Folder organization

Greetings!

I've come across two different approaches to organizing assets.

The first is to have folders first separating assets into their types, and then into various 'topics'.
The other, is that in reverse: 'topics' are separated, and then asset types.

For example:

Type 1:
Materials/Terrain/blah
Scripts/Combat/HealthBar.cs
Scripts/Combat/etc.
Scripts/WorldGeneration/PerlinNoise.cs
Textures/Combat/HealthBar.png

Type 2:
Combat/Scripts/HealthBar.cs
Combat/Scripts/etc.
Combat/Textures/HealthBar.cs
Terrain/Materials/blah
WorldGeneration/Scripts/PerlinNoise.cs



Do you follow one of these methods? Or do you have a completely different approach? I quite interested in hearing how others take on the task of managing their assets.

 

its a tricky one...
sometimes type 1 doesnt really work well,
if you have a model, you want to have all of its assets in one place, you dont want to find all of them in seperate places. they all are related to one thing.

but, for scripts, i use type 1 because If i want to access a script, i know i will find it inside Scripts folder.
using type 2, there is no way of knowing if a folder called "Items" has a script in it..

so there are some exceptions to the rule, id be using both, but will plan on how to decide where to put each asset before i begin working.

 

It's an interesting question, they both have their advantages.

Currently, I use Type 1, because I've found that I more often need to perform an operation on all assets of a given type than all assets from a given section of the game. Not to mention that some assets are going to span across multiple parts of the game anyway.

 

I use Type 1. Most of the times I find myself looking for "that script" or for "that texture" rather than for "that enemy" or for "that object". I'm probably following the flow of how I think, for example "I need to find the script of the player that..." => Script -> Player => Script/Player/MyScript.cs.

This way might also be better when working in a team, so artists will just have to deal with the Textures folder, while programmers with the Scripts folder. If you are working solo, then it's probably about personal preference.

 

Where do you guys store prefabs? Do you have a separate folder for prefabs on the same level as scripts/materials/models?