Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[Hidden Asbestos]

Grid Cartographer 4 - #blackfriday sale is now on!

http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/tools/gridcart/?aim=buy

 

[Grauken]

just found out that when I use the new r13 dosbox variant, gamelink doesn't work anymore. Until now I've just thrown the r12 into the Doxbox folder of my GOG W6 install, when I tried that with r13 Grid Cartographer doesn't acknowledge when the game is running. Tried to exchange r13 with r12 to see if it was a fluke, but no, suddenly GridCart sees W6 again. Not sure why though. Did you disable netpeek in r13, as I think I track the game through it

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

just found out that when I use the new r13 dosbox variant, gamelink doesn't work anymore. Until now I've just thrown the r12 into the Doxbox folder of my GOG W6 install, when I tried that with r13 Grid Cartographer doesn't acknowledge when the game is running. Tried to exchange r13 with r12 to see if it was a fluke, but no, suddenly GridCart sees W6 again. Not sure why though. Did you disable netpeek in r13, as I think I track the game through it

Hmm.. strange one (and, so-far, a unique report). The change for r13 is primarily that it adds a video-less game link mode by default in the dosbox.exe. It should all still work Here's some questions!

* Is this Windows?
* Are you running GC4 and W6 on the same PC in split screen or are you using the old-style network based version across two computers?
* What happens when it doesn't work on R13 -- do you get an error message or is it simply not tracking your party?
+Does the bottom-right status icon tell you anything?
* Does it work after a reboot?
* In Options > Game Link. Is 'tracking' enabled? Is 'Game Link over LAN' enabled?
* What do you see if you turn on the Debug HUD?

Sorry for the inconvenience too.

 

[Grauken]

* Windows 7 64bit
* old-style network based version across two computers
* the bottom-right icon show the yellow swirling thing, says its waiting for connection, if I overwrite the same folder with the r12 version and then restart W6, grid card instantly catches that W6 is running and shows the green item, if I exit W6, overwrite the folder again with r13 and start w6, grid shows the swirly yellow icon again
* no
* 'tracking' is enabled and 'Game Link over LAN' is enabled
* Debug HUD -> see my twitter

I also tried the splitscreen version in both r12 and r13 and it doesn't track in either of them, old-style network across two computers works in r12, but not r13

not sure if its important, I used the cosmic forge patcher on my GOG version

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

not sure if its important, I used the cosmic forge patcher on my GOG version

There may be multiple problems - however in the screens you posted to me on Twitter the hash used to auto-detect the game is different (yours is 0xabe44121, it should be 0x2891e3b6) - it implies Cosmic Forge has perhaps modified things in the WROOT exe file which now gives the 'wrong' hash.

It also appears to have done something to mess with where the player location is in memory since the values in your screenshots are mostly zeroes rather than pos, facing, map no. data I'd expect to see - but that could be as secondary problem and a result of the network data being trashed by the failing local connection .. not sure on that one. ( NOTE: The old network version doesn't use this hash - the [netpeek] codes you add takes care of that job. )

I think that you might be able to work around this by either:
* adding 'gamelinkmaster=false' after 'usescancodes' which will disable the local machine game link (it should keep netpeek working.)
* edit the profile XML in base0.zip to change the autodetect value to this new hash.
* go back to R12 since there's not anything added in in R13 you'll need.

Hope that's it anyway. I guess I should look into the cosmic forge editor some more to see if I can make it compatible...

 

[Grauken]

Okay, I think cosmic forge might indeed be the culprit, I did a clean install of W6 and now both splitscreen and non-splitscreen work without a hitch in r13

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Okay, I think cosmic forge might indeed be the culprit, I did a clean install of W6 and now both splitscreen and non-splitscreen work without a hitch in r13

That's good to hear. I hope to support this editor eventually as I know it's popular. I've not used it myself though.

If all it does is hack the EXE then it should still be compatible with the auto-tracking...

What will help is I've added a feature as part of 403 to allow for wildcards in the game profile. GC4 can be set to ignore some of the identifying values and still detect the game. My assumption is you can change too many things and generate too many different hash values that ignoring it entirely would be safer than just adding a second check for what you had.

 

[Watser]

I just started on Bard's Tale 1 for the first game to map with GC4. The amount of quality of life improvements has made the program significantly easier to maneuvre around in. When copying my hotkeys from GC3 to GC4 I noticed I can no longer use alt to bind a key, like alt+D. Is this intentional or a bug?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I just started on Bard's Tale 1 for the first game to map with GC4. The amount of quality of life improvements has made the program significantly easier to maneuvre around in. When copying my hotkeys from GC3 to GC4 I noticed I can no longer use alt to bind a key, like alt+D. Is this intentional or a bug?

Great, good luck!

I tried the Windows version and it seems like (left) ALT + D worked but (right) ALT GR + D doesn't - in the mapper or the editor. Sorry about that - there's definitely one bug there.

Does holding down either ALT key to override wall/edge drawing into ground mode work for you? If I tap either ALT-key the icons on the Home toolbar change. edit: This will help narrow down if it's the shortcut code going wrong, or if the lower-level keyboard code isn't working right.

 

[Watser]

I just started on Bard's Tale 1 for the first game to map with GC4. The amount of quality of life improvements has made the program significantly easier to maneuvre around in. When copying my hotkeys from GC3 to GC4 I noticed I can no longer use alt to bind a key, like alt+D. Is this intentional or a bug?

Great, good luck!

I tried the Windows version and it seems like (left) ALT + D worked but (right) ALT GR + D doesn't - in the mapper or the editor. Sorry about that - there's definitely one bug there.

Does holding down either ALT key to override wall/edge drawing into ground mode work for you? If I tap either ALT-key the icons on the Home toolbar change. edit: This will help narrow down if it's the shortcut code going wrong, or if the lower-level keyboard code isn't working right.

I just tried on my desktop pc and it works fine there with the regular launcher, went back to my netbook and it also worked there. I remembered the alt key not working was when I was using the fullscreen exe and indeed the problem is in the fullscreen launcher.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I just tried on my desktop pc and it works fine there with the regular launcher, went back to my netbook and it also worked there. I remembered the alt key not working was when I was using the fullscreen exe and indeed the problem is in the fullscreen launcher.

Yes I'm seeing that in the full-screen mode myself too ... WTF. I'll take a look and try and get a fix in, sorry about that. Unfortunately for now you'll have to use the windowed version. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

[Mustawd]

Crooked Bee, can we get a developer tag for Hidden Asbestos?

Thanks!

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I just tried on my desktop pc and it works fine there with the regular launcher, went back to my netbook and it also worked there. I remembered the alt key not working was when I was using the fullscreen exe and indeed the problem is in the fullscreen launcher.

I got the left ALT key to work in both windowed and full-screen mode, that'll be in the next build.

Right ALT (technically ALT GR) will cause problems. On my UK keyboard - ALT-GR + A actually types 'á' (it does similar for other vowels), but nothing for ALT-GR + D. So the GC4 code sits and waits when you try consonants, since you didn't type anything for it to display. I do get a key code so I could get something working but I'd have to guess what letter to show - which will cause (admittedly lesser) bugs on AZERTY, QWERTZ and non-Euro keyboards. A way to solve this cleanly will take some more thought.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Been a long time coming, but v4.0.3 is now available:
http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1746

Highlights:

* Game Link profiles for Wizardry II + Wizardry III [dos]
* [PRO] New region type: Tile Map.
* Clipped drawing. Setup a limited grid size and prevent drawing outside of this area.
* New markers: Scroll and Book. Use the switch tool to open/close the book.
* Horizontal and Vertical flipping of custom tiles.
* 3 new map themes: Red Vector, Amber Vector and Plain Grey
* Wand tool now has a Tool Opts. panel. Contiguous selection is now optionally.
* [Windows] File association support and file icon.
* Many bug fixes, optimisations and little tweaks.

- phew.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Yay for book and scroll markers! No longer I will have to use my custom icons.

 

[Watser]

Under keymapping, book is shown as {untranslated}

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Hidden Asbestos good thing you posted that link, as 4.0.2 (Win 64bit) doesn't detect an update being available from the Updates page.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Thanks for the bug reports folks!

Under keymapping, book is shown as {untranslated}

Hidden Asbestos good thing you posted that link, as 4.0.2 (Win 64bit) doesn't detect an update being available from the Updates page.

I've fixed the update checker script for the Pro edition (I updated Gamer and then apparently stopped ... d'oh), it should show v403 for everyone now (bearing in mind it only checks automatically once per day, something I think I'll loosen up in v404 by adding a 'check now' button). I'll also take steps to simplify the process for myself to try and avoid this happening again in future.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.0.3b is now available.

Fixes the text bug on the Book input mapping, an issue that could cause updates to be reported repeatedly and added a 'check now' button on the updates menu.

http://www.davidwaltersdevelopment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1746

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.0.4 will hopefully address the #1 support question: "Where's the game?" with a new 'assistant' feature - a very basic bit of code that offers to switch to split screen mode for you, and to create a properly configured map so you're ready to go in seconds (saving you from having to visit the file page or click the obscure and not-obvious little icon on the status bar.)

Other little annoyances are fixed:

1. Added new option "Theme Changes Apply to All Regions" to the setup > display menu. This speeds up changing the theme for your whole map as it turns it into a one-click action.

2. Remember the last selected theme and apply it to new maps. (Tile maps will still always default to plain grey). You can change to CGA once and never go back.

3. The clipboards are no longer fully cleared when starting a new map (similar to how v4.0.2 worked) Only custom tiles are removed from the clipboard (which at this time is unavoidable, sorry) leaving any stock brushes preserved so you can cut and paste between map files.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Better late than never!

Vote for Grid Cartographer on Steam Greenlight.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865153291

 

[Grauken]

huh, I thought Greenlight is to be deactivated?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

huh, I thought Greenlight is to be deactivated?

Yeah, I was kinda feeling a bit down when they made the Steam Direct announcement but it's not dead yet and I paid a fee for it. I figured why the hell not at least have a punt.

 

[FUDU]

Voted.

 

[Alchemist]

Voted - hope you get greenlit before the system changes.