Handling and visualizing a bigger project.

Hi,

does anyone know what kind of software is used for bigger games (with for instance >10 people) where i do want to organize the project in terms of:

a) The development (progress report, versioning, bug documentation, qa-feedback,...) for the whole thing and different fields (gfx,sfx,src,...).
b) If i want to visualize such things for the client/publisher. Does this come down to classic story boards or is there an alternative which fits more to a scenario where i do have a mix of non-interactive animations pared with interactive content?

Or do they just use a mix of word,excel,calender, whatever?
How much does this depend on the type of game which is produced?
Any links which cover these subjects?


Thanks,

taumel

Is MS Project any good? probably not...

There are tons of bug tracking/reporting tools out there:
http://www.testingfaqs.org/t-track.html
Can't remember which one we used. But it was some sort of web-based one that was not too bad.

For versioning and source control there are also plenty of tools available:
CVS
SourceSafe
AlienBrain (this is the one I used in the VG industry)

Progress reports, I don't know if any good tools exist for that, but IIRC, those were done manually by team leaders where I worked, usually using Excel and Word.

For the specific fields, I'll just list the one we used at work:
Sourcecode: Visual Studio .NET
2D Graphics and Texture: Photoshop 7
3D Modelling, Rigging and Animating: Maya 5
Audio: No ideas, the sound guys were pretty isolated from the rest of us and I've never seen what they used.

Hi,

hmmm i know there do exist some tools wich can be used to make the tasks i've written above for organizing a production and they range from small hobby tools (which you actually don't need) up to big applications but i can't remember the names right now...i've read years ago about these...

I wasn't asking after tools which generate content i was more after how is a complex content which is segmented into interactive/non-interactive stuff presented at best to a client while still looking nice and easy. I remember using storyboards for such things and a timetabled representation but what do others do here and what might be a better way? Any tools which others use for this?

*update*
And thanks for the links and naming for versioning and source control. I will look into some of them!


Regards,

taumel