Any Dundjinni reviews

[Hand of Evil]

Anyone have any comments about this new mapping program?

 

[tmaaas]

Well, only a demo is out at the moment, but I've played around with it a little. So far I like what I see.

I want a mapping program which gives me two major features:

1) Ease of use / time saving.

2) An excellent end product (nigh-Photoshop quality).

Dundjinni fulfills both, with a few quirks.

It does seem easy to use overall, but you have to learn a few tricks to get the most out of it (like most programs). It has a nice room drawing/fill feature for walls and floors, but falls down on placing doors (a very common task). It's not bad, but it could be better.

I think it does outdoors great. It has a feature when stamping trees that cycles randomly through several tree images that gives you a more natural looking forest. Nice.

Probably one of the biggest draws is that it uses full-color 200 dpi graphics, so your output looks nice. Better than anything else I've seen on the market short of Photoshop, and it's far easier to use (and cheaper) for the average person.

I like the art the Fluid people are churning out, and it will acept user created graphics, so I expect a good library to develop over time (assuming the program is not a flop).

It will print maps at both the 1/4" and 1" scales that I want (as well as many others).

I haven't looked at the adventure building features; I hope they're nice and work as advertised, but they're just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

I've been looking at mapping programs for a while, and this is the first I'm actually going to buy.

CampainCartographer is powerful, but I really don't want to devote the time it will probably take to learn it and its maps are vector based. I prefer the Photoshop look.

Other tile mappers floating around are easy to use, but they're graphics are not quite up to Dundjinni's level.

Ask me again about a month after Dundjinni comes out, and I'll be glad to tell you more...

 

[Ranger REG]

Please do. When Fluid released e-Tools not too many owners praised it. It's enough to convince me not to pick their ware.

Will Dundjinni redeem their name among us? We'll see.

 

[tmaaas]

For more info on Dundjinni see this thread in the publisher's forum.

It has a comment from Monte on his opinion of the product based on a live demo.

 

[argon_the_red]

The user forums at www.dundjinni.com are fairly active. I think most of the comments are possitive. You can also download the free demo and try it for yourself.

 

[Hand of Evil]

The user forums at www.dundjinni.com are fairly active. I think most of the comments are possitive. You can also download the free demo and try it for yourself.

I have downloaded the demo and it is a nice looking program (the weekly downloads helping a lot) but I don't know if the demo is giving me the full product (still playing around with it). As a mapper, it produces some nice output but as an adventure writer I have yet to see.

Will continue to play around with it.

 

[evildmguy]

In the FWIW category

I can't decide about it.

I managed to crash the demo program two or three times on two different machines. It might have been due to having the MS JVM installed. However, since I need those installed for other programs, it isn't an option to uninstall them. I did get the jar associations setup fine.

I really liked the easy at which I could create a tavern or other similar structure. However, passages seemed to be more difficult because I had to create a long, thin hallway and then erase the walls. (I might have missed a tool on doing them, though.)

I was also not happy with how it handled doors. Having four foot thick walls, not uncommon in castles, the doors were placed on top of the walls without allowing me to inset them. I also didn't find an easy way to create arrow slits or other niches in the walls but it could be that I didn't play with it enough.

I like that this could be a great share tool, with people sharing their creations with others as well as their own. That could create a very large library quite quickly!

Having said that, I do have CC2 and the add ons and while this certainly creates a much more "pretty" map, I am fine with what I can do in CC2. I will wait and see what the reviews say and what some of the output looks like but without it being good, I am fine with CC2.

Again, FWIW.

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[tmaaas]

I was also not happy with how it handled doors. Having four foot thick walls, not uncommon in castles, the doors were placed on top of the walls without allowing me to inset them.

Yeah, I lobbied for some better functionality here. Feel free to pop over to the Dundjinni forums and give them you comments.

The more voices the better. If enough people ask, it will probably happen

 

[Mercule]

1) Ease of use / time saving.

See, this is the area that I felt it fell flat. I'm a computer programmer, so I'm used to a variety of interfaces and am pretty good at figuring them out.

The Dundjinni interface was really bad. It looks great, at first, but I found that anything beyond floors was a pain. Specifically:

• Couldn't make "outline" walls. I've got no need for 5' thick wall graphics, even at the edge of my maps -- I'd rather not waste the ink.
• No stairs. Maybe this is just a matter of unreleased graphics, but it was annoying.
• Couldn't turn doors. They always came out openning N/S.
• Borders for fills stayed around indeffinitely. These interfered with my ability to draw other features.

There may have been others, but those are the ones that stand out.

 

[tmaaas]

See, this is the area that I felt it fell flat. I'm a computer programmer, so I'm used to a variety of interfaces and am pretty good at figuring them out.

The Dundjinni interface was really bad. It looks great, at first, but I found that anything beyond floors was a pain. Specifically:

I agree that there are some things they could definitely do better (see my comments on doors above). And it does take a little time playing around/exploring.

Did you download the documentation? It wasn't complete yet but still a big help.

Couldn't make "outline" walls. I've got no need for 5' thick wall graphics, even at the edge of my maps -- I'd rather not waste the ink.

Hmmm... you definitely need to read the instructions. You can very easily make walls of all different thicknesses (and rooms of different shapes). I can't remember the name of the tool offhand (sorry).

In short, you create a mask (wrong name but that's what it does) of a room and then use the fill tool to make both the walls and the floor.

And it is easy.

Of course, Fluid probably should have included the directions with the demo instead of making you go look for them...

No stairs. Maybe this is just a matter of unreleased graphics, but it was annoying.

Yep. Unreleased graphics. This is a demo, after all.

Couldn't turn doors. They always came out openning N/S.

Back to the documentation issue. You can rotate objects (and very easily at 45 degree intervals; right-click the mouse button, IIRC).

Borders for fills stayed around indeffinitely. These interfered with my ability to draw other features.

Not sure what you're referring to here. I didn't have any trouble of this sort.

======================

With the demo and no instructions (before I downloaded them), it took me between one and two hours to get familiar with most things through trial and error. I thought it was reasonable easy to use, especially considering the alternatives (Photoshop, CC2 Pro), though there is definitely room for improvement.

After I downloaded the instructions I learned a few more useful tricks, and picked up yet more on their message boards.

I think the average user will be able to pick it up quite quickly once all the documetation and on-line help is included (it only took me one evening without all the extra help).