Asset manager recommendations

Pipelines
#1

Hi. I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have an asset manager to categorize and tag models and see thumbnail of them.
I’m not sure if version control is important or how it really is implemented in a manager like this. I remember when I worked at a studio we didn’t have any asset manager like this. Only explorer, but we had a script that would add your user initials at the end of the file being saved so you’d know who worked on what last.

I was wondering what you all use and if there’s any you’d recommend.

Here are two examples and I’m sure there are plenty more. And I suppose most studios use in house proprietary software for this.
https://www.kraken3d.com/

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#2

So it says free, but it looks like we have to sign up for some account to try it? Any potential for open sourcing? Is there an SDK so it can be integrated into existing pipelines?

Also I’m seeing Connection Server? Is this a standalone tool? Is the server a separate service?

Also as for version control, I can say with our internal asset manager that version control integration is 100% super ultra important.

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#3

Yeah, I haven’t looked into it yet. Just wanted to see what you all here recommended before. I have no idea about sdk:s in these cases or any details. So I suppose for my purposes I could probably go with anything really.

#4

Ha!, my bad.

I thought you were posting that because it was something you were involved with.

So I’m coming at this from a games context mind you. But I think most studios will use which one is built into their engine. Or they’ll have a standalone browser that their editor/tools can interface with.

Depending on how you manage assets, you’ll want hooks into that process, if you happen to put everything in source control, the browser needs to be able to talk to it. If instead you store everything on some file server and using a database to track assets and dependencies it needs to be able hook into the database.

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#5

Aha, oh. Sorry! Could have been more precise.
And yes, I mean I just need something to better organize and import assets. Not really working in a studio environment.

#6

Hey,

so considering it’s only you, you might even get away by self-enforcing a good naming convention and directory structure;

that said, have a look at these Open Source options (the initial set-up might be hard-long, compared to the options you linked) - https://github.com/cgwire/awesome-cg-vfx-pipeline#asset-managers

Cheers!

3 Likes
#7

Thank you. I will investigate further. Just thought this was something most people used.

#8

For home personal stuff, I’ve never even thought about it, but I tend to follow worst practices when not at work.

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#9

I’ve looked at this one in the past. When last I checked it seemed to be on a trajectory similar to Shotgun, but a few years behind

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#10

Hi guys,

I’ve actually looked into this recently as we are moving to a better (free) solution for our team.
We use a lot of assets for visualisation and we start using Connecter and at the moment we are quite happy with it. It has potential and works well for a small/mid-size team. Until now had very good feedback from the artists.
In your specific case, you will be absolutely fine with it. You can hook up to 5 people if you have it connected to your own assets server.

BTW, I’m not part of the Connecter team :slight_smile:
Let me know if you need help setting it up!

I’ve tried TACTIC a while back, but found it buggy to run. Perhaps it was my inexperience, but didn’t feel reliable to me.
Would be great to hear from someone with a positive note about it! :slight_smile:

Cheers and good luck!

#11

Ah, thank you. Open Source is always cool.

#12

Hehe. Yeah. I’ve just been gathering so many files and models by now, it would serve good to have them organised better.

#13

Hi, and thank you.
I think I’ll try it out. I definitely think it has everything I would look for and more.

#14

We use an inhouse tool for asset management:

2 Likes
#15

No worries!

Most important like everyone above is saying, good naming and organization practices will make your life a lot easier and perhaps help scale in the future. :slight_smile:

#16

That’s really cool!
Cheers for sharing!