Hi everyone!
Some of you may have noticed that I askedsome thinhs on slack, apparently disconnected from each other…
Of course they are not!
For years our company didn’t used any proper pipeline: nothing were automated or used to help artists doing the right stuff: each of us did his job, sometimes with different tools, and all that kind of things that a pipeline helps to keep clean were managed by the person himself. We always used version control, but we ever had for example some tool to check for example assets naming or folder (so we often had in Unreal “Graphic” and “Graphics” folder… or an fbx and its textures called in slightly different ways… things like that).
Sometimes this is not a big deal, sometimes generate chaos, especially when (months later) we have to retrieve something or migrate to another project or simply edit and update stuff.
Well… you surely all know the problem!
So now I’m “forcing” everyone to begin to adehere to a standardized process, starting from the basisc (names and folders).
I’d like to build with time, piece after piece, “My Humble Pipeline”: we are a small company yet so we don’t need huge tools… just something to make life easier and most important our projects cleaner than how they are now.
So if you think it is appropriate for the forum, I’d like to share here my thoughts and reasonings and problems… lots of problems
The highest priority problem that my pipeline should solve I think is assets export from different tools: we use both 3dsmax and blender… well, I personally don’t use blender but some artist here and let’s talk frankly… if I can let them use a free software for modeling, I’ll surely let them do so
3dsmax is mostly used for (besides modeling and unwrap) rig/skin/animation, some other complex stuff and as intermediate tool between cad files and Unreal (we are Unreal Studio Beta and workin quite heavily with its datasmith).Some also use Substance (Designer and Painter) in use and the evergreen Photoshop/Illustrator.
We have UE4 as main destination game engine.
I’m currently writing down some specifics for our assets export and I’d like to automate the process in each of these DCC tools in order to write some metadata inside files. It could be great to use some python code for common parts (for example to get all info about system, user,save timestamp…) and use proprietary script (aka maxscript) only for software specific stuff.
In conclusion… I have a lot of ideas in my mind and I know the task is huge: it will be good however to break it into smaller chunks and accomplish them one by one… keeping an eye to the possibility to link them all together one day.
Can I count on you for a little help and support for this quest?
Bye
Daniele