[OSGeo-Discuss] worldbuilding tools?

[Miles Fidelman]

Hi Folks,

I expect there are folks here who've been involved with serious 
"worldbuilding" exercises - for games, and/or military exercises.

I have some experience with how we (used to) do things for military 
sims, from my days at MAK (DIS & HLA environments, BML for describing 
some things).  And there are things like Unity for gaming.

But I really wonder how the professionals approach serious world 
building - you know, folks like Roddenberry, Stan Lee, Steven Moffet.  
How do they develop and maintain a world model?  What documents do they 
maintain, and hand out to new writers?  What tools, databases, processes 
do they use to maintain and update the world model.  What authoring 
tools & processes do they use to maintain continuity?  What reference 
documents do you find in a writers' room, what's hanging on the walls.  
What are the intermediate steps between idea, storyboards, shooting 
scripts, shooting schedule, and dailys? What do the documents look like?

Does anybody have an idea of where one would find a copy of the 
definitive Star Trek, Dr. Who, and/or Marvel Comic Universe "bibles?"  
The documents they hand to new writers, & the systems they use to 
maintain continuity?  Or even better, a textbook or handbook on how 
Paramount maintains continuity for the Star Trek Universe, or how they 
do things at LucasFilms?

I expect that places like LucasFilm have all kinds of well developed 
processes, tools, systems - equivalent to the MDMP, Air Operations 
planning processes, or similar doctrine.  I'd love to get a look at some 
of them.  And talk to folks who've actually used/developed some of them.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Miles Fidelman


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown