Sunday 27 March 2011

Draft Dungeon.ppt Slide

So, here is what I am thinking of releasing. Click to see it at full resolution:



Naturally, this is a Powerpoint slide, so the released document will have each object as a separate thing you can copy and paste into your own documents. I'll also include a second slide with some tips on how to work with Powerpoint, which makes decent maps but has its quirks. The reason I use it is because:
  • it came bundled with Windows; 
  • AutoRealm kept having issues with line thickness and feature alignment and is no longer supported as far as I can tell;
  • I work best with object-oriented stuff; like to revise and switch things around;
  • and anything else is either tile-based or costs beaucoup money.
The graph paper is currently an overlay made of lines that conforms to the .5 cm grid I'm using, but I'm thinking of including a persistent, tiled graph paper fill pattern for objects instead.

Anything you'd like to see, or find useful, that I missed here?

8 comments:

  1. That, good sir, is incredible. Kudos.

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  2. This looks really good. I do all my stuff by hand and then add numbers and such with photoshop, but if these objects import well into photoshop they would be really useful. The tiny details like this are hard to do by hand (stairs, etc) but I don't have anything in Photoshop to use for them.

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  3. Nice. Any chance that we will see an example of the icons in use? Also, any chance that you will be doing an 'overland' one?

    Best,
    TB

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  4. This is interesting. I have strong feelings (mostly negative) about powerpoint, but if folks that aren't into fiddly graphics programs can use it for mapping, and you're giving them the tools, then I'm willing to withhold judgment (prejudice, actually) to see how this works out. I've got lots of colleagues that put together posters for academic conferences as just a giant single ppt slide, and it seems to work for them. I use Illustrator for that, but if folks are able to layout a 3'x6' composition with software they already have, then jolly good.

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  5. @Matt, Scott: Thanks! I don't have Photoshop but any help exporting the items would be welcome.

    @Bane: I really find it hard to improve on Hexographer for outdoor mapping (Dungeonographer is limited because it's tile-based, and I gots to have my 135 degree angled rooms sometimes...) Did put some work into a hexcrawl system though, and may develop some more useful icons for Hexographer; I find their settlement icons a bit limited.

    @Spawn: I hate bullet points as much as the next guy, but PPT is actually a pretty nifty if basic CAD drawing package too; I also use it for academic posters and illustrations.

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  6. I'm digging it (particularly the attention markers) and looking forward to more. How about an icon for one-way doors and one-way secret doors.

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  7. @James: Aha! Knew I'd left something out. Thanks!

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  8. Roger these look good. I am no cartographer, but I think they would be useful.

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