Feature: 'Book Excerpt: Implementing a Digital Asset Management System'

One of today's main Gamasutra features is a selected excerpt from the book Implementing a Digital Asset Management System by Jens Jacobsen, Tilman Schlenker, and Lisa Edwards. In this part of the extract, the book discusses external scripts and the way they interface into any digital asset management system: "Having external scripts helps the user significantly, but it is even better if the applications being used can directly interface with the DAM system. Many companies that work with in-house formats create their own tools. This is especially true for game companies and large CG productions. Since these specialized applications are created by the users, they can change any aspect of it that they want to. If the DAM system you are using is open enough, these in-house tools can directly interface with the DAM, ridding the user of the need to work outside of them. As soon as the content creation tools are tightly integrated with the DAM, production can also benefit from the additional information that they can store in a DAM. If the DAM supports some kind of meta-information storage, the integrated applications can add information that it needs to “understand” the assets." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including a much longer extract from the title in question (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).