I’ve been looking for asset management tools and stumbled across this Project Overlord (not to be confused with the Overlord thing from Garage Games). Here is the link:
I downloaded the trial and I’m going to give it a spin, I was just wondering if anyone had already used it and had any comments?
Nope. But I’d love to hear your impressions. There isn’t very much info on their site.
Also, have you used any other project management/asset management suites before?
For project management tools, I’m a big fan of the Atlassian products. We have used Jira and Confluence at my day job for years, and they are awesome tools. When they came out with their Starter versions last year (10 user full functioning versions for $10/year each) I jumped on it and bought all 6 of the products they offered under that license, and have used 5 of them extensively. Quite possibly the best $60 I ever spent on software.
For asset management, I’ve been searching for at least 6 months and it’s a big swing and a miss. There are only a few products out there that even approach what I want to do, like Alien Brain, but they are mega expensive. There are some open source projects like ResourceSpace that address part of the problem, like cataloging assets, but don’t go the extra mile and add version control.
I’m less enthused about the Project Overlord thing than when I first came across it. It looks kind of promising, but like you said their site is pretty sparse. I downloaded their manual, which was a whopping 11 page PDF for both client and server usage and setup. Not exactly documentation heavy. :roll:
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and I am so close to just developing my own solution and selling it. I’ve actually gone so far as to do most of the initial design and some proof of concept coding. I’m just trying to decide if it’s worth taking time away from my game projects to do this - maybe if I get enough feedback from others that they would be interested, that would encourage me to set aside the “fun” stuff and focus on my asset management program for awhile.
What I am looking for, and have designed into my potential project, is really 2 main functional areas, which I think combine together really well.
Asset cataloging - I have purchased a lot of pre-built art assets, licensed in different ways. I want to be able to keep track of what I have and how it is licensed, so when I’m for example looking for that alien base building that would be just right for a project, I can search through what I already have and see how it is licensed.
Asset management and versioning - For active projects, I first and foremost want version control. Even if it’s only saving every copy of the binary files, I want a history of different versions. I think that just comes from my programming background, where I am so used to, even dependant on SVN.
Beyond simple versioning though, I want to have a tool that is specifically aware of all the different files and their relationships, so for example I immediately know which normal map goes with which mesh, etc.
The cool thing about this project is that I already have pretty extensive experience with JCR (Java Content Repository) from my day job. That is the Java spec for accessing content management systems, which I would use for the backend storage for my system. It already has all the dirty work done, like versioning, security, tracking relationships between nodes, etc. So most of the work would be in writing clients to access the repository. I’m thinking initially a web client, but also add plugins for specific tools like Unity, Lightwave, etc. so you could manage your assets from right inside the tools you use. Also, I could plug it into JIRA and other project management tools, so I don’t have to duplicate project management functionality, I can just integrate with whatever people are already using.
Well, that’s the overview of my plan. Now if they would just invent those 36 hour days…
You just described almost exactly what I’m looking for. Along with a robust tagging and search system of course. And easy to set up permissions for individuals as well as groups.
We’re actually looking into Jira. I’ve been searching for a while now, and so far it appears to be a good solution for us. We’re not so sure about Confluence as a Wiki though. We also have strict government regulations when it comes to our employees filling out their time cards with project codes. So we want something that is adaptable in that sense.
We are going to hear a pitch for GDI|Explorer. (http://www.cirquedigital.com/products/gdiexplorer/index.html) It uses Java, so my hope is that it could be somehow connected with Jira. I’ll know more about them in another week or two. Their site is pretty sparse also.
There’s also TACTIC (http://www.southpawtech.com/tactic.html) which might be worth a look, but is starting to get into the really pricey range.
I KNEW there had to be other people out there looking for the same thing I am. Thanks for the validation.
I might start playing around with my asset management idea some more this weekend. Heck, if it ends up taking more time than I have to give it, I could always open-source it and let other people add on to it. Then again, if I can make a marketable product out of it and offset somewhat the ridiculous amounts I have been spending on tools and artwork, that would be nice too! It wouldn’t be anything too expensive though. For example, I’m thinking for the cost of 1 asset server license, you could outfit a medium sized team with my app. 
So, how has the demo been going for you?
We had to eliminate it as a possibility because it is Windows only.
project overlord is a bit incorrectly named: project underground would be more accurate as thats where it belongs to. it has nice ideas but nothing is finished on the thing etc.
I personally would go with unfuddle or codebasehq in such a case as I see both of them being much more powerfull from my personal experience.
Atlassian products are fine too but I’ve only restricted experience with them as my personal project management is unfuddle driven and most others I work on either the two or some funny combination of multiple more or less coupled services
We may be looking for separate solutions for our Project Management and our Asset Management. We aren’t a traditional game company, so we have many project types and workflows that don’t fit in nicely to a lot of the suites that are often targeted at the game and film industry. But dang, the asset management of things like Alien Brain is pretty awesome.
I’m with you txmikester. I’m in the same boat with a bunch of models, which have all been (or can be) exported into FBX. A cataloging utility would be very helpful. I would also like a single point resource for scripts, prefabs, etc. (along with associated comments). It is a real hassle to open various projects (hoping I remember the correct one…) export the package and import. Very time consuming.
When I visualize such a tool, I think of Adobe Bridge and it’s usage across the Creative Suite.
Rather than designing the storage layer from scratch, you might consider building on top of a solution such as Amazon S3 and virtualize the entire experience. Offer an invite / email process such as DropBox, and away we go… There are a few Rails based projects already performing similar functions. I’m so there!