Naming things well is notoriousy difficult, mostly because a name that works well within one context, does not communicate as well in another. Here are the guidelines that we try to follow at Blender Studio when it comes to file naming.

• No caps, no gaps: Name files with lowercase letter and avoid whitespaces.
• Retain a sense of hierarchy within the file name, from wide to narrow context

Versions and variations for file naming

{show_prefix:optional}-{name}-v{version:optional}.{variant:optional}.{representation:optional}.{extension}

• version (v001, v002)
  • variant (voice, red, blurry) changes meaning of the content
    • representation (720p, lowres, cache) the content is the same

Asset file names

Examples: gabby.blend, gabby.shading.blend, gabby.rigging.blend

The main asset files should be as simple as possible: {asset name}.blend. These main asset files are meant to be written by our asset pipeline, but should rarely be touched by hand (other than solving errors). Data is consolidated

We use task identifiers to distinguish between the different stages of the asset. {asset name}.{task identifier}.blend.

task identifiers:

• concept
• sculpting
• modeling
• shading
• rigging

Shot identifier

E.g. **010_0030_A** {scene number}_{shot number}_{variant}

Scene: 3 digits, incremented by 10 at first creation

Shot number: 4 digits, incremented by 10 at first creation

Variant: Letters A - Z

Shot file name

• No uppercase letters except for naming shot file takes (100_0002_A.anim.blend)
• No special characters like +=#^*&^$()?!
• Underscores are allowed as spacing, no actual spaces or - as separators (no caps, no gaps!)
• We use dot notations to specify a different representation or variant of an asset (hairdryer.more_ugly.blend)

Example: **140_0010_B.anim.blend**

• 140 : scene
• 0010 : shot
• A: variant (only one variant per shot is picked in the edit)
• anim: task (layout, anim, lighting, comp, sim_hair, sim_fluid, sim_smoke)

Its position in the repository would be at:

pro/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.anim.blend**

Output for the animation playblasts at:

/render/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.anim/140_0010_A.anim.v001.mp4**

/render/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.anim/140_0010_A.anim.v002.mp4**

...

Output of the rendered frames:

/render/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.lighting/000001.exr**

Generated previews from frames:

/render/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.lighting/140_0010_A.lighting.mp4**

Example of a Backup copy of frames:

/render/**shots/140_credits/140_0010_A/140_0010_A.lighting_bak/140_0010_A.lighting.mp4**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_0010_A/110_0010_A.anim.blend**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_0010_A/110_0010_A.layout.blend**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_0010_A/110_0010_A.fx.blend**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_0010_A/110_0010_A.comp.blend**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_rextoria.layout.blend**

pro/**shots/110_rextoria/110_rextoria.scene.blend**