Q_x
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« on: December 01, 2009, 11:04:50 AM » |
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Just a not-so-simple thought:
I was working out the "grain" object and stumbled. "What the grain is actually". Dirt glued onto sandpaper. Pattern you'll see when you cut through stone. Magnified silver you'll see on blow-ups on traditional photography.
We have two quests in production, only a dozen of other ideas, and I was confused and lost within.
So...
How about making huge, clear template for quest/story in Wiki, with all links to tickets (and back, so all you need to put in description is "inventory items for blabla quest" as title, and link in description "environment and buildings for blabla quest", "dialogs for blabla quest", so all concept work, finished portraits, assets, dialogs could be put into one place, so that makers could feel things better and understand faster, the "ticketing" person will have less job, overview will be immediate and the workflow will be more fluent?
Workflow (when making graphics) that go this way:
WRITING produces story > STORY IDEA polished and pubplished IN WIKI in "Tasks To Do" list - specified, normalized, clear > NEEDED THINGS listed for writing/graphics/audio/programming department > TRAC TICKETS for sound (audio), NPCs (animation), NPCs (portraits) inventory (2D/3D), assets and environment (3D) TRAC TICKET > WORKING PERSON takes the job and fills ticket > WIP IN FORUMS - discussion, reworking, polishing until agreed> FINISHED PIECE: PREVIEW ON WIKI AND WORKING FILES IN TICKET - this may look different, but couldn't be simpler CLOSING TICKED as done, MARKING THINGS AS "100% DONE" ON WIKI.
Wiki can include "most urgent" or "errors" section if there would be need to improve something.
The thing is explained on quest example, but may be generalized on any interdisciplinary task or anything you'll interact with in game - like the main menu or HUD, as far, as this is big thing, interconnected, when wider approach or overview is needed.
What we need to prepare is: Making the quest/task template on wiki (I can do this for graphics) Making the workflow clear and verbose for all depts on wiki (I can do this, its partially done for graphics) Fill-in or at least link (and mark pages as "old and non-standard") things done so far.
This will also make things like collections a lot easier, as you'll need to browse "ToDo tasks" and "Done tasks" only to catch *all* NPCs, items, dialogues and so on.
Lots of work - but I really have to bend myself to have clear overlook of what has been done so far, what every dept. is doing, who works where and what is for what.
The point is to get permanent things into Wiki, temporal discussion (WIP, proposals, ideas) into forums. Browsing through tones of tickets and looking for points to correct is rather silly, so all errors spotted after completion should go to its creator via PM or be pointed on IRC/forums or by getting particular wiki page from Done back as ToDo.
The second point is to make the workflow really fluent and the overview really easy before the techdemo will gather new persons here.
This is not a kind of finished idea. It is partially done sketch of how workflow may look like. It needs some serious tinkering and discussion of how the things should look like in some not-so-distant future.
I'd rather work when I'll get: what exactly has to be done, how to do it, where to submit proposals, what to do with files when it's OK. In ideal world I would get all this things from coordinating person. But I know what life is and my third point is to gather all the needed information related to HowTo (describing qualities and ways of work, clearing workflow and what gets where) in one place and all related to ToDo (what tasks need to be done) in other.
If it will come into production - there would be nice if we have tags like [A], [G], [W], [P] marking which depts have some work to be done in particular task.
Is this needed - not now, but soon it will be. Is this necessary - I don't know What are the Trac tickets for - for saying "I will do this and this" and uploading working files after finishing.
Personal: I've borked my Linux system yesterday. I've got grub error 18 after kernel upgrade, means I have to repartition my hard drive in different manner - this however will have to wait until I'll buy new HDD in some not-so-distant time, cause the one I have now is too small for my things. So now, having one partition untouchable and the other nearly full, I'm unable to compile PARPG. However I have all the tools to make my job with Windblows.
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