BrockBallingdark
Explorer
I learned that the hard way a few months back. :/
I would be interested in this map creating app so will look for your KS when it launches.
Trying to gauge interest in new battlemap-making software
I learned that the hard way a few months back. :/
I would be interested in this map creating app so will look for your KS when it launches.
Charwoman Gene
Adventurer
ALcohol
TBeholder
Explorer
The thing is, there are two questions conflated - virtual tabletop engine and map making.
From map making side, there's the whole Cartographers' Guild, but not counting VTT related functionality, it's about either layered raster or layered vector graphics, which is what common editors do.
Thus from "no need to invent a bicycle" viewpoint, what's needed to connect a picture to VTT (with condition of cross-platform support) is a Python or Java tool for user-friendly conversion of maps into VASSAL extra modules format.
On the tabletop side, VASSAL - it runs under Java, works networked or offline and is FLOSS,.
From map making side, there's the whole Cartographers' Guild, but not counting VTT related functionality, it's about either layered raster or layered vector graphics, which is what common editors do.
Thus from "no need to invent a bicycle" viewpoint, what's needed to connect a picture to VTT (with condition of cross-platform support) is a Python or Java tool for user-friendly conversion of maps into VASSAL extra modules format.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I'll tell you where I'm at, you can judge whether I'm in your target demographic, and then I'll tell you how to sell me something.
I occasionally create maps of regions of my world at different scales (anything from continent to 50 miles or so across), and dungeon maps. City maps might be cool, but I haven't gotten to them yet.
I'm using the free versions of Hexographer and Dungeonographer. The map quality they produce is good enough for my purposes. Their learning curve and user-friendliness is in the middlin' range. Not bad but not great either. They are complete enough that I stopped my search for other things when I found them, but not so amazing I wouldn't pony up some cash for a significant upgrade. I have no interest in using some advanced graphic editing software to make fancy looking maps. If a simple program could let me make fancy looking maps without adding complexity to my experience I would definitely want to upgrade.
That upgrade would include:
1) Superb user-friendliness. A 70 year old ought to be able to use it once you tell them how "drag and drop" works with a mouse. That's a slight exaggeration, but I find most software designers fail miserably at making things truly user-friendly. Just because CTRL+SHIFT +_ hot keys, or, holding shift while using the middle mouse button, work for you, doesn't mean the average user wants to mess with it. Sure, include good hotkeys, but make sure literally everything can be done with the mouse with solid visual representation of what you are doing. And let me emphasize again: drag and drop and drag to paint are major winners in this department. It should also go without saying that learning curve should also be tied into this. If it takes effort to figure out the software, it by definition isn't very user-friendly.
2) Visual appeal. Particularly with the maps themselves, but see the next one.
3) Enjoyable interface. The interface should be evocative of fantasy (or some other genre) cartography (or at least of GMing) rather than looking like it's designed for architects. Ideally it would actually be enjoyable to use. "Watch here while I throw some trees around. See, after you paint them, you can just twirl around this swirler icon to randomize their placement in the general area for a more organic look!" Thinks like slider bars rather than entering numbers (the option to do both is fine) increase visual appeal.
4) "Comprehensive" yet accessible assets. It needs to have everything you would expect genre maps to have. So if it's for fantasy, I should be able to draw every type of terrain, location, whatever I would expect to find in D&D. I shouldn't have to spend extra cash for an asset pack that has stuff that should have just been there. On the other hand, it should be simple and easy to find and access the right assets. I shouldn't have to dig around every time I want to paint a grassy meadow or a deciduous forest, or a river.
5) Good automatic generation. If you can move a few sliders, circle an area on your canvas, click "Go!" and it will randomly create wilderness terrain or an urban area in a pleasing way, that is a major plus.
6) Not have any major holes. For instance, if all wilderness maps are at the same scale, and I can't make one where each hex (for instance) represents 60 miles because the software just isn't designed to handle that flexibility, that's a bad.
7) Redundancy aside: No added complexity over what I'm already using.
Over a year ago I looked around for free (and perhaps very low cost) options, and free Hexographer was the best thing I found, pretty much by far. I would not buy the paid version of Hexographer however, as its added features do not address some of the things I want enough to pay for. A competitor has to address exactly those things. Primarily, what I want is to be able to make maps that look a little better and spend significantly less time doing it. The ability to do so is worth the price range you are considering.
I occasionally create maps of regions of my world at different scales (anything from continent to 50 miles or so across), and dungeon maps. City maps might be cool, but I haven't gotten to them yet.
I'm using the free versions of Hexographer and Dungeonographer. The map quality they produce is good enough for my purposes. Their learning curve and user-friendliness is in the middlin' range. Not bad but not great either. They are complete enough that I stopped my search for other things when I found them, but not so amazing I wouldn't pony up some cash for a significant upgrade. I have no interest in using some advanced graphic editing software to make fancy looking maps. If a simple program could let me make fancy looking maps without adding complexity to my experience I would definitely want to upgrade.
That upgrade would include:
1) Superb user-friendliness. A 70 year old ought to be able to use it once you tell them how "drag and drop" works with a mouse. That's a slight exaggeration, but I find most software designers fail miserably at making things truly user-friendly. Just because CTRL+SHIFT +_ hot keys, or, holding shift while using the middle mouse button, work for you, doesn't mean the average user wants to mess with it. Sure, include good hotkeys, but make sure literally everything can be done with the mouse with solid visual representation of what you are doing. And let me emphasize again: drag and drop and drag to paint are major winners in this department. It should also go without saying that learning curve should also be tied into this. If it takes effort to figure out the software, it by definition isn't very user-friendly.
2) Visual appeal. Particularly with the maps themselves, but see the next one.
3) Enjoyable interface. The interface should be evocative of fantasy (or some other genre) cartography (or at least of GMing) rather than looking like it's designed for architects. Ideally it would actually be enjoyable to use. "Watch here while I throw some trees around. See, after you paint them, you can just twirl around this swirler icon to randomize their placement in the general area for a more organic look!" Thinks like slider bars rather than entering numbers (the option to do both is fine) increase visual appeal.
4) "Comprehensive" yet accessible assets. It needs to have everything you would expect genre maps to have. So if it's for fantasy, I should be able to draw every type of terrain, location, whatever I would expect to find in D&D. I shouldn't have to spend extra cash for an asset pack that has stuff that should have just been there. On the other hand, it should be simple and easy to find and access the right assets. I shouldn't have to dig around every time I want to paint a grassy meadow or a deciduous forest, or a river.
5) Good automatic generation. If you can move a few sliders, circle an area on your canvas, click "Go!" and it will randomly create wilderness terrain or an urban area in a pleasing way, that is a major plus.
6) Not have any major holes. For instance, if all wilderness maps are at the same scale, and I can't make one where each hex (for instance) represents 60 miles because the software just isn't designed to handle that flexibility, that's a bad.
7) Redundancy aside: No added complexity over what I'm already using.
Over a year ago I looked around for free (and perhaps very low cost) options, and free Hexographer was the best thing I found, pretty much by far. I would not buy the paid version of Hexographer however, as its added features do not address some of the things I want enough to pay for. A competitor has to address exactly those things. Primarily, what I want is to be able to make maps that look a little better and spend significantly less time doing it. The ability to do so is worth the price range you are considering.
heruca
Explorer
Sword of Spirit, I think you're very much in the demographic I'm targeting.
My user interface controls will not be themed (fantasy, sci-fi, etc), it will instead be generic, but it will be as attractive as I can make it. It won't be anything like the dry toolbar palettes you see in most of these apps.
Regarding issue #4, how do you propose I include every art asset you might want to have for every genre? There are simply too many genres to cover, the download would be huge if everything came pre-packaged (I'm talking multi-gigabyte!). And it would become prohibitively expensive, so no one would buy it (they'd rightly feel that they are paying for a ton of stuff they'll never use). My choice was to instead make the software support modular art add-ons, so users could just download or buy the particular add-ons that they are interested in. Some add-ons will be free, some for sale. Because I know that users' art collections will more often than not become rather large, I intend to provide a comprehensive search feature for quickly finding the asset/s you need while making your maps.
My user interface controls will not be themed (fantasy, sci-fi, etc), it will instead be generic, but it will be as attractive as I can make it. It won't be anything like the dry toolbar palettes you see in most of these apps.
Regarding issue #4, how do you propose I include every art asset you might want to have for every genre? There are simply too many genres to cover, the download would be huge if everything came pre-packaged (I'm talking multi-gigabyte!). And it would become prohibitively expensive, so no one would buy it (they'd rightly feel that they are paying for a ton of stuff they'll never use). My choice was to instead make the software support modular art add-ons, so users could just download or buy the particular add-ons that they are interested in. Some add-ons will be free, some for sale. Because I know that users' art collections will more often than not become rather large, I intend to provide a comprehensive search feature for quickly finding the asset/s you need while making your maps.
aramis erak
Legend
Vassal fails the user friendly. BIGTIME.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
It sounds like you'd be doing it about right. The important part is to cover your bases in the included stuff, and then have the expansions add the less common and/or themed things.
For instance, the included defaults (or free add-ons) might include some standard traditional settlements like hamlet, village, town, city, metropolis, and other important potentially stand-alone buildings like outpost, fort, temple, keep, castle. Then a fantasy/medieval expansion would include more variants with finer granularity like elven or forest versions, variants like militarized city, agricultural center, etc.
Basically, I want to feel like I'm getting a complete product that I *can* do everything I want to with a single purchase, and then just have the add-ons give me some cool visual elements to add when I'm in the mood. I don't want to have essential things like, "village" or "castle" missing from the basic stuff and have to use a generic "population center" dot or something to represent everything.
TBeholder
Explorer
It has GM mode and most things either are or can be made adjustable - e.g. stats on the placed pieces (depending on the module - in any specific one it may or may not be so, but that's a problem of this module).
GUI? Yeah, clunky.
Of course, as most active FLOSS projects, it only improves with time, and will continue to do so for quite a while. For now it's just a trade-off for not being too specialized or having risk of "it was not our priority, and now we just wrapped it up, so wait for solution in the next forever".
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