It consists of the customer, year, department and projectnumber. (See Project Naming)

For the above example: PS13A05

File Naming

All file names generated during production are prefixed with the project code!

The idea behind this is pretty simple: If a file is accidently moved to another location it can quickly be identified and searched.

Here are some guidelines for naming our files properly.

• All filenames start with the project code.
• All filenames end with the initials of the creator. For example: Leo Quensel -> lQ. First letter is lowercase, second letter uppercase.
• All information for naming a file in the right way can be found within the project folder name.
• There is NO 'Final' file. All versions are incremented one-by-one: v001, v002, v003... - This prevents stuff like 'Final', 'Final2', 'Final2_New', etc...
• Pick a filename and stick to it when you create higher versions of it.
  (The next version of 'PS13A05_Bottles_B_FrontLabel_v003_lQ.png' is 'PS13A05_Bottles_B_FrontLabel_v004_lQ.png' and nothing else)
• Every filename has to make sense (No 'new_funk_big1.png' please).
• Every filename has to relate to the project it belongs to. It is not enough for the file to be in the right folder since they can accidently be moved. (This is what the project code is for)
• File naming for version files of Maya/Fusion/XSI/AfterEffects is taken care of by Zombie Resurrection, our inhouse pipeline tool

An example of a properly named file: PS13A05_Bottles_B_FrontLabel_v003_lQ.png

Folder Structure

ALL subfolders and ALL files inside the project start with the project code. For example:

• X:\PSL13_ANM05_Demo_Project\PS13A05_Assets\
• X:\PSL13_ANM05_Demo_Project\PS13A05_Assets\PS13A05_DemoAsset\
• X:\PSL13_ANM05_Demo_Project\PS13A05_Shots\
• X:\PSL13_ANM05_Demo_Project\PS13A05_Shots\PS13A05_SH10\

etc.

There are a number of default subfolders inside each project:

Folder	Description
3D	Contains files related to 3D Applications like Maya, XSI, etc.. Is used for storing scripts, textures, etc. Also contains a 'PlayGround' Subfolder for doing whatever you like.
Assets	Parent folder for shotgun assets. Each subfolder relates to a shotgun asset and is created and managed by Zombie
Audio	All audio related stuff (music, sound design, etc...) belongs here
Documents	Contains all relevant documents like storyboards, timesheets, etc..
Edits	Parent folder for shotgun edits (sequences). Each subfolder relates to a shotgun sequence and is created and managed by Zombie
Incoming	Contains footage and working material from external sources. This is not a working folder. If you need to modify data please copy it to the appropriate location first
Incoming\Footage Client	Contains material sent to us by the client.
Online	Contains oll data from our online systems like Smoke, Flame or Davinciur self produced footage - like filmed sequence or recorded audio.
Research	Used for storing pictures, blueprints, references, etc.. gathered by us
Shots	Parent folder for shotgun shots. Each subfolder relates to a shotgun shot and is created and managed by Zombie
toClient	This is the 'out' folder which contains files sent (or to be sent) to the client. This folder contains a default subfolder named [ProjectCode]_Datum_Inhalt which you can use as a template for new subfolders. Please name folders inside here the following way: [ProjectCode]_[YY:MM:DD]_Description_of_Contents This is necessary so we can see which files have been sent to the client at which time An example: PS13A05_130501_Animatic_v004
final_completion_to_archive	Contails files which may still be needed after finishing the project. This folder is usually created when the project is finished

All default project folders, including subfolders for assets/shots, etc.. are automatically generated by Zombie

You can find an example project at \\pslsrv10\pslsrv10\PSLXX_FNCXX_Parasol_Island_FilenameConvetion_und_Projektstruktur