A Question About Collaborative Work

#1 No, unless you write something functionally equivalent to the Collaborative World Design Tool yourself.

#2 I see, thank you for the response, Richard.

#3 Depending on how detailed you want the editor, you could implement a subset of functionality as regular gameplay - for example, a gun that lets players pick things up and manipulate them. Then the host could save off the mission file once the minions have finished tweaking.

But yeah, for full editor power you'd want a dedicated tool. There's a lot of complicated stuff that goes into it!

Nice avatar by the way.

#4 Ah, I see. My friend and I are currently using the collaborative tool, however I have to admit that I currently despise the GUI. That sounds like an interesting alternative, but I believe a dedicated tool is far more useful.

Do you have any suggestions on what tool may be the best to use, or do you believe the collaborative tool is the easiest thus far?

Thank you, it's a snippet from a cover on Crystal Castles.

#5 http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/22071
http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/22245

#6 That looks amazing, however I don't see any more recent updates about the project from that post on. Is it still in the making?

#7 I recognised it ;).

The collaborative world design tool is the only of its kind I know anything about, really.

#8 @andrew OneWorld is in final stage of testing (it works awesomely btw without any nasty ui) it should be out soon although Paul Yoskowitz or Vince Gee will be able to give more accurate release date measures.

#9 Oh, a Crystal Castles fan, are you? :D

I see, thank you for the assistance, though. I'm amazed at how I haven't been attacked yet. I am on the internet, right? Just making sure.

@Lukas: I see! Thank you for the input and update. I just didn't know if that was a dead end or not, but I'm glad to hear it's going well! Best of luck to you and the rest of the team.

#10 Ok, "NOOB!" There's your obligatory attack.

I've been waiting for OneWorld for a while now... Hurry up Lukas!

#11 Lukas is correct, OneWorld is in its final testing atm. Whats taken so long is rather simple. We had it ready for MIT 2.0. We were then said that the ORIGINAL release date for MIT 3.0 was basically a week after our release date. Because we didn't feel like releasing OneWorld and then immediately go into test mode again we just waited for 3.0 to come out. Now that 3.0 is out, there were a few differences in code that needed to be worked out, a bit of "that worked in the last build" and what not. As far as im aware, theres only 1 bug left on the list, 1 in test status and everything else is passed testing. We are working on the documentation now and this should all be gtg soon.

#12 Yup, haven't checked out their latest album yet though.

#13 @Richard: Thank you! :P

@Paul: I see, thank you for taking the time to actually answer a few questions that not only myself, but a few members of the community had. It really shows a good level of respect by your team. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

@Daniel: I see, it's pretty good. Well worth a look at, at least.

#14 Ok, I've keep quiet long enough about OneWorld, I hope I don't jinx it by posting this :)

OneWorld is pretty much done, I've fixed all of the bugs in T3D MIT 3.0 that I could find, cleaned up the network stack, finished adding in all the new tool features added in MIT 3.0 and our test server made it through a weekend w/out crashing.

I've managed to get about 80 percent of the tools set up to work over the network. As it stands right now the only things I don't have networked is editing object materials and creating a new forest. Pretty much you need to set all of that up before you launch the zone in multiuser mode. Once they are set up you can create objects, paint the terrain, etc all remotely.

Paul is correct when he stated that right now we are pretty much just finishing up the documentation.

BTW, did I mention it was all done in the C++? yep, that is right, I did it all using C++, so there is almost no torquescript modifications (Except to the tools folder) to run OneWorld.

I did have to re-write a bit of code to make it happen though. I had to make gameconnections thread safe, improve the simdictionary, re-write the decal manager and invent a new way to allow background threads to communicate with the T3D thread without crashing the engine.

Had to add in File Transfer functionality so I could sync the Terrain, forest and decal files on the client. (By the way it's bi-directional, clients can upload files, I just have it turned off for the initial release)

Let's see what else, oh, SimGroups in the mission file are also networked so if you have your stuff organized in folders, that will be represented on the client.

Had to modify the DecalRoad, MeshRoad, and river classes to make them networked as well as touching on SimMarkers, sceneObject, SimObject, GameConnection, pretty much most of the tools based C++ etc.

I also had to restructure how the Terrain classes were set up so that they could be networked, that took a bit of time.

I also structured my code in such a way so that all of the OneWorld functions have STANDARD entry points and I also organized the code in sections so the terrain code is in one folder, the decals in another, etc.

OneWorld is insane, it was a ground up implementation of collaboration with optimization and organization being paramount.

Also, did I mention that it runs in dedicated mode? Also, remote users can tell the server to save the mission to disk, and when all the clients reconnect they are sent the new files.

It has been checked and verified to run in Client/Server, Client and dedicated mode.

This will all be available for $39.95 for binary format. Source code can be licensed on individual case by case review.

#15 @Vince: That truly sounds amazing, especially the networked terrain editing, as that was one of the major issues I had with the Collaborative tool. I just hope it all works to plan and there's no significant problems! :)

Also, my friend told me to ask... Do you have any needs for beta testers? ;) XD

Good luck and keep the good work going!

#16 Thanks Andrew,

I have no issues with kicking out a beta to you. You would need to sign our NDA, etc, but that is usually not a long process.

Shoot a email over to Paul at pyoskowitz@winterleafentertainment.com and he will hook you up w/ the goodies. Make sure you let him know that I said it was ok.

Be forewarned though, the documentation is still very rough.

Vince

#17 Andrew, one last thing, make sure you register on WinterleafEntertainment.com

I will need your username to give you access to the download, include it in the email to paul.

#18 Beta is available for download at www.winterleafentertainment.com please see blog for details.

#19 @Vince: I've already kicked an email towards Paul's way, and, without trying to sound like a greedy bastard, I eagerly look forward to getting my hands on it. :)

#20 Welcome to the community Andrew :-)