Workflow - Little Details/ AKA Boring

I have found it a challenge to work on the colossus - It is quite hard as there are a lot of detailed parts, which are to be animated and tested on the fly.  It is most difficult for rigging - I am adding and changing elements as I am going and the rigging envelopes automatically know how to pull the vertices.

Here are examples of object management - Using instances, groups and references to help the workflow

Using groups and references/instances I can minimize the amount of reworking I have to do.  For the example above I can attach elements into my "Master objects", which are then updated in each instance.  By using groups I can combine objects, and by making reference groups I can add modifiers such as skinning/envelopes.

Outliner & Schematic
Outliner is a Script I have come to love!  It is basically an improved manage layers tool.  The Schematic View is also very powerful and useful - especially with complicated scenes and rigging.  At the moment I am not too concerned about having a lot of hidden objects - This does ruin the schematic view but as is low poly does not impact saving times or performance. - If I was baking in 3DS Max it would be awefully slow -especially for large & detailed scenes.

Heres my CAT rig & the schematic view of the bones

The Zbrush problem
Working with complicated scenes and zbrush can hurt - Zbrush seems to reset the scale and xform on a whim.  The GoZ plugin seems to always break, and thus I no longer use it.  I have been exporting as OBJs from 3DS Max and splitting the object in Zbrush if needed.  There is a function in the deformation sub-pallette in Zbrush called "unify"  which resets an object to a set scale to function best in Zbrush.  I have been using this and baking within Zbrush, which allows you to do multiple objects if you desire and is no need to "explode" the objects to bake.  I have had a twiddle with "RTT" (render to texture) and "Tex Tools" Max scripts.  These are actually pretty good and have decent functionality and some tools which are otherwise unavailable.  It is after experimenting with these and other techniques that I have come to end up with my current process.  I think with a little more practice I can nail some great workflows and throw out a lot of work quickly & with more ease/confidence.

Folder Layout and naming format.
Yep - Very boring but important for workflow again.
At the top of my folder I have many 3DS Max files and other folders.  These are layed out to simplify whatever plugins/scripts I am using to export.  For example my Texture folder contains PSDs & the related TARGAs - This is as I use a script so I can export maps there at a single button press.  I have an "FBX" folder at the top also because I can export multiple objects from 3DS Max ready for UDK at a click.

I think there are a hundred or so objects and these can get lost easily so we need proper naming.  For this I would like to be using 3DS file names as pre-fixes.  For example any colossus object will come from a file called "Colossus", then have a more descriptive name to follow.  I may also use another descriptove word after to help define the object further if are others similar.  IE cave_wall_corner_000.  I have found that numbers are not needed unless repeating within 3DS max (game engines auto assign unique identifiers/numbers as you repeat objects)

In general it is a good idea to name the objects properly from the get-go.  If I name something as I want it to appear in the finality, & keep its file-path, then I can very-very easily update it within the game engine at a single click.  From working in offices I can see file management and naming could be very important, as well as a place where people get lazy/make mistakes and problems arise.