Ok so I've have looked through the editor and looked at how blizzard makes their maps I doubts they have one person work in the file at a time but they musta had it shared so they all could work on a certain part or section at the same time makeing work speed go by quicker, if any one has any ideas on how they did this or how they could possible use a hosting computer and use multiple computer to enter in the same computer and work on the file at the same time or wanna share ideas on how they were able to make their maps leave a comment.
What usually happens in game studios is that each level designer gets assigned to a bunch of maps. There is a lot of iteration going on, and then you have some guys who specialize in doing terrain, others trigger, others data. Maps get passed on between team members after certain stages, but people don't work on a map at the same time like in an online-game (although I have heard that implementing such a feature wouldn't be that difficult). Usually you have a Team Lead who makes sure that the in-editor triggering/documentation (e.g. folder structure) for all maps are on the same level and overarching balancing (like missions getting more and more difficult in a campaign).
I can imagine that having multiple people work on the same thing hurts the quality and it takes more time to finish (as they have to comunicate more often). It's much better to discuss the state of a map when it has reached a certain stage, and then work on it more, pass it on, cancel production or wait until a specific feature is finished.
Fun fact: More often than not the first map in a campaign is actually the last to be finished.
Everyone works on a local copy of the map. In the repository this can be set up as a branch. every now and then you merge the branches to make one version out of the local copies. The repository will deterime all differences for you and you can go through all and decide which branches change you want to have in the merged version.
I can't tell you how they built their maps, but zuPloed is certainly correct that they use some sort of version control. If I had to guess, it's a lot like what we do, with maps in component files and tracked in a repository. We use Subversion, but they probably use Git, because that's what the cool kids are doing.
Blizzard uses Perforce. The inhouse editor can directly connect to their repository, as well as to battle.net. They have the capability to publish map clusters (think all the ladder maps), as well as generate map packages (think the campaigns). Their preferred text editor is sublime, the inhouse editor can directly launch it.
Perforce is used because it is better at handling large numbers of, and large versions of, binary files (textures, sounds, art files, models). Traditional version control is best aimed at text only. It however does have support for multiple front ends (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial). If you look at the main companies listed on Perforce.com, you will notice nearly all of them deal in large binary content (Disney, Pixar, Samsung, Ubisoft, EA. Adidas). Random aside, you may wonder why Adidas made the list, logos and ads are their main content.
As for how I know this. If you data mine the core data, there is 2 sets of string localization's for the editor, one for normal functions, one marked as dev only. I presume much of this functionality is hardcoded, so the inhouse editor is compiled with this added functionality.
When you want to work with version control, you resave the map as the SC2Components option, which makes the map into an open folder, not a packed up MPQ archive. This means you can browse the contents of the map like any other folder, and directly manipulate things. This is how my project is done.
I would note the editor does support some of this functionality natively. You can create sections, and mark triggers/terrain objects with a given section, and have a main map import all this together. Furthermore, Void added direct merge support, so you can do non destructive (the original base file is not the destination file, so the merge results in a fourth file), 3 way merges of SC2Map/Mod files, it will basically unpack all of them in memory and do a merge.
Ok so I've have looked through the editor and looked at how blizzard makes their maps I doubts they have one person work in the file at a time but they musta had it shared so they all could work on a certain part or section at the same time makeing work speed go by quicker, if any one has any ideas on how they did this or how they could possible use a hosting computer and use multiple computer to enter in the same computer and work on the file at the same time or wanna share ideas on how they were able to make their maps leave a comment.
What usually happens in game studios is that each level designer gets assigned to a bunch of maps. There is a lot of iteration going on, and then you have some guys who specialize in doing terrain, others trigger, others data. Maps get passed on between team members after certain stages, but people don't work on a map at the same time like in an online-game (although I have heard that implementing such a feature wouldn't be that difficult). Usually you have a Team Lead who makes sure that the in-editor triggering/documentation (e.g. folder structure) for all maps are on the same level and overarching balancing (like missions getting more and more difficult in a campaign).
I can imagine that having multiple people work on the same thing hurts the quality and it takes more time to finish (as they have to comunicate more often). It's much better to discuss the state of a map when it has reached a certain stage, and then work on it more, pass it on, cancel production or wait until a specific feature is finished.
Fun fact: More often than not the first map in a campaign is actually the last to be finished.
My first guess would be a repository.
Everyone works on a local copy of the map. In the repository this can be set up as a branch. every now and then you merge the branches to make one version out of the local copies. The repository will deterime all differences for you and you can go through all and decide which branches change you want to have in the merged version.
I can't tell you how they built their maps, but zuPloed is certainly correct that they use some sort of version control. If I had to guess, it's a lot like what we do, with maps in component files and tracked in a repository. We use Subversion, but they probably use Git, because that's what the cool kids are doing.
Blizzard uses Perforce. The inhouse editor can directly connect to their repository, as well as to battle.net. They have the capability to publish map clusters (think all the ladder maps), as well as generate map packages (think the campaigns). Their preferred text editor is sublime, the inhouse editor can directly launch it.
Perforce is used because it is better at handling large numbers of, and large versions of, binary files (textures, sounds, art files, models). Traditional version control is best aimed at text only. It however does have support for multiple front ends (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial). If you look at the main companies listed on Perforce.com, you will notice nearly all of them deal in large binary content (Disney, Pixar, Samsung, Ubisoft, EA. Adidas). Random aside, you may wonder why Adidas made the list, logos and ads are their main content.
As for how I know this. If you data mine the core data, there is 2 sets of string localization's for the editor, one for normal functions, one marked as dev only. I presume much of this functionality is hardcoded, so the inhouse editor is compiled with this added functionality.
When you want to work with version control, you resave the map as the SC2Components option, which makes the map into an open folder, not a packed up MPQ archive. This means you can browse the contents of the map like any other folder, and directly manipulate things. This is how my project is done.
I would note the editor does support some of this functionality natively. You can create sections, and mark triggers/terrain objects with a given section, and have a main map import all this together. Furthermore, Void added direct merge support, so you can do non destructive (the original base file is not the destination file, so the merge results in a fourth file), 3 way merges of SC2Map/Mod files, it will basically unpack all of them in memory and do a merge.
@ArcaneDurandel: Go
Have you gotten merges to work? Our in-house testing has proved fruitless so far.