What's the best way to share map files with my team? I'm considering DropBox but I want to know if there's any better method. What do you guys use to share your files with your teams?
Dropbox for sure. It's a great and very easy way to share the map files. Also provides a convenient backup (It doesn't necessarily have to be dropbox, it could be box.net or google drive, I just prefer dropbox).
Google Docs- Gdocs is a very easy way to quickly throw down a bunch of ideas and collaborate in real time (As in, you can all view and edit the documents simultaneously). Spreadsheets are also useful for creating to-do lists and other charts you might need.
I prefer to have a smaller team, rather than a million people doing a little bit of everything
Skype, or some other program that lets you communicate quickly and easily
Thanks for the input, guys. The team is of 3 people and we really haven't figured out exactly what our roles are going to be. I started the project and mostly worked on triggers so far, but the other two are also proficient in programming (one of them even more so than me). We're all friends in real life and have excellent communication, if that matters in choosing the right software.
What about a private forum where we can upload the map file? Would that work better than Dropbox?
You guys were probably not spending the entirety or majority of your day working on the project. If you are working on a serious project that does require that much time each day, you can't possibly have room for everybody to work 24/7. That said, you're probably right about things working with more people.
I, personally, very much dislike sharing triggering with anybody. I'd rather just do everything myself, because that way I understand the way things work, which action defs run what, the way the main engine is set up, etc... Though data editing is definitely different, since it tends to have more self-contained work. As in, ability # 1 is unlikely to share any data with ability #2.
That said, you're probably right that having more mappers can speed up workflow, at least in some situations.
We actually provide free team forums here on mapster. Just click the team button up at the top of the page, and set up a team. You'll basically get your own forum here on mapster (which you can make private to just the team, if you want). That said, I personally prefer dropbox for file sharing because it's so quick and easy. Unless you have a big team, it's not always important to set up an entire forum.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Zelda already said pretty much everything, but I'd like to clarify why DropBox is better than using PMs to share files. Mostly, it's faster. For a PM, you need to first get to your PM, then you need to create a new PM, and then attach your map file to it. For Dropbox, you just copy paste the map file into the dropbox folder and you're done. Also, if you're going with DropBox, I recommend one of you makes an account first and then gets the referral bonus from the other two. (500MB storage space per person)
Do you generally work by sending the map file itself back in forth? Is there any way for two people to work on different parts of the map, and then merge them together? Or is it possible; but just too much bother to be worth it?
I've always been interested about how teams work on maps together as well; but I always got the impression they usually didn't just send the entire map file back and forth in emails. I suppose everybody does it a different way.
@TheSkunk2: Go Well, data is just xml which can be directly pasted in to the editor and triggers can also be written in galaxy in any text editor or just export the triggers as library. It's also possible to save a map as a component file. So I suppose it's not that hard to implement other people's stuff. But I've never worked on a team.
It is possible to merge maps like exaken said (I think terrain is the only problematic part. I once tried to copy terrain over and got screwed up pathing that made no sense), but for example Zelda and I are in different time zones, we almost never have the chance to work on the map at the same time, so it's easier to just put the map in dropbox for us.
It is possible to merge stuff from multiple maps, but it gets complicated, if parts of the map are the same for both, or parts get updated individually, while other map versions still hold older versions of the data or triggers. If 2 completely independend systems, be it data or triggers need to be merged in one map, its as easy as copy&pasting a bunch of text. If you need to decide, what to keep and what to replace, it becomes complicated and prone to errors.
You can easily merge maps if they are seperate modules (ex. data & terrain). You can either copy/paste all of the stuff from one map to another, or you can save your maps as .sc2component, and then copy/paste the files that you need from the folder. This technique can copy all of your data and terrain at once.
You can save as a sc2components file and merge things that way, although you need to take care not to mess things up (this can go poorly for you if done wrong). This creates a folder with all the different pieces of your map, which you can then modify/copy/paste. Once you're done, you can open the main components file in the editor and save it as a normal map again. Me and TheAlmaity are both in nearly opposite time zones though, so we can't work on the map at the same time anyways (as one of us would be asleep while the other is awake).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Ive always been curious about teams. I dont work in teams myself as i like to have control over and dictate everything about my map. In a team of a few players how do you decide what map to make or what to do where, do you have a team leader or something who decides all that and everyone else takes orders from him? Also i assume you work on the map at separate times or something.
That highly depends on the team. So no real solid straight answer I'm afraid. I can see if it is 2 guys discussing what they want to do it could be more of a partnership, or even 3 guys, maybe if they know each other IRL. As the team gets larger though, or if one guy is doing primarily most the work, need for an actual leader increases. Otherwise nothing will get done as you'll be awaiting delayed communication among the team council on every frickin detail. Only issue with this is most people want to make their own mapping dream a reality, not devote all their free time to help someone else.
What about a private forum where we can upload the map file? Would that work better than Dropbox?
On past small game and web design projects I've used primarily Dropbox and Basecamp.
I would definitly recommend using dropbox for storage, simply for the face that you can work directly in the folder and have it updated for everyone on the project.The dropbox website keeps previous versions, so you have a backup if you accendently delete or screw up a file.
You should also have a Project management or CRM as far as organizing.
Basecamp is good, you can assign tasks and deadlines, and post messages like a private forum. The downside for this is that it costs 20$ a month. I've tried other CRM and project management sites like Zoho but they seem kinda clunky.
Zelda said it. On the subject of file sharing: there's only two things better than Dropbox. The first is buying a Seedbox, which is basically a little piece of software (or hardware even, I think) that does exactly the same as Dropbox except faster. Buying one of these will cost you, though. The second is actually meeting up, putting your PCs next to eachother and mapping that way.
What's the best way to share map files with my team? I'm considering DropBox but I want to know if there's any better method. What do you guys use to share your files with your teams?
@DieHappy1234: Go
The absolute musts for a team:
well what my teammates and I were doing was attaching the map to private msgs online all in one huge discussion on this site, We had
2 terrainers, 2 data editors and 2 triggerers, This worked very well I thought.
Because after I would finish some terrain the other terrainer would go over it and fix some and improve, same with data and triggers.
Actually it was all just 3 people, but each did multiple things.
Thanks for the input, guys. The team is of 3 people and we really haven't figured out exactly what our roles are going to be. I started the project and mostly worked on triggers so far, but the other two are also proficient in programming (one of them even more so than me). We're all friends in real life and have excellent communication, if that matters in choosing the right software.
What about a private forum where we can upload the map file? Would that work better than Dropbox?
@DieHappy1234: Go
like I said we just used 1 private discussion on this site, you can have multiple people in one discussion.
@Taintedwisp: Go
You guys were probably not spending the entirety or majority of your day working on the project. If you are working on a serious project that does require that much time each day, you can't possibly have room for everybody to work 24/7. That said, you're probably right about things working with more people.
I, personally, very much dislike sharing triggering with anybody. I'd rather just do everything myself, because that way I understand the way things work, which action defs run what, the way the main engine is set up, etc... Though data editing is definitely different, since it tends to have more self-contained work. As in, ability # 1 is unlikely to share any data with ability #2.
That said, you're probably right that having more mappers can speed up workflow, at least in some situations.
@DieHappy1234: Go
We actually provide free team forums here on mapster. Just click the team button up at the top of the page, and set up a team. You'll basically get your own forum here on mapster (which you can make private to just the team, if you want). That said, I personally prefer dropbox for file sharing because it's so quick and easy. Unless you have a big team, it's not always important to set up an entire forum.
@zeldarules28: Go
Zelda already said pretty much everything, but I'd like to clarify why DropBox is better than using PMs to share files. Mostly, it's faster. For a PM, you need to first get to your PM, then you need to create a new PM, and then attach your map file to it. For Dropbox, you just copy paste the map file into the dropbox folder and you're done. Also, if you're going with DropBox, I recommend one of you makes an account first and then gets the referral bonus from the other two. (500MB storage space per person)
Do you generally work by sending the map file itself back in forth? Is there any way for two people to work on different parts of the map, and then merge them together? Or is it possible; but just too much bother to be worth it?
I've always been interested about how teams work on maps together as well; but I always got the impression they usually didn't just send the entire map file back and forth in emails. I suppose everybody does it a different way.
@TheSkunk2: Go Well, data is just xml which can be directly pasted in to the editor and triggers can also be written in galaxy in any text editor or just export the triggers as library. It's also possible to save a map as a component file. So I suppose it's not that hard to implement other people's stuff. But I've never worked on a team.
@TheSkunk2: Go
It is possible to merge maps like exaken said (I think terrain is the only problematic part. I once tried to copy terrain over and got screwed up pathing that made no sense), but for example Zelda and I are in different time zones, we almost never have the chance to work on the map at the same time, so it's easier to just put the map in dropbox for us.
It is possible to merge stuff from multiple maps, but it gets complicated, if parts of the map are the same for both, or parts get updated individually, while other map versions still hold older versions of the data or triggers. If 2 completely independend systems, be it data or triggers need to be merged in one map, its as easy as copy&pasting a bunch of text. If you need to decide, what to keep and what to replace, it becomes complicated and prone to errors.
You can easily merge maps if they are seperate modules (ex. data & terrain). You can either copy/paste all of the stuff from one map to another, or you can save your maps as .sc2component, and then copy/paste the files that you need from the folder. This technique can copy all of your data and terrain at once.
@TheAlmaity: Go
You can save as a sc2components file and merge things that way, although you need to take care not to mess things up (this can go poorly for you if done wrong). This creates a folder with all the different pieces of your map, which you can then modify/copy/paste. Once you're done, you can open the main components file in the editor and save it as a normal map again. Me and TheAlmaity are both in nearly opposite time zones though, so we can't work on the map at the same time anyways (as one of us would be asleep while the other is awake).
Ive always been curious about teams. I dont work in teams myself as i like to have control over and dictate everything about my map. In a team of a few players how do you decide what map to make or what to do where, do you have a team leader or something who decides all that and everyone else takes orders from him? Also i assume you work on the map at separate times or something.
@lemmy734: Go
That highly depends on the team. So no real solid straight answer I'm afraid. I can see if it is 2 guys discussing what they want to do it could be more of a partnership, or even 3 guys, maybe if they know each other IRL. As the team gets larger though, or if one guy is doing primarily most the work, need for an actual leader increases. Otherwise nothing will get done as you'll be awaiting delayed communication among the team council on every frickin detail. Only issue with this is most people want to make their own mapping dream a reality, not devote all their free time to help someone else.
On past small game and web design projects I've used primarily Dropbox and Basecamp.
I would definitly recommend using dropbox for storage, simply for the face that you can work directly in the folder and have it updated for everyone on the project.The dropbox website keeps previous versions, so you have a backup if you accendently delete or screw up a file.
You should also have a Project management or CRM as far as organizing. Basecamp is good, you can assign tasks and deadlines, and post messages like a private forum. The downside for this is that it costs 20$ a month. I've tried other CRM and project management sites like Zoho but they seem kinda clunky.
Formally Kinkycactus
Zelda said it. On the subject of file sharing: there's only two things better than Dropbox. The first is buying a Seedbox, which is basically a little piece of software (or hardware even, I think) that does exactly the same as Dropbox except faster. Buying one of these will cost you, though. The second is actually meeting up, putting your PCs next to eachother and mapping that way.
To summarize: get Dropbox.