How are modders suppose to share files between each other?

[Dassu]

Over the time I have been lurking this community, I have noticed few drawbacks in general development process. Most of the mods are done by a single person and co-operation is usually only initiated when small mods are tight together into a bigger package. 

In a usual open source project source code is always available through version control like git or subversion. However in this community developers don't always even release the source code, this often leaves the mod hanging in a beta or alpha state if the developer ends up being busy with other more important things. So this begs the question what is the common way to exchange small edits between programmers?

[Thulas]

Since you can attach files to posts, this isn't that hard. If this ihe file isn't for everyone, then the file can be attached to a post via PM. Of course this only works if the mod is under 100mb (as far as I know), but most mods won't be that big.

[Halstrom]

We just IM each other and attach the code, otherwise create a alpha/beta release download & thread.

[D_ManXX2]

Over the time I have been lurking this community, I have noticed few drawbacks in general development process. Most of the mods are done by a single person and co-operation is usually only initiated when small mods are tight together into a bigger package. 

In a usual open source project source code is always available through version control like git or subversion. However in this community developers don't always even release the source code, this often leaves the mod hanging in a beta or alpha state if the developer ends up being busy with other more important things. So this begs the question what is the common way to exchange small edits between programmers?

 

They don't if they want to. the only mods so far who uses this was new vegas sexout and now skyrim sexlab.

 

Most other modders never share there full work codes with others. So they stay single release modders. You would be surprised how modders actually likes to work alone instead of teams.

 

Many teams have had bickering and fights and then the project died without even a alpha release.

[gregathit]

Another thing to keep in mind is that it is rare for two (or more) modders to be interested in exactly the same thing.  This specialized interest tends to keep modding to single individuals or at most very small groups.  Generally modders tend to make their own mod and tie it into another if they share a common interest in one or two things.

 

Modding is difficult work and often the modder is learning what they can do (and not do) as they go along.  Few modders (if any) start a mod with all the knowledge that they end up needing to complete the project.  Unless of course the mod is very small or simple.  It is hard to form a team when you are learning your way through things.

 

As far as cooperation, you would be surprised at the level of this that occurs "off the grid".  Many modders help one another behind the scenes with a bit of scripting or other items to help someone by a roadblock that has stymied them.  For example, WappyOne has been instrumental in helping me with scripting for Lovers with PK, Lovers Creatures and has helped other modders with scripts as well.  That is just one example of many.

 

Another example would be Donkey, he did a HUGE amount before he left the site and moved on to other things, but still has been gracious enough to help me a large number of times to overcome hurdles in animating, translating, and updates for various lovers plugins. 

 

It is this help that often carries an unreleased buggy alpha version to a bug free full release available for download. 

[Dassu]

Alright, thank you for the fine answers. This thread has been an eye opener for me.

[Emily]

Which game are you playing atm?

 

Oblivion? skyrim? F3?

[sen4mi]

You probably already noticed this, but modding usually does not have the luxury of "source code". Most of us never get to work with anything like source code when modding - instead, we are directly modifying binary files, or interacting with them through tools that never expose a source code abstraction. And, when we do have source code (for example scripts contained in .esp and .esm files) it's often still something which needs to be embedded in a particular fashion in some binary file.

 

But Skyrim happens to be an exception. Skyrim includes not only a source code representation for scripts, but a compiler for them - so some spart of the game is scripts and we get to play with source code. So you might be able to find the kind of community you are looking for among skyrim modders (but also, you only get sourcecode for script modding).

 

It's also hypothetically possible to talk about tools which convert a binary file to some sort of text file and then another tool to reverse the process. I've not worked anything like that, but I think maybe that's how Skyrim animation modding works?

[Duoleb The Chosen]

101 Doom and quake community modding

 

there any mod its free for edit and etc.

 

 

[slamdunk]

I would suggest you look at github as a way to host source code or binaries. Binaries can be versioned as well. there is no reason why one cannot simply upload a file to github (unless boromir objects)