Naming Conventions

It is imperative to have a basic understanding of file organizing and naming that is intuitive enough for most content creators to readily access content for use. For the purposes of Sirikata Content development and utilizing the import pipeline we are sharing the method we utilize for current projects in an attempt to help guide future developers.

Mesh Naming

Mesh names within various 3D programs may be named in various fashions, for example in Maya you may rename an object "Object1" and Maya still maintains a sub meta-data called "Object1Shape". In any regard it is recommended to artists to control their naming to help prevent future confusion or conflicts.

In the following example each mesh is named finally within 3DS Max before exporting using the Ogre Exporter plugin. This way, the mesh name and the folder name of the exported mesh, materials, and so forth are contained within the appropriate folder of the name of the mesh. The method of naming is as follows:

1. Material (Material Object is made out of NOT 3D/2D material - glass)
2. Type (window or win)
3. Structure (skylight or skylgt)
4. Structure Type (if applicable - bubble)
5. Project (if applicable; e.g., Kunst Bornholm Museum)
6. Version # or Iteration

The example below is specifically the glass, and only the glass, used for the bubble type skylight of Bornholm's Kunst museum: glass_window_skylight_bubble_kunst01

The frame for the skylight would be named as follows: frame_skylight_bubble_01

It may not always be necessary to include the project name as this skylight can be reused, along with its glass component, within any project.

Texture Naming

The method for naming textures is similar to naming models. There are, however, key components that are required to maintain consistency between the various types of texture. They are abbreviated as the following:

• Color / Diffuse Map - COL
• Ambient Occlusion Map - AO
• Specular Map - SPC
• Tangent Normal Map - NRM
• Environment Reflection Map - ENV
• Glow Maps - GLO
• Bump Map - BMP
• Displacement Map – DISP

Here is an example set of textures created specifically for the skylight model mentioned before. You would want to emulate this name convention for your own texture files.

• glass_skylight_bubble01_COL
• glass_skylight_bubble01_SPC
• glass_skylight_bubble01_AO
• glass_skylight_bubble01_NRM

While some textures are made and UV mapped to a specific model, many textures in Sirikata are tileable and can be used on terrain or applicable models. Things such as grass, bricks, and concrete fall under the category of tileable textures. Listed below are examples of tileable textures:

1. tree_bark01_COL – (tileable bark texture)
2. grass_short01_COL – (short grass, could be any color, if a specific color needs to be handled then)
3. grass_shortbrown01_COL – (short brown grass, probably dead or dying grass)
4. rock_cliff_kunst01_COL – (a cliff texture specifically for the Bornholm Kunst Museum project)
5. stone_path_kunst01_COL (a stone path texture specifically for the Bornholm Kunst Museum project)