PXLproj · Project Manager for Maya

01

Overview

A production's folder structure is written down in a bible that nobody opens at the moment they need it. So folders get made by hand, named from memory, and by the fortieth asset the tree has three ways of saying the same thing. The structure was never the problem. Creating it by hand was.

Project Manager creates it for you, from the same convention file the QC tool checks against. It does three things nothing else in the suite does: it builds the folders, it sets the Maya project at the right department, and it names your file for you when you save, refusing anything the convention would reject.

02

The structure it makes

Nine folders at the root, and each one is a different kind of thing. Maya's own default directories are deliberately absent: the tool writes a workspace.mel that remaps every one of them into the department you are working in, so images/, renderData/ and sceneAssembly/ never litter the top of your production.

Inside a department is where the real work happens, and where published work, work in progress, and files in transit are kept apart:

Published versions get a folder. One per version. A single texture set is eight or more maps times however many UDIM tiles, so a flat department becomes unreadable within a week.

Initials mean work in progress. CHR_Rhea_tex_v003_csp.ma is yours; CHR_Rhea_tex_v003.ma is published and everyone downstream depends on it. Because _work/ never syncs, that distinction is a place as well as a name, and the two cannot disagree.

Exchange sits beside the department, not at the root. A file in a global inbox does not record which asset it belongs to, so you have to open it to find out. That is how an exchange folder turns into a dumping ground.

03

Your structure, not mine

None of the tree above is written into the tool. It is read from a portable JSON file, the same one PXLqc validates scenes against, so a studio brings its own structure rather than adopting mine. The folder shape lives in a folders block:

departmentApps is the knob most studios turn. A department with one application keeps _work/ flat, because the department already tells you which application it is. List more than one and each gets its own subfolder. It is also the only place your toolset is written down.

04

Requirements

• Maya 2025 or newer, Python 3.11 with PySide6.
• A convention JSON at formatVersion 1.1 or later. Earlier files still load, but they carry no folder structure, so only the naming half works.
• Write access to wherever you point the production root.

05

Availability

Project Manager is an internal alpha and is not part of the public PXLtools release yet. It is being used on a live production first, which is the only way to find out what a folder tool gets wrong. This page describes what it does today so the structure can be reviewed before it ships.

06

Creating a project

The window is a browser: Assets or Shots, then Department, then Task, then the versions of that task as cards or a list.

1. Project Setup. Opens on first run, and from the settings button after that. Three steps: load your convention JSON or pick a built-in (it reports the profile, the format version and anything the linter finds); choose the production root, with a dry run of the folder tree and every missing folder marked; and, optionally, link PXLflow. The choices are remembered, so you do this once.
2. Pick what you are working on in the columns. The + button creates a new asset or shot from the convention and shows the folder before it is made.
3. Right-click a task to Set Maya Project here or create its missing folders. Opening or saving a version does the same for you: it points Maya at the department and writes the workspace.mel that keeps Maya's own directories out of your root.
4. Save. Covered below.

Files from every application are listed with their official icon (Maya, Houdini, ZBrush, Painter and more) and can be filtered with the DCC chips. Opening and saving are Maya only in this version; in any other host the Save button stays visible, disabled, with the reason.

Nothing is created until you confirm, and confirming twice is safe: folders that already exist are left alone, so the same preview is how you add a department to an asset later.

07

Connecting to PXLflow

If your production is tracked in PXLflow, the Project Manager can read it directly instead of you retyping every asset name. Open PXLflow, sign in as yourself, then press Connect on the PXLflow Link step of Project Setup. PXLflow is optional: everything on this page except the statuses, My Tasks and downloads works without it.

There is nothing to configure and no second password. The tool talks to the PXLflow app already running on your machine and inherits the session you are signed into, so what you can see in the tool is exactly what you can see in PXLflow, and nothing more.

Once connected, the browser gains:

• Statuses and assignees on assets, shots, departments, tasks and versions, in PXLflow's own words. My Tasks shows just the work assigned to you.
• Where each version lives. Every card and row says Local (on this disk only), Server (in PXLflow, not downloaded) or Local + Server. Filter with All / Local / Server.
• Download. A server version downloads into the right folder of your production root, with progress and Cancel, and keeps its note and author.
• Create missing folders from PXLflow. In the settings menu. Compares the production against your disk and offers to create anything missing. It shows every path first, and it never deletes.

What it will not do

• It never writes back to PXLflow yet. Saving and publishing put files on disk. Publish to server and Mark task Pending Review are shown disabled until PXLflow's write routes arrive; updating a task's status is still done in PXLflow.
• It never deletes. An asset cancelled in PXLflow disappears from the list so you cannot start work that has been dropped, but its folders and files stay exactly where they are.
• It will not invent a folder. If PXLflow uses an asset type or a department your convention does not declare, those rows are listed under Not in your convention with the reason, and nothing is created for them. Add them to the convention, or leave them out.

If Connect does nothing

The button reports why in plain words: PXLflow is not running, nobody is signed in, the PXLflow version is too old, or your address is not on the production's team list. That last one still lets you use the picker; it only stops Only my tasks from knowing which tasks are yours.

08

Saving and publishing

You do not type a filename. Press Save New Version (Ctrl+S): the dialog shows the target folder, the resolved version, the filename it will write, a preview captured from the viewport, and a comment box. The version is resolved from the disk and, when connected, from what PXLflow has already published.

• Save Work writes into _work/ with your initials, at the next unused version. An optional suffix such as _wip goes after your initials.
• Publish writes into v###/ with no initials, keeping the version number of the work it came from, so v003_csp publishes as v003.

It is a choice rather than a guess, because publishing is a decision and the tool should never make it for you. Right-click a version and choose New version from this to carry an older one forward.

A name the convention would reject is refused, with the reason shown as a checklist row, and nothing is written. The number is reserved before Maya saves, so two artists saving at the same moment never get the same version, and a published version is never overwritten. Every version gets a small .pxl.json file beside it with the comment, author, application and scene settings, and a preview image, so the browser works offline.

09

Troubleshooting