global

In the global section you can define settings that relate to all the libraries that are currently loaded.

Default values

First let’s have a look what default config value that you can set:

main path pattern

This is the part where you define your naming convention and file path structure.

This is where you set the naming convention and file structure on disk.
You need to define the main path patterns so the software knows where to store the elements file data. These two path patterns are the most important path patterns that the transcoding template will use.

There are two types of path patterns:

Single files - movie files or single textures files without frame count

/some/path/to/element.mov
/some/path/to/element.exr
/some/path/to/element_v01.exr

Sequence files - renderings or sequence with frame counter

/some/path/to/element.1001.exr
/some/path/to/element_1001.exr

Which path pattern is used is depending on the output format and the transcoding templates setting for each library. In transcoding template you can set this with the option: ‚Type of output file‘.

Example when the sequence file pattern is used:
Cory process of a movie file ( my-movie-file.mov > fire_000023.mov )

Example when the sequence file pattern is used:
For a movie file (source file is a single file) that will be transcoded to a frame sequence with frame counter ( my-movie-file.mov > fire_000023.1001.exr )

Use '#' for the frame counter. The default frame count padding is 4.

path pattern

You can create so called path pattern. A pattern is assembled by placeholder values. These values get resolved into the actual value on ingest/render time.

The reason is that we don’t know some values at this time, because they are dependent on the element that you want to ingest. For example the width and height is depending on the source item.

Path patterns can assembled out of any number of other path patterns. These will get resolved as much as they can. Finally all values will get resolved into actual values.

This might look a little bit weird at the beginning, but this system gives you the full control for how to assemble your naming convention. You will see the benefit of it in a second.

So lets look at an example:

We have an image of a flame with the resolution of width 1920 and the height 1080.
/some/path/to/flame.jpg

We create a pattern for the resolution folder as followed:
resolution_pattern <width>x<height>

If we now ingest the element the pattern gets resolved to 1920x1080

<width> is a tag. Pattern Tags are defined by the < (greater than) and > (less than) characters.
Everything that is not surrounded by <> are manually set characters and will not get resolved.

Now let’s take it a step further.

We can define custom path values in the path values section. These values get included in the values that can get resolved.

Lets create a path value:
colorspace linear

This new pattern …
resolution_pattern abc_<width>x<height>_<colorspace>

gets resolved to…
abc_1920x1080_linear

<colorspace> is a custom pattern tag. This will look at the path values ‚colorspace' and use that value ‚linear‘.

In the section for a library and the transcoding template you can overwrite these path patterns and path values.

If we create a library transcoding template that creates a thumbnail preview for our elements, we can overwrite the path value <colorspace> by another value. For example: srgb
The path pattern for this transcoding template gets now resolved to:
abc_1920x1080_srgb

By using the combination of patterns and predefined values and custom path values you should be able to build any naming convention and file structure you like.

Another example for the element folder name:

Lets create an path pattern for the folder of the element.

element_name <category.base.name>_<element.number>

In the ingest view we decide that the category of the element is ‚flame‘.
The base (top parent) category of flame is fire. Because a flame is a type of fire.

This means that
category.name -> flame (which be do not use here)
and
category.base.name -> fire

Why should we use the base category?

We want our library to be sustainable and be as static as possible for many years.
Once we ingest an element it should not move or be renamed.
If we want to open up a project file from years ago all the media files should be found.

Thats why you should decided to store the elements in the base category folder

	overwrite pattern

values

Path values are used to resolve the values of the path patterns.

The predefined values are depending on the element that will be ingested.
For example the first and last frame.

Custom values are the values that you can define.
Example:
Root /path/to/server

This means the custom pattern values have to exist in the path values section.
If something can not be resolved, because values are not defined, the ingest or rendering of proxies will fail and you will see an error message.

	predefined values
	custom values
	
	overwrite values