Naming Convention

Enforced from Week 1. Graded on every submission.

Side prefix

L_ and R_, uppercase. Center objects take no prefix.

L_shoulder_bnd
R_shoulder_bnd
spine_01_bnd

The prefix is what Maya's Mirror Joints search-and-replace uses, and what Mirror Skin
Weights falls back on when matching influences. It is also what the provided rename scripts
expect.

The suffix declares the role

This is the part that does real work.

Suffix	Role	In the bind?
`_bnd`	Deformation joint. Carries skin weights.	Yes
`_tip`	Terminal joint at the end of a chain — finger tips, toe tips. Exists to orient the last real joint and define its bone length.	No
`_plc` / `_grp`	Placement joint or group. Positions or attaches something — an eye pivot, a prop socket, the hand joint.	No
`_ctrl`	Control curve. The things an animator selects and keys.	—

Why this matters

In Week 5 you bind your mesh to a specific list of joints, not to the whole hierarchy. That
list is exactly your _bnd joints, and you select it by filtering on the suffix.

Every joint that shouldn't deform your mesh but ends up in the bind is:

an influence competing for the four-per-vertex budget you must stay under for game engines, and
a source of stray weights you will spend Week 6 hunting down.

A joint named wrong is a joint bound wrong.

Structure

[side_]  [bodyPart]  [_index]  _suffix

Side only when the object has a left and right counterpart
Index only when there is more than one of something
Suffix always

root_jnt
spine_01_bnd
spine_02_bnd
L_clavicle_bnd
L_shoulder_bnd
L_forearmTwist_01_bnd
L_hand_plc
L_index_01_bnd
L_index_tip
L_eye_grp
L_hand_ctrl
COG_ctrl

Groups and files

Asset groups are fixed and are not renamed:

MSR
├── Geometry
├── Joints
└── Controls

Zero groups take the control's name plus _grp:

L_hand_ctrl_grp
    └── L_hand_ctrl

Files:

char_<characterName>_rig_v01.ma
prop_<propName>_rig_v01.ma
Sequence_010_Shot_020.ma

Increment the version. Never overwrite a working file.

Common mistakes

Lowercase l_ instead of L_ — mirroring and scripts won't match
Naming tip joints _bnd, which puts eight useless influences into your hand bind
Renaming after mirroring instead of using the search-and-replace in the Mirror Joints options
Leaving Maya's default names — joint1, nurbsCircle3, group7
Inconsistent indexing — spine1, spine_02, spine03