smannsProductionTerms

Smann's Production Idioms

These are some terms I've come up with working in production to help talk about working in production. I guess you could also call them idioms.


  • "Splash the Outliner" 
    • refers to when you pass a file along the pipeline and when the next artist opens their file the outliner fills with nodes that should be under the top group from the previous artist
    •  generally in rigging when objects fall out of the top group and the animator now has objects all over the outliner 
    • Tony Tabtong came up with this term.
  • "Fire Swamp"
    • tools , practices, pipelines that are circumvented due to them not working exactly as they should. So artists learn the quirks to survive
    • Originated from Princess Bride and it's three primary dangers. Fire Spurts, lighting sand, and R.O.U.Ses   but, once they figure out how to avoid these pitfalls, they can live there comfortably forever
    • Generally an artists needs to learn the secrets of the fire swamp in order to get their jobs done, and out of work on time, and once you do, you can happily live there forever. 
    • signs of fire swamps are when users say things like "Oh, I never use that" , " I have no idea what that does" , "I don't use that, so I just do this instead" , " I don't trust that thing" 
    • bad fireswamps can lead to broken pipelines, and updates not getting pushed thru correctly, and most often poor communication 
  • "mouse trap"
    • name given to a tool or process that you've developed that another artists uses in a way you never intended, or imagined and it fails.Leading to the artist being wary and then never trusting that tool ever again. 
    • generally finds weaknesses in your UX or Functions and should be looked at as a way to improve
    • can be extremely frustrating and hard to bounce back from and get artists to trust this tool in the future
    • When designing a tool I try and make it foolproof and obvious to use
    • Originated from the saying "build a better mouse trap and I'll find you a smarter mouse" which is taken from "build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door"
        • basically saying you have improved upon an original idea 
          • which is why you write the tool, but then get so sad when it backfires 
  • "Velocerapting"
    • when you get a new tool, app, upgrade, and try every possible option and command in it to find out How it works.. and if things are broken
    • I often velocerapt new Maya versions before putting them into production
    • should def do this to your own tools and ux to avoid "mouse traps" 
    • Originated from the first ( original) "Jurassic park", a comment is made about how the Veloceraptors are really smart. "That's right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weeknesses, scientifically. They remember."  
















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