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Wizardry seriesGrid Cartographer (Mapping Tool)(74 posts)(74 posts)
(74 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 05, 2013
I've just updated again to v1.0.8. This update focuses solely on keyboard accessibility. You can edit maps using the cursor keys now which I think will help out a lot of laptop users.

Grab it from the usual place here: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/
Posted June 06, 2013
I managed to go more than 24hrs without posting an update but I'm not dead: v1.0.9 is now available. As well as some smaller fixes and tweaks the two main new features are a little graphical overlay showing what door and ground options are set and a rewrite of the eraser brush system to make that more convenient.

As usual grab a copy here: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/

Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback :-)
Posted June 06, 2013
Your program is the best thing since graphing paper for these things!
Posted June 06, 2013
With the 1.0.8 Update Grid Cartographer managed to beat Excels / OpenOffices rear.
Thanks for that.
I found mapping with the mouse a bit clunky. I often added a wall when I wanted to fill the floor and vice versa. Though the problem is on my side. ^^

A nice addition whould be an icon for a pressure plate.
I'm simply adding a note to the switch, but in the area where I'm exploring now that's a bit confusing.
Posted June 06, 2013
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Dotur: With the 1.0.8 Update Grid Cartographer managed to beat Excels / OpenOffices rear.
Thanks for that.
I found mapping with the mouse a bit clunky. I often added a wall when I wanted to fill the floor and vice versa. Though the problem is on my side. ^^

A nice addition whould be an icon for a pressure plate.
I'm simply adding a note to the switch, but in the area where I'm exploring now that's a bit confusing.
I've just uploaded v1.1.0 with a new pressure plate tile (Alt+P). You should be able to replace those switches with something more helpful. Thanks for the suggestion!

As for the mouse issues you were having, I'm the same! This is why I added two options to the Edit menu called 'Fast Wall' and 'Fast Ground'. If you turn either of those off it switches it to require a double-click to place a wall/ground - back on again for single click placement. I alternate semi-regularly depending on what I'm doing and how co-ordinated I'm feeling so I've added keyboard shortcuts F5 / F6 to help toggle those quickly. HTH
Posted June 06, 2013
Excellent tool well done! - I've downloaded it and upgraded it to pro....cheers,

Tony.
Posted June 06, 2013
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Dotur: With the 1.0.8 Update Grid Cartographer managed to beat Excels / OpenOffices rear.
Thanks for that.
I found mapping with the mouse a bit clunky. I often added a wall when I wanted to fill the floor and vice versa. Though the problem is on my side. ^^

A nice addition whould be an icon for a pressure plate.
I'm simply adding a note to the switch, but in the area where I'm exploring now that's a bit confusing.
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HiddenAsbestos: I've just uploaded v1.1.0 with a new pressure plate tile (Alt+P). You should be able to replace those switches with something more helpful. Thanks for the suggestion!

As for the mouse issues you were having, I'm the same! This is why I added two options to the Edit menu called 'Fast Wall' and 'Fast Ground'. If you turn either of those off it switches it to require a double-click to place a wall/ground - back on again for single click placement. I alternate semi-regularly depending on what I'm doing and how co-ordinated I'm feeling so I've added keyboard shortcuts F5 / F6 to help toggle those quickly. HTH
That's awesome that you added the pressure plate. It looks like a pit though, like the webding one I use in Excel for pits. If you swapped the art for the pit and pressure plate I think it would visually jive.
Posted June 07, 2013
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SolRevr: That's awesome that you added the pressure plate. It looks like a pit though, like the webding one I use in Excel for pits. If you swapped the art for the pit and pressure plate I think it would visually jive.
Took me a little while to figure out why you were saying this but then I see that in all but the default theme it's just a solid colour square. I'll take a look at making those versions look better in the next version. Assuming you don't mind the default theme version ;-)

v1.1.1 is out :-) Several new tile types and a couple of further improvements to the brushing engine. Full change log here.
Post edited June 07, 2013 by HiddenAsbestos
Posted June 07, 2013
As a treat for pro edition users I've added a 'parchment' theme for a more immersive fantasy game experience. See the attached image for a sneak peak.

Grab update v1.1.2 here: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/
Attachments:
grid-cart-parchm.png (382 Kb)
Posted June 07, 2013
Great tool, I've been looking for something like this for a long time! Was happy to upgrade to Pro.

Three wish-list feature requests though:

First, it would be cool to have options for doors (standard, secret, locked, etc.) as ground tiles (taking up whole squares). Specifically I'm thinking of games like Eye of the Beholder (which, sadly, GOG doesn't have yet) where the doors themselves take up entire floor tiles, unlike Wizardry 6 (which I'm currently mapping using your program) where the doors as walls option works perfectly. Does my description make sense?

Another potentially useful feature would be to color code the "travel" tiles (stairs etc.). For example I'm mapping the Mountains/Mines area in Wizardry 6, and there are multiple stairs up and down to the same area. Right now it's easy enough to add a note as needed (very nice by the way) but if I could change the color of each up/down pair of stairs that'd be really cool.

Finally, for really big maps, it'd be great to be able to be able to scroll around either through scroll bars or grabbing and dragging the map around the screen, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, just a few thoughts if you're still looking for feedback! Great program and I highly recommend other old graph paper mappers like myself to check it out!
Posted June 07, 2013
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KadeGoldha: Finally, for really big maps, it'd be great to be able to be able to scroll around either through scroll bars or grabbing and dragging the map around the screen, if you know what I mean.
Just keep the right mouse button pressed and you can drag the map around.
Post edited June 07, 2013 by Dotur
Posted June 07, 2013
I really ought to write a manual at some point :-) Thanks Dotur!

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KadeGoldha: First, it would be cool to have options for doors (standard, secret, locked, etc.) as ground tiles (taking up whole squares). Specifically I'm thinking of games like Eye of the Beholder (which, sadly, GOG doesn't have yet) where the doors themselves take up entire floor tiles, unlike Wizardry 6 (which I'm currently mapping using your program) where the doors as walls option works perfectly. Does my description make sense?
Yup totally get what you mean and it has been on my list for a few days - but I need to think about how best to solver this problem. I'm leaning towards a 'whole map' setting for it - since the map is for a specific engine and AFAIK there aren't any games that mix to two door types. That would make it easiest for me - flick this mode on (or have it as an option when you make a new map) and all the doors get drawn in the middle of the tile. A few problems to solve with that but I'll take a stab at it! Can't ignore the EotB games - even if I haven't played them I recognise their place in history!

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KadeGoldha: Another potentially useful feature would be to color code the "travel" tiles (stairs etc.). For example I'm mapping the Mountains/Mines area in Wizardry 6, and there are multiple stairs up and down to the same area. Right now it's easy enough to add a note as needed (very nice by the way) but if I could change the color of each up/down pair of stairs that'd be really cool.
I haven't got that far so I looked at a map here http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Wizardry/Wizardry-6-Walkthrough/areas/mines.php and I'm still stumped :-) Is this because the stairs in the mountains on level 1 don't match up vertically with the stairs in level 2 - leaving you naturally a bit confused which stairs go where?

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KadeGoldha: Anyway, just a few thoughts if you're still looking for feedback! Great program and I highly recommend other old graph paper mappers like myself to check it out!
Absolutely, still looking to make this thing better! Thank you, very much!
Post edited June 07, 2013 by HiddenAsbestos
Posted June 07, 2013
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HiddenAsbestos: I really ought to write a manual at some point :-) Thanks Dotur!
D'oh! Not sure how I missed that. Thanks Dotur!

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HiddenAsbestos: Yup totally get what you mean and it has been on my list for a few days - but I need to think about how best to solver this problem. I'm leaning towards a 'whole map' setting for it - since the map is for a specific engine and AFAIK there aren't any games that mix to two door types. That would make it easiest for me - flick this mode on (or have it as an option when you make a new map) and all the doors get drawn in the middle of the tile. A few problems to solve with that but I'll take a stab at it! Can't ignore the EotB games - even if I haven't played them I recognise their place in history!
I think that solution would make sense, I agree it's doubtful that a single game would utilize both systems.

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HiddenAsbestos: I haven't got that far so I looked at a map here http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Wizardry/Wizardry-6-Walkthrough/areas/mines.php and I'm still stumped :-) Is this because the stairs in the mountains on level 1 don't match up vertically with the stairs in level 2 - leaving you naturally a bit confused which stairs go where?
No, actually Wizardry is pretty good about making sure everything lines up (it's tough but fair), and in your program it's really easy to line them up between levels. But there are some areas, especially in Wizardry, where there are over a dozen sets of stairs on a level, some right next to each other (separated by a single wall) so I was just thinking it'd be easier to see at a glance which stair pairs lines up if you could have the blue stairs, the purple stairs, etc. Like I said though, this is simply a "would be nice" sort of request. The maps are absolutely usable without it.

Anyway, thanks for the response!
Posted June 08, 2013
The unavoidable moment is finally there. I messed up. ^^

I have to move bigger sections of the map one space to the right but not the whole floor. So it would be great if I could select those parts and move them around. Like icons on the Windows desktop. Perhaps an "Select" mode, to avoid accidental movement.


Thanks for your great work to create the one tool to map them all.
Posted June 08, 2013
v1.1.4 is out. The main added feature is support for doors that take up whole ground tiles. This means you can make maps for games like Eye of the Beholder (hope this appears on GoG soon!), Lands of Lore and Dungeon Master.

How it works it there's a new option on the Edit menu called "Block Based Doors" and when enabled you get two new ground types available - "Horizontal Door" and "Vertical Door". These two new options place the current door type into a tile. This, combined with the 'Block' tile type should be all you need to make maps for these games.

As a convenience I've added a little dialog box when you make a new map (Ctrl+N) to explicitly ask you about this option, but you're free to switch it on and off again later - potentially even mixing different types if you want (I'm not sure why but I didn't want to rule out edge cases such as using the Edge Hazard door type - this is an art package after all and it just needs to look right to the viewer, not the computer).

Hope you like it.

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Dotur: The unavoidable moment is finally there. I messed up. ^^

I have to move bigger sections of the map one space to the right but not the whole floor. So it would be great if I could select those parts and move them around. Like icons on the Windows desktop. Perhaps an "Select" mode, to avoid accidental movement.

Thanks for your great work to create the one tool to map them all.
Aww no, that sucks! I'll try and add marking and moving sections of the map next. No ETA for this though as the jobs are getting bigger and bigger and it may take quite some time to get this done right.
Post edited June 08, 2013 by HiddenAsbestos
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This is my favourite topic
Community
Wizardry seriesGrid Cartographer (Mapping Tool)(74 posts)(74 posts)
(74 posts)