High Priority – Game Art

Naming Conventions

Naming your conventions is important. It keeps the project clean, files organized and improves workflow. In short, it saves you time. But most importantly, it trains people to think and act in a certain way.

We all know that artists can be easy-going and sometimes slack on the small details (we’ve been there ourselves ;). Sadly, the result is that this gives programmers a hard time. So keeping you, and your art team, organized is important.

This is why we at High Priority use the following naming conventions. They’re heavily based on industry standards, with most coming from the system Unreal uses. But we’ve implemented small tweaks here and there for optimization. Let’s get into them!

General Rules & Quick Example

All names in English, using PascalCase.
Asset type determines prefix. Only textures have a suffix.
Use 2 digits and 1 letter for family numbering and variations.
Use underscores to split prefix, asset name, numbering, and suffix
One folder per asset and its asset dependencies

Example:

[Prefix]_[AssetName]_[Family numbering][Variation letter]_[Suffix].[Format]

[ Folder : RoofTiles_01 ]
SM_RoofTiles_01a.fbx [mesh]
T_RoofTiles_01a_C.png [color or albedo or diffuse]
T_RoofTiles_01b_C.png [variation of color map]
T_RoofTiles_01a_R.png [roughness]
T_RoofTiles_01a_M.png [metallic]
T_RoofTiles_01a_N.png [normals]
T_RoofTiles_01a_A.png [AO]
M_RoofTiles_01a [material]
M_RoofTiles_01b [same material, but uses the 01b_C texture]

Upper CamelCase / PascalCase

Use PascalCase when naming your assets. PascalCase is the practice of writing compound words or phrases such that the first letter of each concatenated word is capitalized. Using this system makes separate words easily identifiable.

Good examples:

BlackColor
TimeUTC
RedCat
ComputerRAMSize

Bad examples:

blackColor
Time UTC (Notice the space between Time and UTC, this is wrong)
Redcat
ComputerRAMsize

Prefixes & Suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes help make your files easily identifiable without the use of long words or sentences. The result is a short filename that holds all the information needed. This way, you, or the person you’re handing it to, can quickly find what is needed.

Prefixes

SM_	3D files. Static Meshes, Weapons, Foliage, Props with just a few joints for function.
SK_	3D files that contain humanoid or animal skeleton joint rigs
T_	Texture
M_	Material
MI_	Material Instance
MF_	Material Function
MPC_	Material Parameter Collection
J_	Joints / Bones
SH_	Shader
P_	Particle System
A_	Animation (clip) / Animation Sequence
AC_	Unity Animation Controller
ABP_	Animation Blueprint
PP_	Post Process
MT_	Morph Target
S_	Sounds
SC_	Sounds Cue
BP_	Unreal Blueprint
Unity Prefabs	Are named the same as the asset they house. Eg, SM_BigTree_01a

Suffixes (Textures only)

Each map type is represented with ‘one’ letter. Color is _C, Metallic is _M, Emissive is _E. If maps are combined to create a combined RGB mask map. We combine the letters. So _M(etallic) with _R(oughness) with _A(mbient Occlusion) becomes _MRA.

_C	Color map (diffuse or albedo) [Optional 4th channel = Height or Transparency/Opacity]
_T	Transparency / Opacity mask
_M	Metallic mask
_R	Roughness mask
_S	Smoothness (Inverted roughness map)
_N	Normal map
_A	Ambient Occlusion mask
_E	Emissive map
_H	Height mask
_D	Displacement map (Often a blurred height map re reduce artifacts)
_MRA (Combined mask)	Mask map combined [R=Metallic, G=Roughness, B=AO, 4th channel = Emissive, Height or Other]
_MADS (Unity HDRP mask)	Mask map combined [R=Metallic, G=AO, B=Detail Map, 4th channel = Smoothness]
_I	Color ID masks or color channel map
_U	Subsurface mask

Numbering

There are two parts to numbering your files: The number, and the letter. Example: T_ObjectName_01a_C

The number is used to identify Family Numbering: A completely new asset but within the same family. For example:

SM_WillowTree_01a
SM_WillowTree_02a

These are two different tree models, but part from the same WillowTree family.

The letters are for variations within the same asset. These are most commonly used for texture variations. For Example:

M_WillowTree_01a
M_WillowTree_01b

Both of these are for the same model (the SM_WillowTree_01), but the ‘b’ variation has a different leaf and bark color. That’s why it uses a different letter to easily identify the variant of the same object.

Folder Structure

Last, but not least, is the structure of your folders. Organizing them is a great way to make all your assets easy to find. This avoids scrolling through tons of different files, objects, parts, etc in one folder, a.k.a: Chaos.

Folder per “object”
Each “object” and its dependency files get their own folder. For example:

Content/Environments/Props/BigTree_01/…
    …/SM_BigTree_01.fbx
    …/T_BigTree_01_C.tga
    …/T_BigTree_01_M.tga
    …/T_BigTree_01_R.tga
    …/T_BigTree_01_N.tga
    …/M_BigTree_01.mat

Content/…
…/Characters
…/Vehicles
…/Weapons
…/Effects
…/Environments
…/ …/Terrain
…/ …/Background
…/ …/Props
…/ …/ …/BigTree_01 [ Game ready export files go here ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ SM_BigTree_01 ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ T_BigTree_01_C ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ T_BigTree_01_M ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ T_BigTree_01_R ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ T_BigTree_01_N ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ [ M_BigTree_01 ]
…/ …/ …/ …/Source [ Authoring source files go here. Not included in the game engine ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Modo, 3Ds Max, Maya, etc ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Zbrush ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Photoshop ]
…/Materials [ Global tile-able materials and their dependency files go here ]
…/ …/CobbleStone_01
…/ …/ …/ [ T_CobbleStone_01a_C ]
…/ …/ …/ [ T_CobbleStone_01a_M ]
…/ …/ …/ [ T_CobbleStone_01a_R ]
…/ …/ …/ [ T_CobbleStone_01a_N ]
…/ …/ …/ [ T_CobbleStone_01a_D ]
…/ …/ …/ [ M_CobbleStone_01a ]
…/ …/ …/ …/Source [ Authoring source files go here. Not included in the game engine ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Modo, 3Ds Max, Maya, etc ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Zbrush ]
…/ …/ …/ …/ …/ [ Photoshop ]
…/Shaders
…/Scenes or Maps
…/Sound
…/UI
…/Gameplay
…/Volumes