GDC 2025 Session Viewer
Moving Files and Managing Assets at Naughty Dog
Ezra Goss (Senior Technical Artist, Naughty Dog)
Location: Room 2005, West Hall
Date: Thursday, March 20
Time: 1:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Visual Arts
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: Intermediate
File organization is an important part of every collaborative endeavor. In game development, file hierarchies need to change throughout production as experiments illuminate new goals and eliminate old ones. The ability to move, delete, and rename files without unpredictably breaking your game build is a key part of this process as the project scales in both manpower and content. However, we often have highly interconnected networks of files that reference other files… which reference other files… and so on. Reorganizing files in this context is not trivial and when done manually can cost significant time to do safely.
This talk discusses how Naughty Dog approaches the problem of moving and renaming source files. Our solution underscores our studio’s value of experimentation throughout production and lays the foundation for a set of new asset management features that our TDs can use in their tools.
Takeaway
Attendees will leave this session feeling like they understand what problems happen when heavily referenced files are moved or renamed. They should understand why solving this problem helps promote both artistic and technical experimentation throughout production and why that helps Naughty Dog make the caliber of games that we make.
Intended Audience
Our intended audience is anyone looking to better understand authoring pipelines at scale. Technical artists who are actively working through this problem will benefit the most but any artists, tool programmers, or studio leaders who want to better understand the relationship between file management and production goals will get something out of this talk.