Folder Structure: the Ramses Tree
One of Ramses’ goals is to manage all your files and folders; sometimes, you may still need to manually add, remove, or edit files and folders through your file explorer, in which case you should always try to respect the Ramses Tree described here.
This document will also help you find your files should Ramses be unavailable for some reason.
Introduction
All folders inside the Ramses Tree follow the Ramses Naming Scheme.
The folders used by Ramses can be located either locally or on remote computers and servers. The supported protocols (SMB, FTP…) may vary depending on the platform (read below for more information).
Ramses includes a system of alternative trees, which means you can use different paths to folders used by Ramses, and that it is compatible with virtually all syncing applications (Dropbox, Syncthing, Synology…), wether they are automatic or manual (like backup tools).
If a specific file or folder is not found in the main tree, Ramses will automatically look for it in the alternative trees and try to sync (i.e. copy in the main tree) them.
Tip
For best performance, it is advised to work with local files, and use remote locations only as alternative trees; in conjunction with a syncing tool like Syncthing or the Synology Drive application for example, it is both easy, safe and powerful to keep a shared copy of the projects while working locally.
Remote files on Windows
Ramses should be able to access files located on remote locations using the Samba (SMB) protocol, using standard URL starting with \\server-name.
Another way to access remote locations, which enables FTP and other protocols support, is to use Windows Network Drives to mount the remote locations. To make it easy to deploy Ramses on several devices, they should all use the same drive letter.
Remote files on Unix-like Systems (Linux, Mac OS)
The quickest and easiest way to use Ramses on remote folders on Unix-like systems is to automatically mount the remote locations in a specific folder. This can work for a lot of different protocols (Samba, FTP(s), SFTP, NFS…)
The Main Ramses Folder
The easiest way to use Ramses to manage all your projects is to define a root folder for all Ramses projects, where Ramses will create a subfolder for each project.
This Ramses folder is also used to store user specific files, some configuration files, etc.
Nevertheless, you can always choose another folder to store a specific project, outside of the Ramses Folder.
┌ Ramses Folder
│
├─── Config # Configuration files
│
├─┬─ Projects # All projects
│ ├─── Project01 # First project
│ ├─── Project02 # Second project
│ └─── ...
│
└─┬─ Users # User files
├─┬─ User01 # Files for a single user
│ └─── Config # Configuration files for this user
├─┬─ User02
│ └─── Config
└─── ...
Hint
When using the Ramses Client, project folders can be located anywhere outside the Ramses Folder, it is not mandatory to keep them grouped together there.
The Project Folder
These are the contents of a Project folder:
┌ PROJECTID # Root
├─── 00-ADMIN # Project administration
├─── 01-PRE-PROD # Pre-production steps common files
├─── 02-PROD # Production steps common files
├─── 03-POST-PROD # Post-production steps common files
├─── 04-ASSETS # All the Assets
├─── 05-SHOTS # All the Shots
└─── 06-EXPORT # Media files
The root folder of a project only contains other folders and no files.
The subfolders in the root folder are numbered to help sorting them and quickly find them.
Here is an example of a typical project tree, without showing the details in the working directories nor any file.
┌ PROJECTID # Root
│
├─── 00-ADMIN
│
├─┬─ 01-PRE-PROD
│ ├─── PROJECTID_G_SCRIPT # Pre production step
│ └─── PROJECTID_G_STORYBOARD
│
├─┬─ 02-PROD
│ ├─┬─ PROJECTID_G_MOD # Common files for the mod step
│ │ └─── Templates # Template files for the mod step
│ └─┬─ PROJECTID_G_RIG # Common files for the rig step
│ └─── Templates # Template files for the rig step
│
├─┬─ 03-POST-PROD
│ └─── PROJECTID_G_EDIT # Post production step
│
├─┬─ 04-ASSETS
│ ├─┬─ Characters # A Group of Assets
│ │ ├─┬─ PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN # An Asset
│ │ │ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_DESIGN # An asset production step
│ │ │ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD
│ │ │ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_RIG
│ │ │ └─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_TEX
│ │ └─── PROJECTID_A_ISOLDE # An Asset
│ ├─── Props # A Group of Assets
│ └─── Sets # A Group of Assets
│
├─┬─ 05-SHOTS
│ ├─┬─ PROJECTID_S_01-001 # A Shot
│ │ ├─── PROJECTID_S_01-001_ANIM # A shot production step
│ │ ├─── PROJECTID_S_01-001_LIGHT
│ │ └─── PROJECTID_S_01-001_COMP
│ ├─── PROJECTID_S_01-002 # A Shot
│ ├─── PROJECTID_S_01-003 # A Shot
│ └─── PROJECTID_S_02-001 # A Shot
│
└─── 06-EXPORT
A working folder
A folder containing working files is always organised the same way.
Here is an example for the modelling step of the asset called Tristan.
┌ PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD # The working folder, subfolder of the asset folder.
│
├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.blend # The main file for modelling Tristan (on Blender)
├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_Sculpt.blend # Another resource
│
├─┬─ _versions # The versionning folder, handled by Ramses.
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_wip001.blend # A WIP version
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_wip002.blend
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_chk003.blend # The version which has to be reviewed
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_ok004.blend # The validated version
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_pub005.blend # The version which has been published
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_Sculpt_v001.blend # The first version of a resource
│ └─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_Sculpt_v002.blend # The second version of a resource
│
├─┬─ _published
│ ├─┬─ 001_WIP # The first published version
│ │ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.blend # The working file as it was when publishing
│ │ └─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.abc # The published export (an *Alembic* file)
│ │
│ ├─┬─ 004_OK # The 4th version, which was published as ok
│ │ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.blend # The working file as it was when publishing
│ │ └─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.abc # The published export (an *Alembic* file)
│ │
│ └─┬─ Sculpt_002_OK # The 2nd version of the "Sculpt" resource, which was published as ok
│ ├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_Sculpt.blend # The working file as it was when publishing
│ └─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD_Sculpt.abc # The published export (an *Alembic* file)
|
└─┬─ _preview
├─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.jpg # A file for previewing the modelling
└─── PROJECTID_A_TRISTAN_MOD.mp4 # A file for previewing the modelling
The _versions subfolder contains the versionning and history of the work.
The _published subfolder contains the published and exported files to be used by other steps.
The _preview subfolder contains the files for previewing the current work, like videos or images. These files may be used by Ramses to generate thumbnails. Ramses is also able to list, preview, and play these files (if their format is standard and supported).
Warning
The working file and published files do not include the version in their names, and the versionning and history are hidden in a _versions subfolder. This way, there can be no mistake about what file to open or import.
Note
Only Ramses should access the _versions subfolder and it should not be needed for the user to manipulate these files. Both the Ramses Client and Ramses Add-ons have a restore feature to retrieve previous versions.
Tip
When backuping a project, only the files in the published subfolder may be kept.
Template folders
Ramses can use template files to create new working files. You can use this feature with any application, even if there’s no Ramses Add-on available for it (yet).
The template files must be located in each step’s Templates subfolder. As you can have multiple templates for a single step, each template must be located in its own subfolder, which itself must respect the working folder structure.
Here is an example of a step folder and its templates:
┌ PROJECTID # Root
└─┬─ 02-PROD
└─┬─ PROJECTID_G_MOD # Common files for the MOD step
└─┬─ Templates # Template files for the mod step
├─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template # A template
└─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Other # Another template
A template folder should be organized the same way as any working folder . Typically, a template folder will look like this:
┌ PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template # The working folder for the template named "Template"
│
├─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template.blend # The main template file
│
├─┬─ _versions # The versionning folder
│ ├─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template_wip001.blend
│ ├─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template_wip002.blend
│ └─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template_ok003.blend
│
└─┬─ _published
├─┬─ 001_WIP # The first published version
│ └─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template.blend # The working file as it was when publishing
│
└─┬─ 003_OK # The 3rd version, which was published as ok
└─── PROJECTID_G_MOD_Template.blend # The working file as it was when publishing
Note
A template working folder may contain different resources, but even if they’re published, Ramses will use only the main resource to create new files from templates and ignore other resources.
Ramses special files and folders
Ramses will also store some special files and folders it needs in the Ramses Tree.
_trash Folder
When Ramses needs to remove a file, it will automatically be moved in a _trash subfolder. If a file with the same name already exists in this _trash subfolder, it will be moved in the system trash so it’s not overwritten.
_ramses_data.json File
Ramses may create a file named _ramses_data.json in any folder. This file is used to store some meta-data associated with the other files in the same folder. This file should stay small, and it should never be manually removed.
*.ini Files
Ramses stores its settings in files with the .ini extension. These are standard text files, and should remain only in folders named Config. If these files (or the Config folders) are removed, this re-initializes the corresponding settings in Ramses.