Naming Convention 2. - Pipeline (CG / VFX)

When we are thinking about naming convention more or less thinking about pipeline. So couple of words about pipeline.

We can separate workflow and pipeline. I could write a novel about this. Just look these words up in wikipedia. Of course we are talking about VFX or CG here so the simple conclusion is the following:

Workflow
A process like modeling, riggin, texturing, etc.

Pipeline
There is now exact wikipedia article about VFX pipeline. In general it means "chain of data processing stages". In VFX it could be workflows and their connections. We can imagine some kind of flowchart like this:

The arrows can be simple data input/out put connections or data processing as well. The boxes are the workflows as you can see above. Pipeline can refer to the arrows. Personally I prefer the concept that pipeline is the whole stuff (workflows and the arrows) as you can see above.


With computers we create, modify and store data. As simple as that. So the question is how we do that?

Workflow means (most of the time) we use softwares like Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Blender, Photoshop, etc.. They have input and output data: usually files. We have to store them in a consistent manner. Naming convention refers to that consistency.

We have to separate files from each other based on the content and store information within the filename. To organize files we use folders.
So the goal to establish an organized folder and file structure ruled by the naming convention.


Files and folders are ruled by the operating system (OS) therefore we have to accommodate these rules to the naming convention.

As I wrote before there are couple of problems with of folder and file structures in general. For example:
1. Limitation of the length of the file path.
2. One file can be only in one folder.
But this would be another topic. I'm going to write about it.