Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[Bumvelcrow]

Yup I'm the author. I don't know if libpng 1.6 would necessarily cause a problem, I'll have to look into it further. What I'm more concerned about is the next person saying the opposite: "why are you not using 1.2? my distro doesn't support 1.6!" or it causing any problems in other distros - major version changes seem like a better time to make changes like this, it doesn't sound right for v3 during its twilight months.

That's fair enough - I just checked a friend's mint box and it doesn't have libpng16, which took me by surprise. Mint users, always throwing spanners in the works.

Edit: Works fine once I rolled my own version of 1.2.

 

[LESS T_T]

"Game Link 2.0"

The layout reminds me of Etrian Odyssey. :D

Speaking of EO, do you consider making a compact (and preferably customizable) version of mapping UI, well, similar to EO's?

For reference

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

"Game Link 2.0"

The layout reminds me of Etrian Odyssey. :D

Speaking of EO, do you consider making a compact (and preferably customizable) version of mapping UI, well, similar to EO's?

Hah, yeah I didn't spot that I'd made it like that until you mentioned it

As for a skinned custom UI: that wasn't something I've considered but it'd be a very cool idea -- a compact bespoke skin to turn Wizardry into a faux-DS title... definitely a tempting thought ! Probably one for 2017 though

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Grid Cartographer v3.1.2 is now available. It's a small update to fix a few misc. issues. As with all other v3.x releases this is a free update and should be installed by everyone to ensure the best experience.

With the development of v4 now underway this is likely to be the final release in the v3.x series. Thanks to everyone for their support of the project so far. I'll be posting more information about v4 soon!

 

[Siveon]

After starting to use this more often, I finally broke down and paid for it - and boy 'ol howdy does it live up to my own given hype. I'm starting to use it for non-crawling games, FFS.

Spoiler

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Oh cool, someone on the GOG.com forum made a community voting entry to try and get Grid Cartographer on there as an official thing. That would be pretty neat if you ask me.

http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/grid_cartographer?as=1649904300

Might have to make a video now though, eep.

After starting to use this more often, I finally broke down and paid for it - and boy 'ol howdy does it live up to my own given hype. I'm starting to use it for non-crawling games, FFS.

Thanks I do like that it's flexible enough for stuff like that now. I know someone on here used it to plan an office layout and I've been mailed by an ESL teacher who used it to help foreign nerds learn English and someone else for some minor garden zoning or something. Hopefully I can add some nice freehand tools one day, that'd really broaden it.

 

[Archibald]

How does that GoG thing work, you need to get X amount of votes to get in or its just to get attention of someone from GoG so then maybe they'll care to contact you?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

How does that GoG thing work, you need to get X amount of votes to get in or its just to get attention of someone from GoG so then maybe they'll care to contact you?

You can submit directly (and I guess they'd use the number of votes cast as extra weight? IDK) using a public link on their ssite but part of the process involves linking to a video which I've yet to do. I'll need to see how other design packages do it and come up with something compelling that briefly covers what GC can do. Cue the musak!

 

[thesheeep]

Considering the linux library thing:
Always use rpath (& 'ORIGIN') and distribute all the needed dependencies with your software.

Linux's package management and modularity is great for open source software, but a hellish nightmare for everyone who wants to earn at least some money from development. Regression, anyone?
The only way to guarantee things are working, not screwed up by some update and not screwing up other software on the same machine is to distribute all the dependencies yourself in a folder relative to your executable.

 

[udm]

Oh cool, someone on the GOG.com forum made a community voting entry to try and get Grid Cartographer on there as an official thing. That would be pretty neat if you ask me.

http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/grid_cartographer?as=1649904300

Might have to make a video now though, eep.

IDK if I got all the details right though so let me know if there are inconsistencies and I'll request one of the GOG staffers to change it.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4 blog thread is up: http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1468
Stay tuned, more updates to follow!

IDK if I got all the details right though so let me know if there are inconsistencies and I'll request one of the GOG staffers to change it.

Seems all correct to me and certainly gets the idea across, thanks for the kind words!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

No idea if GOG voting works like Greenlight but we're in the top 15 most voted-for games this week after just two days: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games?as=1649904300

 

[Siveon]

Congrats! Although it might just be that there hasn't been more plausible additions in quite some time... I think GOG might consider a software section, now. I'd really like to see your software somewhere!

 

[Bumvelcrow]

No idea if GOG voting works like Greenlight but we're in the top 15 most voted-for games this week after just two days: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games?as=1649904300

Voted since I like voting. I'm going to buy it honestly, but I'm a linux user so getting me to part with money is like extracting blood from a stone. Siveon 's shilling enthusiasm is just about to tip me over the edge, but I want to play with the basic version first to see if there are any hidden linuxy nightmares.

 

[Hirato]

No idea if GOG voting works like Greenlight but we're in the top 15 most voted-for games this week after just two days: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games?as=1649904300

Voted since I like voting. I'm going to buy it honestly, but I'm a linux user so getting me to part with money is like extracting blood from a stone. Siveon 's shilling enthusiasm is just about to tip me over the edge, but I want to play with the basic version first to see if there are any hidden linuxy nightmares.

I'm a Linux user and i paid for it.

Compared to the windows version.
1. You don't get beta builds
2. There is no vsync or any frame limiter of any sort, so it's basically rendering thousands upon thousands of frames each second - it will max out 1 CPU core.
3. No gamelink support, so you won't be able to hook it into dosbox; he did open source the dosbox component (to be fair, the GPL does mandate it) if you want to try and port it to POSIX.
4. If I recall correctly, it doesn't use GTK, Qt, EFL, TK, or any other GUI toolkit, so Hidden Asbestos is basically dealing with the nightmare that is X.org directly, so there might be a lot of very weird bugs that make no sense to anyone - I haven't run into anything yet, but keep it in mind.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Compared to the windows version.
1. You don't get beta builds
2. There is no vsync or any frame limiter of any sort, so it's basically rendering thousands upon thousands of frames each second - it will max out 1 CPU core.
3. No gamelink support, so you won't be able to hook it into dosbox; he did open source the dosbox component (to be fair, the GPL does mandate it) if you want to try and port it to POSIX.
4. If I recall correctly, it doesn't use GTK, Qt, EFL, TK, or any other GUI toolkit, so Hidden Asbestos is basically dealing with the nightmare that is X.org directly, so there might be a lot of very weird bugs that make no sense to anyone - I haven't run into anything yet, but keep it in mind.

Hmmm... Well, one and three don't bother me. I'd feel guilty about using gamelink as it might make me seem less hardcore, but the temptation to try and port the code is strong.
I presume for point two you mean that it'll eat one core even if just doing nothing. Okay, not a sticking point - I have cores aplenty - but deserving of a sad shake of the head and wag of the finger.
As for the toolkit thing, well that is pretty masochistic, but it does deserve a tip of the hat if true! If HA is going to continue to make it available for linux and mac then it might make sense to port it to a cross-platform toolkit like Qt, if only for the sake of maintaining his sanity!

Thanks for the update, Hirato - looks like I've got no real excuses not to buy it!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm a Linux user and i paid for it.

Compared to the windows version.
1. You don't get beta builds
2. There is no vsync or any frame limiter of any sort, so it's basically rendering thousands upon thousands of frames each second - it will max out 1 CPU core.
3. No gamelink support, so you won't be able to hook it into dosbox; he did open source the dosbox component (to be fair, the GPL does mandate it) if you want to try and port it to POSIX.
4. If I recall correctly, it doesn't use GTK, Qt, EFL, TK, or any other GUI toolkit, so Hidden Asbestos is basically dealing with the nightmare that is X.org directly, so there might be a lot of very weird bugs that make no sense to anyone - I haven't run into anything yet, but keep it in mind.

Thanks for posting this list. I do want to address these points if you don't mind, I'm not trying to start anything though

You're right that I tend to put out betas for Windows only but often that's because someone on Windows needs one and I just tell everyone about it. I realise it must be a bit crap for you seeing these builds that you can't use - in future I'll try and make it clearer that I don't mind cooking up a linux beta too. Often it feels like a better idea just to press on with the full release though, so I need a bit of an kick up the ass to remind me, sorry!

Actually for point 2, I do request vsync from the driver (which its free to ignore) and there is a 60hz frame limiter in place in the code. Its not always been like this but with the latest build it shouldn't max out a core. Linux based systems do like to run at full throttle though, it's much easier to make Windows run at casual speed. If you're still having it do this then I can take a closer look.

For point 3, as far as I know gamelink works on Linux. I don't provide binaries for dosbox with it enabled but I could. I don't necessarily want to take on the burden of supporting it so I'll admit I don't make it as easy as Windows. All platforms support it on the Grid Cartographer side so we're only talking about the dosbox side - so your point applies to for mac and android as well.

As for 4 I do use GTK a little bit on Linux (Cocoa on Mac, etc.) - for the file selection and creating the main application window. Evrrything else is my code and it runs through OpenGL - the same code used on Mac and Android too (Windows is DX9 but still most of the UI code is shared). There shouldn't be any weirdness or incompatibilities by doing the UI this way and having it be all my own code is easier for me to work with and deliver the features effectively.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Actually for point 2, I do request vsync from the driver (which its free to ignore) and there is a 60hz frame limiter in place in the code. Its not always been like this but with the latest build it shouldn't max out a core. Linux based systems do like to run at full throttle though, it's much easier to make Windows run at casual speed. If you're still having it do this then I can take a closer look.

I've got a nvidia card, which I'm sure ignores most of what is asked of it, so that doesn't surprise me. The latest version idling consumes about 50% of one core, which is fine. I spent the effort overclocking the damned thing and it feels like a waste of time when it's not doing anything...

As for 4 I do use GTK a little bit on Linux (Cocoa on Mac, etc.) - for the file selection and creating the main application window. Evrrything else is my code and it runs through OpenGL - the same code used on Mac and Android too (Windows is DX9 but still most of the UI code is shared). There shouldn't be any weirdness or incompatibilities by doing the UI this way and having it be all my own code is easier for me to work with and deliver the features effectively.

Love the pro version parchment background.

 

[Hirato]

Thanks for posting this list. I do want to address these points if you don't mind, I'm not trying to start anything though

You're right that I tend to put out betas for Windows only but often that's because someone on Windows needs one and I just tell everyone about it. I realise it must be a bit crap for you seeing these builds that you can't use - in future I'll try and make it clearer that I don't mind cooking up a linux beta too. Often it feels like a better idea just to press on with the full release though, so I need a bit of an kick up the ass to remind me, sorry!

Actually for point 2, I do request vsync from the driver (which its free to ignore) and there is a 60hz frame limiter in place in the code. Its not always been like this but with the latest build it shouldn't max out a core. Linux based systems do like to run at full throttle though, it's much easier to make Windows run at casual speed. If you're still having it do this then I can take a closer look.

For point 3, as far as I know gamelink works on Linux. I don't provide binaries for dosbox with it enabled but I could. I don't necessarily want to take on the burden of supporting it so I'll admit I don't make it as easy as Windows. All platforms support it on the Grid Cartographer side so we're only talking about the dosbox side - so your point applies to for mac and android as well.

As for 4 I do use GTK a little bit on Linux (Cocoa on Mac, etc.) - for the file selection and creating the main application window. Evrrything else is my code and it runs through OpenGL - the same code used on Mac and Android too (Windows is DX9 but still most of the UI code is shared). There shouldn't be any weirdness or incompatibilities by doing the UI this way and having it be all my own code is easier for me to work with and deliver the features effectively.

I'll have to take another look, as the last build I used didn't have any such limiter.
Also, have you considered using libSDL2 instead for context creation, window management, unicode input handling, clipboard support, etc, rather than re-implementing this stuff over and over for each platform?
Also, the GTK file selector (especially GTK3) absolutely sucks ass.

As for the betas (and maybe the dosbox builds) have you considered setting up a buildbot to build every package and optionally put them where they need to go?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Holy crap, GC has jumped up to 5th place !: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games?as=1649904300

I'll have to take another look, as the last build I used didn't have any such limiter.
Also, have you considered using libSDL2 instead for context creation, window management, unicode input handling, clipboard support, etc, rather than re-implementing this stuff over and over for each platform?
Also, the GTK file selector (especially GTK3) absolutely sucks ass.

As for the betas (and maybe the dosbox builds) have you considered setting up a buildbot to build every package and optionally put them where they need to go?

I like coding down to the metal, libSDL2 would be okay I guess but GTK works and "ain't broke" - I don't mind the file selector from what I've seen of it but to be fair with you I've not used it enough. I'm not against making my own file selector but I'm having scoping issues with v4 already!

Making a beta isn't something I do all that often and so time setting up an automated 'nightly build' would probably be overkill and likely bite me in the ass eventually - I need to be testing things internally before declaring them fit for use and I think the possibility that someone might lose map just because they were excited about playing with a new version, it would stress me out too much.

Anyway, in order to get Game Link 2.0 working on Linux and Mac I'll need to do more hands-on building this time - Game Link 1.0 was a kind of bonus feature in v3 that I definitely could have handled better - but now it's a bit more mature it needs to be properly supported in v4 and this will mean releasing binaries for the Unix-likes

Right now I'm working on reducing the amount of setup needed so ideally you can just drop in a new dosbox exe and have it "just work" sharing video / input and tracking the player. (I'll make the tracking optional though since now a few people have said it feels like cheating.)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Here's a simple video of Game Link 2.0 in action, enjoy!



edit:

After starting to use this more often, I finally broke down and paid for it - and boy 'ol howdy does it live up to my own given hype. I'm starting to use it for non-crawling games, FFS.

I totally forgot to a) say Thanks! and b) ask for what else you used it for (the image you added made no sense to me if it was a clue, but Monday was hectic and it easily could have just been me being dumb.)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Promoting the same thing over and over has felt endless and been quite draining for me but it has yielded some great results.

This is the view right now from the main GOG forum: ( http://af.gog.com/forum?as=1649904300 )

Itching to get back to actual development but this biz stuff is important for the long term.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported the crazy notion that Grid Cartographer is either Good, Old or a Game ;-)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Looks like we're on the downward side of the GOG voting parabola now. I'm very happy that it got up so high (2nd place at one point!) and hopefully they noticed it. Please vote for it if you haven't already as every one counts: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/grid_cartographer?as=1649904300

I can also confirm that I've submitted to GOG.com now but that will probably be the last thing I'm able say about the process going forward, I'm sure you'll respect that much of this now needs to be kept private.

---

In other news I've made a small tweak to the avatar marker used by Game Link today. I've improved its visibility in more detailed areas by having it blink between the tile and the avatar symbol rather than the old behaviour of just drawing them simultaneously.

I've also been playing some Azure Bonds and improving the profile for it significantly (now based on the v1.3 GOG release). I'm inclined to publish a v3 update when this work is done as I'd class these improvements as a bug fix to an existing feature.

 

[udm]

JudasIscariot

Looks like we're on the downward side of the GOG voting parabola now. I'm very happy that it got up so high (2nd place at one point!) and hopefully they noticed it. Please vote for it if you haven't already as every one counts: http://af.gog.com/wishlist/games/grid_cartographer?as=1649904300

I can also confirm that I've submitted to GOG.com now but that will probably be the last thing I'm able say about the process going forward, I'm sure you'll respect that much of this now needs to be kept private.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I'm currently working on making Game Link 2.0 more user friendly for Grid Cartographer 4.

NOTE: If you haven't seen Game Link 2.0 in action yet, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wMK8YQirTw

In Grid Cartographer 3, the original Game Link feature operated over UDP based networking and provided tracking of the player position, facing and current region by reading memory addresses and sending out a data packet every 100ms. I called this feature 'netpeek'. Netpeek required editing the dosbox.conf file to paste in information about which game you were playing, where to send the information (by default to localhost - i.e. Grid Cartographer running on the same computer as DOSBox) and the bytes of DOS memory we were interested in for our tracking purposes.

In Grid Cartographer 4, with Game Link 2.0, a new shared memory connection is used to transmit image and input data back and forth with a specially modified version of DOSBox running as a local process on the same computer. However, right now it's still partially relying on the old UDP based communications for the player position tracking. This UDP connection is redundant, given the new high-speed communication channel that now exists between the two applications.

Therefore what I'm working on now is a system where, for users playing games and Grid Cartographer on one computer, no changes will be required on the DOSBox side (other than swapping the stock DOSBox .exe for my custom one) to make Game Link 2.0 work. All the user will need to do is tell Grid Cartographer 4 which game you're playing and it will take care of the rest. Simple!