Inspired by a thread on Polycount about being an organised artist, I decided to post my tips there and here.

If you have any other suggestions on how I could become more organized and efficient in producing cg work, I would be much obliged.

Some general art tips:

• I use a folder of shortcuts (as posted here before): Windows shortcuts speed up your workflow
• At work I do a lot of rigging/skinning. I’m always dropping animations onto skeletons to test them, and by default 3dsmax looks in it’s own Animation folder. Therefore in that folder I have a shortcut to our exported animation folder on the network – this stops me browsing for it each time.
• I use Alienbrain a lot to prevent me having multiple versions of a file lying around with slightly different names.
• In Photoshop, if I’m using only a few layers, like using a PSD file simply as a container to store a diffuse, spec and normal map for the same object, I’ll have empty layers between each of those, named SPACER and turned off. It helps me separate each section, and prevents me accidentally collapsing them onto each other.
• With a busy PSD, I’ll make use of folders – example: if I have several diffuse textures for the same object with dirt layers, then each of those gets its own folder, jumper1, jumper2. Each of those has sub folders dirt, rips etc.
• Map your photshop filters to hotkeys! FILTERS?!!!!YUCK!!!!11. No, this is really clever. Alt-F5 is Unsharp mask, Alt-F6 is Gaussian Blur, Alt-F7 is Highpass (a VITAL filter)
• Never name a file temp.xxx if you plan on keeping it.
• Likewise, NEVER name a file latest.xxx

A few other computer workflow tips:

• Sort your internet bookmarks into folders, such as Music, Money, Art, Games. Sort these with subfolders where applicable.
• Delete emails as you get them/deal with them, or move them to a folder. At home I usually have 0 emails in my inbox – they are either deleted or stored in folders such as Friends, Holiday, Registration Information. If you do need to find an email later, use your packages SEARCH function.
• Use an RSS reader to get your dose of news. I prefer to use Google Reader, I used to use bloglines. A web based reader allows me to read the same feeds at home or work. I’m subscribed to BBC news, Eurogamer, Lifehacker, Warren Ellis, lots of friends sites, some Polycounters sites, Boing Boing, Penny arcade etc. Like everything else, I’ve organised these into sections – Computing, Art, Friends, Music, News etc.
• Use your feed reader to subscribe to digital photograpy technique sites – thats where you pick up invaluable tips such as colouring grayscale images with duotones and tritone. I learned the orton effect there, which is superb for concept art. I learned that you often get a better sharpen with less artifacts if you do it in LAB mode…

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 am and is filed under Art, Games Industry, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.