Multiple Developers for one Route

davoss

New member
I have several people developing content for an historical railroad in my area (Everett & Monte Cristo Ry., circa 1900-1910). Each person develops buildings and/or other structures and wants to place them along the route. Is there any way the route can be saved in one place where each developer can temporarily access the route; install their content; and save it for others to use? Right now we are creating a CDP file of the route and another CDP file of all the content, which is carried to the next person for his new content. Since we do not live close together this becomes a problem. When another person has the "master" copy, I am unable to work on the track or adjust the ground along the route. I am working with a local museum and other historical groups on this project and am looking for an efficient way to develop this route.

Didrik
Everett & Monte Cristo Ry.
 
When we built the original Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, we broke it up into around 25 separate sections. Each person was responsible for populating one or more sections. When they were finished with them, I'd gather them and merge them into a master route, touching up tracks, splines, and textures across the boundaries of each piece I joined. It worked well that way and you didn't have the worry that something would get out of sync and people adding stuff to an out-of-date CDP they downloaded from the central site. There was a correspondingly less amount of emails between the participants, too. The original route contained around 1200 baseboards.

Bill
 
I have thought about breaking my world into several sections but hope I do not have to do this. My people have different interests and capabilities so they may be working in the same area.

Does Trainz have the capability of creating patches? It would be nice if the changes made by one Developer were stored in a patch, which is then sent to the other Developers for installation. Of course, each Developer should notify the others what he is working on so others stay away from that area until the patch is installed.

Didrik
Everett & Monte Cristo Ry.
 
When you mentioned "patch" something clicked. How about having everyone create Sessions for a static "Main Route"? Would that work for you? Each person can then add tracks and other content to 'their" session. Once you get the session CDP, you can import it, then combine the Session with the Main Route.

Bill
 
A "Multiplayer Surveyor", where several route creators could work on the same route at the same time, was in development by N3V just a few years ago. I do recall it generated some support and a fair bit of criticism in these forums - comments such as "a waste of valuable time that could be used to solve other more pressing problems" and similar were commonly posted.

The few details, such as they exist, can be found at http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Multiplayer_Surveyor
 
We've been developing the multiplayer/collaborative route building tools for the past 3 years and we're getting very close to the first external test. The route can be edited simultaneously by a number of people, with the ability to lock areas and assign individual edit permissions (e.g. cannot edit track, can edit scenery etc). While it won't be for everyone, it will be the biggest change in workflow for route builders in the history of Trainz. Stay tuned...

Note that for those who aren't interested in collaborating, their workflow will not change at all.
 
We've been developing the multiplayer/collaborative route building tools for the past 3 years and we're getting very close to the first external test. The route can be edited simultaneously by a number of people, with the ability to lock areas and assign individual edit permissions (e.g. cannot edit track, can edit scenery etc). While it won't be for everyone, it will be the biggest change in workflow for route builders in the history of Trainz. Stay tuned...

Note that for those who aren't interested in collaborating, their workflow will not change at all.

You've already done that by removing the most-used icons from the toolbar and hiding them in menus.
Can we have them back please?
 
I had the opportunity to try it during the early, early test days. It was quite interesting and we all had a chance to edit a continuously huge route. At that time, it was still very, very early proof of concept and of course very buggy. With the intervening 3 years, a lot hopefully has changed since then.
 
it will be the biggest change in workflow for route builders in the history of Trainz.

A huge exaggeration to say the least. It has not affected my workflow at all as I have always used Crtl-Z and Ctrl-Y which work in all the programs I use.

You've already done that by removing the most-used icons from the toolbar and hiding them in menus.
Can we have them back please?

Your point would be better placed in those threads where it has been widely discussed.
 
Thank you pware for your response.
I was responding to a post made here, not one made elsewhere.
I have already made my point elsewhere where I have stated that I am left handed and using keystroke combos is extemely difficult or me.
Nothing has changed for you, but it has for me and other left handers.
 
After playing with a Session and the Route for a day or two, I have determined the following.
1. I can place buildings, track and other content in a Session; make a CDP of the session; give it to the Owner of the Route for installation into the Route. This keeps the KUID of the Route the same.
2. If one of my Developers changes the topo or paint the wire frame and try to save the Session, the program requires the Developer to change the Route or abandon the changes. If the Developer updates the Route, and the KUID of the route changes to the Developers KUID.

Knowing this, it would be nice if I could save the Session - even with topo changes - and not be required to change the Route. My Developers could then send me their Session with the changes - along with the topo changes - and I could merge that Session into my Route. This would preserve the KUID number. Periodically, I would send the updated Route to all of my Developers with a Dependency DCP file containing all the new content. I could also set up a server that contains all the CDP files similar to the Download Station. Each Developer could then get the new content on his own.

Didrik
Manager, Everett & Monte Cristo Ry.
 
I had the opportunity to try it during the early, early test days. It was quite interesting and we all had a chance to edit a continuously huge route. At that time, it was still very, very early proof of concept and of course very buggy. With the intervening 3 years, a lot hopefully has changed since then.

I did as well and thought it was encouraging. It was a bit weird seeing changes being made by others in real time but you get used to it.

One challenge was knowing what areas to allocate to each developer and where the "edit borders" were. Someone came up with the idea of spray painting a number of sections/baseboards and "writing" their name on their space. We didn't need to discuss the idea because we could see it. :)

I'm not a route developer but if I were then I think it would be a very practical tool for collaborative route building.
 
Changes to the shape of the terrain or applying groundtextures will always require the route to be saved and the save will always use the KUID of the user making the changes. This is a legacy feature from the days before Trainz had layers. This can not be changed. All you can do is to save the changed route under your own KUID again before sending it out to another person.

William
 
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