Project Management Tool: Getting My Ideas

 For the beginning of my project management tool, I wanted to plan it out.  Planning out how a tool works and the design always helps me visualize how my tools are going to work and what my end goal is.  What I considered for my project management tool is, data structure, naming conventions, and the UI of my tool.  Using illustrator I created a simple data structure with the Facility folder on the top level and my project folder being a on a lower level of my project management tool.  To make it easy to understand I color coded my data structure.  

Project Management Tool: Data Structure

Creating a data structure has made me realize that there's a lot of thought that goes into making sure that everything is clean and organized.  There's also a lot of different departments that need to be thought of.  Aside from creating an organized data structure, I also created some naming conventions.  My tool needs to consider the way that assets move from the art depot to the game depot.  The art depot has a slightly different naming convention than the game depot because of the way Unreal Engine names it assets.

Project Management Tool: Naming Conventions

While this is a lot of naming conventions, there are still some naming conventions that need to be considered such as the animation reference files.  Naming conventions are an incredibly important part of the organization of a project as well as a make or break because some programs such as Maya will break if a naming convention is incorrect.  With programs such as Maya in mind, I go into the design of my interfaces.  For my interface design I chose a window with two tabs.  One tab that works on creating projects and one tab that works with creating assets.  Switching between the two tabs should be easy and simple and both interfaces should be clear to understand. When you first open the tool you should be on the Project Manager tab that will allow you to create new projects, show you existing projects, rename projects and delete projects.

Project Management Tool: Project Manager UI Design Idea 

While the project manager tab creates projects easily, the asset manager tab works specifically with creating specific types of files such as maya, ZBrush, houdini, photoshop, and illustrator.  This window also considers if the asset is an animation, model, or rig.  Showing the user current projects the user is able to rename an asset, delete an asset, and cancel.

Project Management Tool: Asset Manager UI Design Idea