Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
As an example, our production teams were divided according to the following table. The numbers in Table
5-1
do
not look high because they do not reflect the fact that most departments are not at their full size during the whole
production time, allowing some artists to work across multiple departments.
Table 5-1.
DuranDuboi Animated Feature Film
Preproduction Departments and Their Sizes
Department
Approximate team size
Modeling
10
Rigging
5
Layout
10
Animation
40
FX
5
Texturing
10
Look development
10
Hair
5
Dynamics (Cloth)
5
Lighting
10
Compositing
10
Assets and Files
An asset is a logical entity which represents all the aspects of an atomic component across production stages. Asset
types are generally production-specific or pipeline-specific. The most common are Characters, Sets, and Props. Under
the name Asset are regrouped all the files, rules, or comments which define an asset, such as references, designs,
Maya scenes, animation curves, or shading assignments.
In our pipeline, each of these files is defined by arbitrary properties such as the originating department or the
quality setting. Each physical file belonging to this logical association is versioned so that each published version can
be validated and each change can be reverted. For example, a Character could be composed of two base mesh files
from the modeling department, one high-poly, and one low-poly; a hair model from the fur department; and a rigged
model built by the rigging team. Each of those would be versioned separately. Each published file version is conserved
and stored as a read-only file.
Artists generally work on “work in progress” files (or wip), which are not attached to a given asset but to an
owner and team name. Versioning occurs when the artist publishes a file candidate for validation, generally using a
dedicated pipeline tool. Upon publishing, the validation process begins, as well as the publish callbacks.
Each time a file is published or validated on the pipeline, a set of rules is automatically applied according to the
file type, the nature of the validation, or the originating department. These callbacks accomplish a wide variety of
tasks: validation requests, model merging, turntable generation, or automated conformation and tests. Thousands of
these processes are executed each day and dynamically dispatched on the renderfarm. The ability to automate parts
of our production pipeline was essential in the development of the geometry workflow.
