If you're collaborating on a quest between two or more people, where multiple people are working on different maps - what's the most painless way to merge everybody's contributions?
What's the best way to do parallel quest development
#1
Posted 25 November 2020 - 11:44 AM
#2
Posted 25 November 2020 - 12:28 PM
If it's possible for you, the most painless way is to work on the same quest file, one person at a time.
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#3
Posted 25 November 2020 - 04:01 PM
The people I've collabed with and I would take turns, one at a time. We had a Discord channel dedicated exclusively to the .qst file and would upload it after we had our turns. Someone would claim the file with an emoji reaction, and the process would repeat.
Alternately, you can all work in one quest file and export/import your maps. This way, work can be done concurrently.
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#4
Posted 25 November 2020 - 04:14 PM
Alternately, you can all work in one quest file and export/import your maps. This way, work can be done concurrently.
Speaking from experience: As nice as this sounds, be aware it does come with some catches as messing with combos and such will turn your map into chaos when importing them. So organizing all the combos before this approach might be a smart move.
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#5
Posted 25 November 2020 - 04:16 PM
Newer ZC versions (2.55 alphas or 2.53.1 betas) let you rip in combos between certain values. So as long as you agree to set aside certain combo pages, tile pages, and script slots, you can pretty easily recombine two quest files by exporting and importing the maps, tile pages, and combo pages, then recompiling and assigning script slots. Just gotta plan in advance so you don't both use the same combos or something.
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#6
Posted 25 November 2020 - 04:34 PM
Assuming one person don't need to make new combos, you can export and import maps. You need to plan ahead when doing that though.
Edited by Mani Kanina, 25 November 2020 - 04:34 PM.
#7
Posted 26 November 2020 - 07:29 AM
If you're collaborating on a quest between two or more people, where multiple people are working on different maps - what's the most painless way to merge everybody's contributions?
Have a look at the updated export and import options.
It is best if the contribs are working on dedicated maps, but importing a map has various merging options. It is best to handle individual assets as components, when collaborating, rather than a whole quest. Also, if you save as .qsu, you can compare full quest file changes in a hex editor or other binary file comparison tool.
Assuming one person don't need to make new combos, you can export and import maps. You need to plan ahead when doing that though.
Combos and tiles now have advanced export and import formats, some of which support smart merge (import, but only over blank; never overwrite).
Final versions will likely also have export/import Screen.
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#8
Posted 27 November 2020 - 06:38 PM
One person claiming the quest file at a time is definetly the most painless method in my experience.
- Shane likes this
#9
Posted 30 November 2020 - 07:44 AM
I should also mention: Use git for co-op development. Careful branch management and git repo access conditions allow a far more fluid production.
#10
Posted 30 November 2020 - 09:31 AM
^ If any scripting is involved at all, git control is a MUST. It allows multiple people to make changes in the same files at the same time and merge the changes together, and serves as a backup system as you can load any commit as a backup.
- Twilight Knight likes this
#11
Posted 30 November 2020 - 11:47 AM
Have a look at the updated export and import options.
It is best if the contribs are working on dedicated maps, but importing a map has various merging options. It is best to handle individual assets as components, when collaborating, rather than a whole quest. Also, if you save as .qsu, you can compare full quest file changes in a hex editor or other binary file comparison tool.
Combos and tiles now have advanced export and import formats, some of which support smart merge (import, but only over blank; never overwrite).
Final versions will likely also have export/import Screen.
The combo and map importing is very nice for what we're doing. It is sometimes a pain if I have made heavy modifications to one screen that I don't want to overwrite, but I want to let the import overwrite all of the other screens on the current map. It also forces you to overwrite auto-layer screens because ZQ automatically populates every screen... but for both of these I honestly don't even know if there's a better way to do it until a dedicated import/export screen tool is added. Just more experience-based evidence that you should stick to different maps if possible.
Combo importing is excellent with the no overwrite feature. Is there a similar option for Tiles? If I export a full Tileset, I don't have the option to not overwrite - and exporting Tile Packs means I need to figure out exactly what range of tiles is safe to import, which is a lot more manual work.
Fortunately for this project only one person is handling scripting, so that's easy at least.
#12
Posted 30 November 2020 - 11:54 AM
^ Even if only one person uses scripting, I still recommend git. I use it for all my solo projects. Simply being able to manage your changes with numerous backups (without taking up a lot of space) is extremely helpful.
#13
Posted 30 November 2020 - 12:23 PM
I may look into it. I've never used git but I've used other version control software like SVN before.
#14
Posted 30 November 2020 - 03:50 PM
Git is basically an industry standard for programming... one course at my uni spends a whole unit on using git properly.
- Emily likes this
#15
Posted 01 December 2020 - 06:24 PM
The combo and map importing is very nice for what we're doing. It is sometimes a pain if I have made heavy modifications to one screen that I don't want to overwrite, but I want to let the import overwrite all of the other screens on the current map. It also forces you to overwrite auto-layer screens because ZQ automatically populates every screen... but for both of these I honestly don't even know if there's a better way to do it until a dedicated import/export screen tool is added. Just more experience-based evidence that you should stick to different maps if possible.
Combo importing is excellent with the no overwrite feature. Is there a similar option for Tiles? If I export a full Tileset, I don't have the option to not overwrite - and exporting Tile Packs means I need to figure out exactly what range of tiles is safe to import, which is a lot more manual work.
Fortunately for this project only one person is handling scripting, so that's easy at least.
'No overwrite' for tile import is a planned feature.
Git is similar to SVN, but IMO, better. It does have a learning curve, but the basic requirements boil down to a simple command set.
// Launch GIT BASH.
git fetch HF Nov2020-Fixes:Nov2020-Fixes2
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