Mapping programs used by game companies

[Hart-Felt Production]

I use the CCPro suite for all my maps. Yes, at times you can tell at a glance the map was created using the program, but there's a lot of work going on right now by people who are creating very artistic maps where, if you didn't know it was done in CCPro, you'd think it was done by hand.

Allyn at Dark Leagues is doing some positively fantastic work with CCPro. Here's a link to some examples of his work: http://www.darkleagues.com/fantasymapping/antique-style.htm

I look at those maps and am green with envy. I can hardly wait for the new manual to come out that has the tutorials on how to do what he's done.

 

[ronpurvis]

Dundjinni looks like a great program, but the restrictions on what you can do with it (commercially) and where you can post it (their own site) makes it less then desirable.

What I don't understand is how a company can charge for their own software but then say we don't want you to use the software for commercial purposes or even post it to your own website. This is very hypocritical to me. Even the opens source software people don't do that.

 

[DSC-EricPrice]

The license prevents you from using it for any commercial purpose. They even restrict end users from using certain parts of the artwork and posting maps on other sites. For instance at least one art pack has a seperate EULA that says you can't display anything produced with it other than at the Dundjinni site. No books,web sites, forums etc. Also for the maps that you do have permission to post on your own site, you have to put their logo on the map. I for one, think that type of licensing is too restrivctive if I have to pay for it.

Hmmm, perhaps they have changed it yet again. I ultimately sold my copy because I found the EULA to be unacceptable BUT as of the time I sold it there was a loophole with Dunjinni. IF you created all the artwork you could use Dunjinni to create your maps. I started making some objects but ultimately decided that once I had done all that it was just as easy to use PSP, Photoshop, or any other graphics program that supports layering to do maps with.

Keeping on thread, what I use always depended on where it was going. I remember in our old goblin and undead packs we included a short adventure. The maps for those were done in Autocad and exported into a wmf format. Mostly I think you'll hear professional cartographers draw and paint freehand with a bunch of objects they've made up over the years.

 

[Cergorach]

What I don't understand is how a company can charge for their own software but then say we don't want you to use the software for commercial purposes or even post it to your own website. This is very hypocritical to me. Even the opens source software people don't do that.

What i understand from the license is that they don't want you to use their artwork for commercial gain. I can understand that, Dundijini uses tiles and each tile is effectively a piece of art. Making tiles of such quality is reasonably expensive, but from what i've seen, the art packs are reasonably cheap. Using art for commercial purposes is very expensive, just look online with some professional stockphotagraphy sites.

 

[ronpurvis]

What i understand from the license is that they don't want you to use their artwork for commercial gain. I can understand that, Dundijini uses tiles and each tile is effectively a piece of art. Making tiles of such quality is reasonably expensive, but from what i've seen, the art packs are reasonably cheap. Using art for commercial purposes is very expensive, just look online with some professional stockphotagraphy sites.

I believe that is their reasoning but it doesn't make sense to me. I have over 50 articles that I wrote for computer publications. I would not think to tell the computer magazine that I sold the article to that they could not in turn publish it just because they would make money from it. If I didn't want them to be able to use the article, I would not have sold it. In this case a company is making a tool and selling it to you and then saying they don't want you to make money with the tool. To me it doesn't make sense, which is why I won't do business with them even if the probability is that I would never sell anything made with it anyway. Of course not everyone will see things the same way.

 

[Cergorach]

I believe that is their reasoning but it doesn't make sense to me. I have over 50 articles that I wrote for computer publications. I would not think to tell the computer magazine that I sold the article to that they could not in turn publish it just because they would make money from it. If I didn't want them to be able to use the article, I would not have sold it. In this case a company is making a tool and selling it to you and then saying they don't want you to make money with the tool. To me it doesn't make sense, which is why I won't do business with them even if the probability is that I would never sell anything made with it anyway. Of course not everyone will see things the same way.

There are very few people who will use it for moneymaking, thus you could say that they priced their products according to their target audience's financial 'might'. If people could sell the work you would see map on demand publishers poping up all over. Because it's rather easy to make appealing maps without much effort with Dundjini, if someone would make some usefull maps with it and sell it as a package bundle (the maps), then there would be people buying that instead of buying Dundjini. Think of it like buying a DVD, you can watch it, your family and friends can watch it, but you can't copy it and sell it, or rent it, if you want to do that you need to get a seperate deal with the people who own the original movie.

 

[GMSkarka]

Actually, I don't think it makes any sense, because it seems to me like a synthesizer manufacturer saying that you can't commercially release any music that you compose using the instrument that you purchased from them.

 

[ronpurvis]

Actually, I don't think it makes any sense, because it seems to me like a synthesizer manufacturer saying that you can't commercially release any music that you compose using the instrument that you purchased from them.

Exactly.

There are very few people who will use it for moneymaking, thus you could say that they priced their products according to their target audience's financial 'might'. If people could sell the work you would see map on demand publishers poping up all over. Because it's rather easy to make appealing maps without much effort with Dundjini, if someone would make some usefull maps with it and sell it as a package bundle (the maps), then there would be people buying that instead of buying Dundjini. Think of it like buying a DVD, you can watch it, your family and friends can watch it, but you can't copy it and sell it, or rent it, if you want to do that you need to get a seperate deal with the people who own the original movie.

Actually you can purchase a DVD and rent them. That is Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, etc. do. Now if I took the Dundjinni program and just posted all their artwork without adding something to it you would have a point. I don't think that anyone is really trying to do that though. What people want to do is use a tool and then create something with that tool: a map.

 

[msd]

If people could sell the work you would see map on demand publishers poping up all over. Because it's rather easy to make appealing maps without much effort with Dundjini, if someone would make some usefull maps with it and sell it as a package bundle (the maps), then there would be people buying that instead of buying Dundjini.

Right...which is exactly what happens with every other major mapping program out there.

If this was a credible fear of Fluid's, they should have built that into the pricing model and adopted a less restrictive EULA.

Instead, they have completely gone against the grain with a EULA that runs completely counter to that of other industry standard applications. And then they attempt to justify this stance by saying...you can use our application, you just can't use our art.

Query - If I was such a great artist, wouldn't the main selling point of Dundjinni - the fact that you can (in their mind) make great *looking* maps easily - be totally undermined? In other words, isn't the plan completely counterintuitive? If you need our application and our art and our ideal customer, then you get slapped by the restrictive elements of the EULA. If you are good enough in PS or something else that you don't really need us, our art, or our app to make maps, then you get the favored terms under our license...

Sorry, but this just makes no sense to me. I sold my version of the app a while ago...

 

[Cergorach]

Other mapping programs don't come close to dundjini when you look at ease of use, great looking maps, and fast creation. The way that is achieved is thru their awesome looking tilebased images, these are not as easy to make as libraries in other programs. Not as easy means more difficult, more difficult means more expensive to produce.

Hell, i'm not happy with their EULA, that's why i haven't bought the program yet, but that doen't mean i don't understand why they do it. I think that 95% of their consumers don't care about their EULA (they either use it only within their gaming group or don't have a problem with the restrictions). I wouldn't be suprised if they made commercial licenses available, but expect to pay a lot for them (i wouldn't be suprise if they increased the price by a factor of 10 or more)! Photoshop allows you to sell the work you made with it, but this isn't a $40 product. Sure there are free alternatives, but we're not talking here about free alternatives...