Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[Watser]

I really liked WoX as well but imo it's the worst of MM 1-5.
MM 1 was the first game I used GC on, back then it was v. 2. So much has changed and has been added since then and it has been one of the most helpful pieces of software I have been using.

 

[GhostBadger]

I'm having trouble figuring out from both the website or this thread: in the v4 gamer edition is there no way at all to get any image of a map out of it short of a screenshot? Does it print? (I know this sounds stupid but sometimes print to a file is the poor-man's export)

That's right, image export is only available in the Pro edition. ( There isn't any direct printing support in either edition, I may consider adding it but I'd need to make it work on Windows / Linux / Mac and build all the stuff you'd need to split it into A4 pieces, etc. -- so I leave it up to the user to crop and scale to their requirements )

The full list of gamer / pro features is available at the bottom of this page:
http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/?aim=buy

(I should make that more obvious at the bottom of the first page I think)

All right. Well image export is the one thing really that's not in Gamer that I could imagine I would want to have someday.

What's the situation if one bought through Steam, would the purchase include the key you generate that works on multiple platforms? Or does Steam have complete control over it if purchased that way? For software like this I would especially not like to be locked into running it only through Steam.

I know this sounds like I'm trying to figure out a way to give you less money. I do understand your reasoning ITT about Steam sales and trying to come out high for that reason, Steam can be a race to the bottom. Just trying to figure out what would work for me.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

All right. Well image export is the one thing really that's not in Gamer that I could imagine I would want to have someday.

In your situation if it's a 'one day' thing - I would suggest getting the Gamer edition now and if you really wish to have the Pro edition later, you can get a 'cross-grade' from Gamer to Pro for essentially the difference (barring sales) at a later date. It's then my job to make Pro even more compelling

What's the situation if one bought through Steam, would the purchase include the key you generate that works on multiple platforms? Or does Steam have complete control over it if purchased that way? For software like this I would especially not like to be locked into running it only through Steam.

I know this sounds like I'm trying to figure out a way to give you less money. I do understand your reasoning ITT about Steam sales and trying to come out high for that reason, Steam can be a race to the bottom. Just trying to figure out what would work for me.

I don't currently sell this through Steam but I do plan to work on a greenlight thing soon. That will hopefully start to ramp up after this initial launch period has died down and I've fixed and polished things now it's out in the world.

Since I'm not a Steam partner yet I can only speculate and go on what people have told me - I probably know as much or less than anyone else on here about how Steam works in terms of free keys and verifying purchases, etc. I don't have an announced plan for cross-distribution support (FastSpring <-> Steam) and it's definitely something I need to think through thoroughly so as to avoid confusion.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Rise from your grave v3 stairs.

.. returning in 4.01 - apologies for the inconvenience.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Also it seems the map theme only changes for the specific region and not for the entire file.

Display and grid settings are now stored per region. However an oversight on my part means that if you have an old map that's imported it'll use the default theme, which can be quite tedious to remap. Oops!

In v4.0.1 you'll now have an option to use the Copy button and then use the new "Paste to All Regions ..." on both the display and grid pages. This lets you change the theme (or a bunch of other stuff) for all regions in your map en masse in just a few clicks.

Also another thing. The increased colour palette is excellent but I cannot find the same colours I used in GC 3 for consistensy. I am colourblind which makes it even more difficult to recognize the same colours.

I'd very much like to help but I wouldn't presume to know what's best for your condition so please correct me.

Would a 'Swatch' tab with just a few colours (you can customise) be useful? Something like this crap mockup:

I can pre-load it with a nice spread of basic colours similar to v3 and you can dump what colours you actually care about on there using the palette editor. That sounds handy for everyone actually ...

 

[Grauken]

that sounds like an extremely useful idea

 

[Watser]

Exactly something like that, if you by default could have the same basic colours from GC 3 it would be even better!
That way I will always know exaxctly what colour I have been using for specific purposes rather than being lost in 4 different shades of blue.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

++ on color swathes. I love that we now have more colors, so can use the parchment style and still have good, but not jarring, contrast. It does get hard to hunt for the right colour in the palette after a while though.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.0.1 is released!

I had a report of a major crash bug in the 64-bit Linux version After 3 major releases the file selectors decided to start crashing the application. Very sorry to anyone affected by this.

As a result I've moved forward the release of v4.0.1 to 'asap'. There's a bunch of fixes and tweaks in there for all platforms, including the restoration of the stairs/ramps as markers.

Downloads here:
http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/download.php

Change Log:
http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&p=2570#p2570

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Embarking on my 2016 world tour of Might & Magic III - the Isles of Terra

Got position, facing and map number data coming in so the framework of the profile is done. Now the more labour intensive part: I need to visit all the places, get the map number and add them to the profile making sure to do things like putting town caverns on B1, checking grids are the right size (some of them are larger than 16x16 now), etc. Hopefully won't take too long - MM1 and 2 didn't really, once I got stuck in.

MM3 was a blast to map out, the overworld map is about 25 times more interesting compared to WoX.

Thanks again, as you can see I'm putting your map to good use already

 

[Watser]

Are you playing with a high level party already or are you playing through it from scratch? I can send you my save file if it is.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Are you playing with a high level party already or are you playing through it from scratch? I can send you my save file if it is.

I'm playing from scratch. I thought I had a high level party from someone but it's, I think, too far into the end-game and I can't obviously backtrack from it (I don't know the game very well). So - yes please ! ( support at david walters development dot com )

 

[Watser]

I'll get around to it later today. Likewise I can send you my WoX and Wizardry 2+3 party (Wizardry is the Wizardry Archives version)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'll get around to it later today. Likewise I can send you my WoX and Wizardry 2+3 party (Wizardry is the Wizardry Archives version)

Yes please to all of them - it's all great to have and makes developing and testing profiles so much easier without the combat getting in the way.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm still working on v4.0.2. However during development I've noticed a couple of areas for improvement in my custom build of DOSBox.

So, DOSBox R13 is now available. http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/dosbox/

You can stick with R12 if you like but this version is better. Here's what's changed:

• Automatic tracking-only version of Game Link is used by default when starting the regular executable.
• Fixed Game Link bug where tracking doesn't work if the screen isn't being updated (e.g. during dark areas in 'Might and Magic II').
• Added 'gamelinkmaster' option to dosbox.conf which disables all Game Link features if set to 'false'.
• Includes all official DOSBox changes up to SVN revision 4000.

The first change is useful if you prefer (or need to use) the old style version of Game Link where DOSBox is handling video/input and all GC is doing is accessing the player data. It's like how things used to be when I added Game Link back in GC3, but this time it requires zero config file changes.

 

[agris]

I'm still working on v4.0.2. However during development I've noticed a couple of areas for improvement in my custom build of DOSBox.

So, DOSBox R13 is now available. http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/dosbox/

You can stick with R12 if you like but this version is better. Here's what's changed:

• Automatic tracking-only version of Game Link is used by default when starting the regular executable.
• Fixed Game Link bug where tracking doesn't work if the screen isn't being updated (e.g. during dark areas in 'Might and Magic II').
• Added 'gamelinkmaster' option to dosbox.conf which disables all Game Link features if set to 'false'.
• Includes all official DOSBox changes up to SVN revision 4000.

The first change is useful if you prefer (or need to use) the old style version of Game Link where DOSBox is handling video/input and all GC is doing is accessing the player data. It's like how things used to be when I added Game Link back in GC3, but this time it requires zero config file changes.

Does your build have the filters added by SVN Daum build and dynamic resolution (AR-correct) changing with window resizing?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Does your build have the filters added by SVN Daum build and dynamic resolution (AR-correct) changing with window resizing?

No, it's based on the official DOSBox and doesn't add any Daum specific stuff.

I think the filters you're describing use hardware accelerated shaders? Those won't work as GC4 requires input from a software renderer. The ones DOSBox provides are supported though AFAIK (I don't use them but did test them briefly).

I'm also not sure what the aspect ratio feature is but the display code in GC4 has the option to use the aspect ratio that DOSBox requests or you can choose square pixels. It will also scale the image to fit the view or snap to the closest whole integer zoom level to prevent banding (if you don't want to enable the bi-linear filtering option).

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm not sure how relevant this is here because I'm not sure how many of you use this for not-computer games - tabletop and whatnot - but I've added a new spraycan / stamp mode to the paste tool.

It's meant for quickly adding big details at a higher level using multiple regular or custom tiles (or whatever is in the clipboard). For example if you're making a town map and have a set of custom tiles that represent a building, this will make the job of creating multiple instances of that building much easier. This will be a feature exclusive to the Pro Edition.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm not sure if this GIF will make sense on its own. If you've used GC before though, you'll probably be happy to see it.

What's happening here is I'm drawing on empty space and dragging - so its adding blocks. Then I click the start block again, this time to toggle it off. In past versions you'd need to enter into a super click-fest to remove the rest of those blocks one by one - but now the brushing code will remember you toggled something off and continue to do so for other tiles while you're dragging around.

This is still in testing but it's nearly ready and will be in the next version.

Edit:

mostly done now. Hope to have v4.0.2 out next week if possible.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Here's something to look forward to (if you speak Japanese). I just mailed the ePSXe developers to see if they can help me improve support for PSX games. I have video and input is handled already - so I really just need them to open up access to system RAM & disc id (or explain how you do it) to see if I can get meaningful tracking data out too.

Fingers crossed

 

[agris]

*casts summon aweigh*

 

[Hirato]

Here's something to look forward to (if you speak Japanese). I just mailed the ePSXe developers to see if they can help me improve support for PSX games. I have video and input is handled already - so I really just need them to open up access to system RAM & disc id (or explain how you do it) to see if I can get meaningful tracking data out too.

Fingers crossed

PCSX2 does what it calls 'CRC Hacks', so basing it on those CRC sums are probably the way to do it.
All PS1 and PS2 games also have serial numbers you can use to uniquely identify them (assuming you can read them from the disc as well), eg, my copy of FFX-2 has SLES-51815 written on the side.

I'm sure there's a massive database of these on the web somewhere.

 

[tarasis]

Anyone here who has v3 already, it will cost $15.99 to get v4 Pro.

(And if you don't have v3 then if you buy today/before launch and then immediately upgrade then it will be $35.98 - a further saving)

So a broad range of options.

Dang I wish I'd bought V3 before now, have been meaning to for ages but never got around to it. (Been playing through stuff that didn't need mapping). Still congrats on the V4 release and I'm looking forward to getting it for the old Bard's Tale, M&M, Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder and Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2.

Regarding the FAQ of games that GameLink 2.0 supports. Is it only EoB 1 or all three?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Dang I wish I'd bought V3 before now, have been meaning to for ages but never got around to it. (Been playing through stuff that didn't need mapping). Still congrats on the V4 release and I'm looking forward to getting it for the old Bard's Tale, M&M, Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder and Legend of Grimrock 1 & 2.

Thanks! btw. during the launch sale (which runs to the 2nd Nov) you can get the Gamer Edition for $17.99 - about the price of an upgrade from v3->v4. You won't get the Pro edition stuff like hexagons and image export, but it does include the new Game Link and should be more than suitable for those games (especially compared to ol' v2). If in future there's something you miss from (or I add something to) the Pro edition you really want, you can pay the difference and cross upgrade from Gamer -> Pro.

Regarding the FAQ of games that GameLink 2.0 supports. Is it only EoB 1 or all three?

Yeah, just the first EoB at the moment. Reminds me I wrote a thing on the GOG.com forums about 2 & 3 which might be interesting?:

"Eye of the Beholder 2 should be possible. I've made some progress on that already as it's a relatively similar engine to the first game. That's on the list to return to at a later date when I've got time to work with its slightly compressed map layouts. It doesn't look that great when drawn 1:1 with how it's stored in RAM. If I take the time to redo the layouts of certain places it will look much better to human eyes.

Eye of the Beholder 3 uses a more complex engine that's actually running the game via a virtual machine (which we then run on DOSBox hehe). The problem I had when I tried to acquire the player position data from that game was the location was jumping around in memory when you died or loaded, etc. because I believe it's using dynamically allocated memory (like you see in modern OO code) to hold the player state. Older games used C or Pascal compilers and have fixed memory locations for most things (stored as global variables most likely) so they can fit into < 640Kb, and are much easier to work with. So I won't say never with part 3, but there's definitely lower hanging fruit."

 

[Grauken]

Does the GOG EotB3 uses the custom AESOP 32 engine DOSBOX hack (see thread http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=20601&highlight=aesop) ?