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Naming Conventions


Naming conventions are a vital part of a virtual production project. They let the end user know useful information about the file they are opening, show relationships between different assets, empower scripts to automate parts of our workflow, and streamline the handoff procedure between different departments.

In UE4 our naming convention has the following general properties:

  • all sections of a name are done in camelCase with no spaces, underscores or special characters.

  • If a number needs to be added, use the format name0X to allow for multiple variations to be generated later

  • A general format of  {type}_{package/envName}_{assetName}_{extraInfo}

  • The exact placement of the underscores is important for asset tracking and scripts

  • below are detailed naming conventions guides for each file type

Levels

Levels follow the general format of: {Level Type}_{levelName}_{extraInfo}_v{version number, 0XX}_suffix

Where the version level of the Master level and all sub levels are the same and are all contained in a folder with the name of the master level. See the folder structure page for further details.

You can have as many sub levels in a scene as you want (I have used upwards of 60). They are useful for organization as you can quickly toggle visibility on all objects in a sub level. It also means one person can check out the geo sublevel while someone else has the lighting sub level checked out and both of their work will be saved.

Materials

Materials follow the general format of: {MaterialType}_{package/envName}_{materialName}

"materials" applied to objects in a UE4 scene should exclusively use material instances. A set of parent/master materials should be developed for the project and locked from being edited.

Textures

Textures follow the general format of: TX_{package/envName}_{materialName}_{freewrite}_{Suffixcode}  for example TX_CC0_metal06_pillarVar_col is a base color texture from cc0textures.com called metal 06, with a note by its creator that it was a variation made for a pillar.

Textures must be power of 2. Resolutions must be made of 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192. Rectangular textures are fine so long as they are 1024*2048 or similar

Common Texture/Material Package Names

Above you will find a table of some common package names for textures and materials. For more info, check out this document.


Other Texture Types:

LUT textures are a separate convention: LUT_{package/envName}_{LUTname}_{freewrite}

Thumbnails: Thumb_{package/envName}_{freewrite}