Map Collaboration Tips

[Adam Kadmon 1]

Hi, was wondering if anyone had any good tips on managing map development among multiple people.

Found ourselves with a rather large team that wants to get together and develop a map. The issue we ran into, is that with standard tools for object placement (Eden Editor) there's no real way to have some sort of a "master project" everyone can work on together.

 

The closest thing to that we achieved was loading X-Cam onto a dedicated server, giving x-cam logic to every player that had access to it, but the downside was that whoever was placing objects, was saving everything locally, so in the event of a server restart, unless each player reloaded their own project, you wouldn't be able to see everyone's progress.

 

Does anyone have any tips in regards, maybe another tool, or something with existing tools that can be worked, preferably "live", on a dedicated server or off of the same master file?

[pierremgi 4850]

You can use the 3den scenario >> merge tool. And for better clarity, use also the layers (bottom left panel of 3den). Name them by name of contributors, for example.

[.kju 3244]

Not sure if objectPlacemement TBH has MP support, but you should check it out regardless.

 

As for X-cam. Either you build a new WRP with the latest templates integrated, or you share the templates with each other.

[RoF 240]

Why not split your map into 2km (I use 4km) grids and let each person have there own grid? You could even block bits off, so people know not to build there yet

 

When using MP you will always get some lag with placing objects with x-cam or placement tool, and its really easy for people to build on top of each other.

[Adam Kadmon 1]

6 minutes ago, RoF said:

Why not split your map into 2km (I use 4km) grids and let each person have there own grid? You could even block bits off, so people know not to build there yet

 

When using MP you will always get some lag with placing objects with x-cam or placement tool, and its really easy for people to build on top of each other.

How would one practically divide it and block the grids?

[RoF 240]

I just use an overlay on sat map, each square is 2048 pixels in size. Since your sat map should be at least 1m/px is easy to work out what ever size you want a grid to be.

 

For blocking I just use bright red lines, as its easy to see in game where you should be building

https://i.imgur.com/z0g14mZ.jpg

[adanteh 58]

40 minutes ago, .kju said:

Not sure if objectPlacemement TBH has MP support, but you should check it out regardless.

It does but everyone does work in their own project, so you'll still need people to send you the projects. In that regards it's quite close to X-cam.

One advantage might be that all saved files are very simple text files, so sharing brushes and so is quite easy.

 

link here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1242712395

[WA Lancer 94]

I had 17 people contribute to object placement on my Rosche terrain using xcam(I would recommend not using xcam anymore it is not supported and might die any A3 update).

 

What worked out best for us was listing all the needed tasks on trello ( like this https://trello.com/b/AyXF9wMG/rosche ) and then have people claim them and work on them, then submit their final save to the person who is actually working on the terrain builder file. How you sub divide the tasks is up to you but again what worked for my terrain was doing all the towns first and then start tasking out the fields and roads and small forests between the towns. I had already generated the large forest areas before handing a build to other people to place objects on.

 

A far as I know there is no tool that will do what you want in terms of a master file everyone can edit. They have to edit their own local object placement and then upload that and submit it to the person who is managing the terrain builder project file.