Incline Grid Cartographer - Best Tool for Drawing Classic RPG Maps

[Strange Fellow]

Steam launch is GO! https://store.steampowered.com/app/684690/Grid_Cartographer_4/

Thanks for the all support to date, the patience while I took nearly a year to get this launch ready and the consistent enthusiasm for the project as it enters its 6th year of development. I look forward to the future with LibRetro support and many other great features that I have planned.

I had not been following this project for a while until I saw it on steam, congrats on getting there! That will hopefully net you some more sales. The functionality has expanded like crazy since I last checked it out, too. Always been a pen and graph paper kind of nerd, but this looks extremely convenient and practical. Hats off

 

[ortucis]

I would buy it on Steam (will it run with Steam in offline mode?).

But, can it only create square based maps? Are there examples of maps with curved corners and such? (I though I saw curves in editor, in that Steam trailer)

Unity export support is nice though (is it integrated with any assets?).

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

I would buy it on Steam (will it run with Steam in offline mode?).

I just tried it and it ran fine in offline mode. As I don't tend to use that mode I'm not sure what limitations are imposed by Valve, but from my pov it's offline compatible software.

But, can it only create square based maps? Are there examples of maps with curved corners and such? (I though I saw curves in editor, in that Steam trailer)

In addition to the square maps, you also have hexagon maps and a specialised tilemap mode for retro/2D gamedev
When working with a square grid you have some quarter circle curved edge tiles to work with, I've made you a quick illustration here showing that off (and also how it looks in the 3D view)
https://imgur.com/Q3YkxZH

Unity export support is nice though (is it integrated with any assets?).

The Unity and Unreal export generates a simple mesh, it doesn't apply any detailing or prefabs (which is what I think you're suggesting)
It's an area I would like to improve upon a little more but my current plans don't involve turning Grid Cartographer into a fully fledged 3D modelling tool or scene layout tool. I feel Unity is probably a better place for those features to exist, so my plans revolve around making that easier rather than replacing functionality.
I would suggest you look at this feature as a way to quickly block out maps at a very early stages of development (e.g. when you're still getting the camera controller to move around), just so you can get a sense of the space and layout, but then phase out the GC mesh as your own tech evolves and prefabs can be brought in.

Here's the map from above exported and quickly loaded into a Unity scene: https://imgur.com/Bbe8HHf

 

[newtmonkey]

Hidden Asbestos
I had used an early version of V3 before, but preferred graph paper tbh, as the PC version was still kinda clunky and the Android version was pretty annoying to use without a stylus. I'm sure I could have gotten used to it if I stuck with it, but it was just so much quicker to use a pad of graph paper.

Well, I just upgrade to V4 (well, bought V4), and it is so much easier to use now. Gamelink is great (restarted and currently playing Might & Magic Book 1).
I had a question about split-screen view with your custom DOSBOX implementation: is there any way to set it to scale the DOSBOX evenly both vertically and horizontally? I noticed that, no matter what setting I choose for the view, some pixels are wider than others.

[edit] Figured it out! Turning off aspect ratio correction solves the uneven pixel width issue.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Hidden Asbestos
I had used an early version of V3 before, but preferred graph paper tbh, as the PC version was still kinda clunky and the Android version was pretty annoying to use without a stylus. I'm sure I could have gotten used to it if I stuck with it, but it was just so much quicker to use a pad of graph paper.

Well, I just upgrade to V4 (well, bought V4), and it is so much easier to use now. Gamelink is great (restarted and currently playing Might & Magic Book 1).
I had a question about split-screen view with your custom DOSBOX implementation: is there any way to set it to scale the DOSBOX evenly both vertically and horizontally? I noticed that, no matter what setting I choose for the view, some pixels are wider than others.

[edit] Figured it out! Turning off aspect ratio correction solves the uneven pixel width issue.

Thanks for the kind words! It's good to know that you can notice the jump from 3 to 4, I just see this gradual improvement day-to-day and it's easy to forget how far its come in 2-3 years, glad you like it.

I'll think about a couple of fixed presets for that video menu because I'm often wanting to switch between 1:1 square pixels with no filtering or stretching, and the opposite. Glad you got it sorted, it was 3am here when you posted

 

[newtmonkey]

Hidden Asbestos
Good to hear about adding some fixed presets, looking forward to that if you decide to implement!

I have a dumb question: I am using bulldozer mode w/game link, and can't figure out how to delete a single wall/marker. If I deselect everything but "marker" in Eraser Options, it deletes all markers in the square. It also seems like I cannot just select a wall in "draw wall" mode to delete walls drawn by bulldozer mode.

The reason I want to do this is because in bulldozer mode, as you know it automatically draws three walls around you when you step into a new square. However, I would like to delete any walls that are actually not there in the game (so that, if I decide to stop for a while, I don't come back later and just assume there is a wall there when there really isn't).

Is there a way to do this, or I am using the application wrong?

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

That's a flaw in the software I'm afraid, I'll look into fixing it.

For now you need to delete the 'smart block' the bulldozer put down and draw the ground in manually with the walls you want, and the ones you don't missing.

 

[newtmonkey]

Hidden Asbestos
Thanks for the reply! I switched off bulldozer mode for the time being, and am just drawing the walls etc manually, so no problem

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

PSA: Last hour of the Steam discount sale: https://store.steampowered.com/app/684690/Grid_Cartographer_4/

Sadly wasn't able to overlap the whole summer sale with the launch discount.

edit: Added those video presets newtmonkey: https://twitter.com/gridcarto/status/1011638951977930753

 

[newtmonkey]

Hidden Asbestos
Amazing! Thank you very much

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Hidden Asbestos

I've been fooling around with the program both for linking (Wizardry) and actually doing maps (DND). I like it a lot and in the end I think it will well be worth the investment. I'm something having fun just creating maps and exploring them in FPP lol.

That being said, I wanted to use it for fiddling around in game engine. I know you added possibility of XML to Unity, but I was wondering if you had any good tutorial on how to do that. Pages back, you gave a final rendering in Unity for it, but I didn't see a "way to get there". Doesn't have to be from you, since XML is generic, but at least a little something to use it. Thanks !

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Hidden Asbestos

I've been fooling around with the program both for linking (Wizardry) and actually doing maps (DND). I like it a lot and in the end I think it will well be worth the investment. I'm something having fun just creating maps and exploring them in FPP lol.

That being said, I wanted to use it for fiddling around in game engine. I know you added possibility of XML to Unity, but I was wondering if you had any good tutorial on how to do that. Pages back, you gave a final rendering in Unity for it, but I didn't see a "way to get there". Doesn't have to be from you, since XML is generic, but at least a little something to use it. Thanks !

Hi, I've written a "Data Export Reference" manual for the data export features of Grid Cartographer Pro/Steam, that's linked from my website here:
http://gridcartographer.com/download/

Do let me know if it's useful, or you spot any mistakes! Note that it's just XML export and yes you could use Unity (and it's very popular) but it's not required because, as you say, XML is a generic format.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Hidden Asbestos

I've been fooling around with the program both for linking (Wizardry) and actually doing maps (DND). I like it a lot and in the end I think it will well be worth the investment. I'm something having fun just creating maps and exploring them in FPP lol.

That being said, I wanted to use it for fiddling around in game engine. I know you added possibility of XML to Unity, but I was wondering if you had any good tutorial on how to do that. Pages back, you gave a final rendering in Unity for it, but I didn't see a "way to get there". Doesn't have to be from you, since XML is generic, but at least a little something to use it. Thanks !

Hi, I've written a "Data Export Reference" manual for the data export features of Grid Cartographer Pro/Steam, that's linked from my website here:
http://gridcartographer.com/download/

Do let me know if it's useful, or you spot any mistakes! Note that it's just XML export and yes you could use Unity (and it's very popular) but it's not required because, as you say, XML is a generic format.

I'm away for work for 2 weeks, but when I get back and work on that, I'll let you know. Thanks for answering.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

Hidden Asbestos

I've been fooling around with the program both for linking (Wizardry) and actually doing maps (DND). I like it a lot and in the end I think it will well be worth the investment. I'm something having fun just creating maps and exploring them in FPP lol.

That being said, I wanted to use it for fiddling around in game engine. I know you added possibility of XML to Unity, but I was wondering if you had any good tutorial on how to do that. Pages back, you gave a final rendering in Unity for it, but I didn't see a "way to get there". Doesn't have to be from you, since XML is generic, but at least a little something to use it. Thanks !

Hi, I've written a "Data Export Reference" manual for the data export features of Grid Cartographer Pro/Steam, that's linked from my website here:
http://gridcartographer.com/download/

Do let me know if it's useful, or you spot any mistakes! Note that it's just XML export and yes you could use Unity (and it's very popular) but it's not required because, as you say, XML is a generic format.

Okay so I took the time to check it out and it's even easier than I thought. Unity is already made to deal with .OBJ at the basic level. So I literally just dragged and dropped my map .OBJ in the scene and it created the model. Too easy. Thanks.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Rather than work on GC5 and force everyone to pay a big chunk to upgrade, I've launched a Patreon page to support future development of GC4.

* Grid Cartographer 4 is sticking around.
* If you bought a copy of GC4, you're entitled to all of the same updates to your software as backers.
* The aim is to allow me to continue adding cool new features to GC4.

https://www.patreon.com/gridcarto

edit: I've made a more in-depth explanation post here on my forum:
http://gridcartographer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1885

(A bunch of people have mailed me about setting one of these up. If it's not something you're interested in, that's definitely totally fine!)

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.0.9 is now available!

http://gridcartographer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1902

* New Game Link profile: "Gateway to the Savage Frontier", thanks to Grauken for all his hard work.
* Rewritten note and label editor to support automatic word-wrap.

On that note, could you add support for ctrl-A and ctrl-backspace in the note/label editors?

CTRL+Backspace and CTRL+Delete are now both supported by the new text editor. Sorry for the delay! (you posted this on page 16.)

 

[Grauken]

http://www.mediafire.com/file/334bcarg1rpgdvh/Ultima 1.zip

For everybody who wanted to map the dungeons in Ultima 1. Contains the worldmap and a profile for the game. As the dungeons are random for each game, the profile only provides empty maps for any of the 36 dungeons (they appear once you enter any of them) and if you're crazy enough you could map them all

I used https://twitter.com/Kilg0re_Tr0ut maps for GC as a basis, otherwise the world map would have taken much longer

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

You can now upgrade from v4 Gamer to Steam here: http://gridcartographer.com/buy/ for about the difference between the Gamer and Pro/Steam edition.
If you'd like to stay away from Steam, you can upgrade to the website Pro edition for the same price.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Another week, another free update! v4.1.0 is now available.

* Game Link profile for Ultima 1
* Scripting improvements and an example exporter for AppGameKit

Full release notes:
http://gridcartographer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1920

Download:
http://gridcartographer.com/download/

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

LINUX USERS ! - I'm planning to raise the minspec. distro to Linux Mint 19 LTS / Ubuntu 18.04. (Previous minspec. was Mint 17.3 / Ubuntu 14.04). I also plan to move up to libpng16. Is this good/bad ?

 

[Hirato]

I still reckon you should make use of sdl2 (and probably sdl_image), even if it's just to let the libpng dependency be controlled by something the user can compile.

Not that it affects me - I use Arch.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

Here's a preview of a new auto-walls rewrite I've been working on. First I'm drawing walls as normal, second I'm making minor edits, third I'm going to town with the eraser. This ability to tweak and modify the auto-walls is much better than before.

This rewrite of the block tool adds an auto-walls option to the Tool Opts. panel that you can apply to terrains and also now custom tiles.
Still need to code this for hexagons and also write a converter so old maps will load correctly.

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.1.1 has been released.

* Re-written "auto-wall" Block tiles - support for walls being edited after drawing.
* Filter box for the brush palette side panel.
* DOOM IWAD import for custom terrain tiles (from Doom, Heretic, Hexen, etc.).
* New markers: "Spring" (jump-pad) and "Tent"
* Hex "Mountain", "Vegetation" and "Trees" terrain now look much better.
* Export single regions to XML. New right-click sub-menu for export on region tabs.
* Improved 'UIKit' scripting library with text-based dialog box support.
* Lots of bugs fixed!

Full change log here:
http://gridcartographer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1931

 

[Hidden Asbestos]

v4.1.2-beta1 is now available for Windows users on all platforms.

This marks a phased release of LibRetro support. Right now it's a little bare-bones and probably could be friendlier to use. I'd love to get some feedback on areas of confusion.

mac / Linux versions with LibRetro support will come eventually but there's a massive amount of extra work to do there in terms of audio and input support. I'm hoping that'll be some time later this year / early 2019. Custom DOSBox will continue to function on all versions in the mean-time.

Download / more information here:
http://gridcartographer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1936


Also adds a mostly complete 'tile snipper' tool which lets you cut into block tiles:

oh and the "G button" is back from the dead.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Tile snipper is just the thing I want for Exanima mapping now.