MapTool 1.2 Development Release Build 3

[dorpond]

Not sure why this is happening with certain overlays textures but with some, you can see a line around the outside of the texture and with others, you cannot.

[dorpond]

4. Make a method to where we can state that the light blocking layer will automatically be on the texture layer while we are drawing them. This way when we are drawing a bunch of walls during game, they will automatically have the "blue" light blocking layer on them - makes for quicker map preperation on the spot. We won't have to draw the walls out twice.

I was thinking about this - we would need a way of stating how many pixels from the edge the light blocking layer will not cover.

Let me explain...

If the light blocking layer is the same exact size as the textured wall we just dropped down, then when we Expose Visible Area, the FOG will never be lifted over the walls. thus the players will never see the cool textured walls.

So at first I was thinking about that being hard coded into Maptool - to be X amount of pixels but we really can't do that because 5 pixels on a 20 grid setting map is a lot different than 5 pixels on a 200 grid setting map.

So I think we would have to have a user setting of some sort.

Having the Light Blocking Layer auto-apply to the textures would allow GM's to make maps very quickly - on the spot during games.

[dorpond]

Boy Trevor, this is a lot of fun!

I am really excited about being able to make some really quick maps.
Thanks for these great features!

[dorpond]

Textures are not being saved in campaign file.

I saved the campaign file from home and sent it to work so I could work on it during lunch but it wouldn't load the textures.

The picture below says it all:

[trevor]

oh crap. hmm. ok I know what it is.

expect a 1.2b4 today or tmrw to fix that

[Dalna]

Not sure why, but I do get a small error with 1.2b3
It says its unable to load version or credits.
Not sure it I will be able to serve with b3 if it cant identify version number.

[Phergus]

Was mentioned in the release notes at the top of the thread.

Doesn't affect anything but the about window.

[dorpond]

I'm open to suggestions

I found myself several times wanting to click the texture in the Image Explorer and have it automatically selected for the paint. One Idea I had was to make it so that if you are in the drawing tools the Image Explorer will change the mouse events such that left clicking sets the outline color and the right click sets the fill color. Which will work great when you know it, but seems even less intuitive to new users (since it changes the behavior of the panel)

How about creating a system that will work for bigger and better things down the road?

I didn't change anything as far as the current window options (yet anyway) but how about we make the existing window be the key for adding textures and adding effects (when we have that option down the road)?

I really think we need to have a texture window for all of the options but more-so for making it user friendly for newbies. I love right clicking on the explorer window and doing textures that way, but I see that as an advanced user function.

When we eventually roll out effects like shadowing, beveling and other goodies, we will need a home for it also -putting them in the same window is important I think.

Another thing to keep in mind is keeping the windows that we have small - that is why I think having tabs in one window would be key. Familiarity is important and having users go to the same place for drawing is important.

Also, Trevor, notice how I modified the buttons in the example below - much easier to tell what is clicked - don't you think?

Thoughts?

[dorpond]

OK, now I am taking it personal.

[trevor]

OK, now I am taking it personal.

Heh, sorry man, been busy with work and family today. Let me take a look now.

[trevor]

1. Need better push buttons in color dialog - I can't tell if they are pushed or not. All they do is lighten and darken - we need to work on push in - push out buttons. We will talk

Yeah, I agree, it's the one part of the look and feel we're using that I really dislike. So, I have a new task for everybody, find a new Look and Feel that is awesome. There's a lot of them out there, most of them suck.

check out http://javootoo.com for a fairly good list of current look and feels.

2. Not intuitive enough - If I didn't see the demo, I would have no clue how to do texture fills. Even after watching the demo, I was still poking around at it half clueless. It would be great if we can make it so it is super obvious for the new user and I really feel that a new user wouldn't even know that this was possible unless told so.

Agreed, and in fact I had to redo the demo several times because it _felt_ like it should be done differently. But that's how we work, a feature is introduced, and the community helps refine it. How should it be changed to make it more intuitive ?

3. Adjusting line width - is it gone now? I wanted to draw a freehand line but have it a texture. I thought setting the line width to the thickness of a wall would make drawing really easy.

This was an artifact of the toolbar change (oops). I'll add it back, but put it on the paint chooser dialog.

4. Make a method to where we can state that the light blocking layer will automatically be on the texture layer while we are drawing them. This way when we are drawing a bunch of walls during game, they will automatically have the "blue" light blocking layer on them - makes for quicker map preperation on the spot. We won't have to draw the walls out twice.

It's a bit tricky though, since you probably want at least a couple pixels of the wall to show, so you need to bring in the topology by a couple pixels, which is kinda tricky when you want two walls to connect (try to avoid a gap)

5. Expose visible path - Can you implement that sooner than later? I think I am really close to using this during game and that as we all know is the ultimate testing environment

Yes

[trevor]

2. allow us to resize the texture in Maptool before we draw it onto the map.

In fact, I knew this was going to be one of the very first feedback items to come back, even before I started implementing the feature It's just obvious that scale would need to change. Technically speaking it's pretty easy to adjust the scale. The tricky part is figuring out how to let you do that in the UI.

I thought about putting another slider on the color chooser, next to the transparency.

Thoughts ?

[trevor]

Issue: When I draw a texture, the size it is when I am drawing it isn't the same when I finalize it by clicking the button. It resizes it - most of the time smaller than the way it looks before I finalize it.

This make precise drawing with textures very difficult especially if the textures we are using are square floor tiles and such.

I'll look into why they are slightly different

[trevor]

Clear all Drawings = OUCH

My whole map made of textures vanished in front of my eyes!

While I do like the idea of an option to Clear all Textures, I definately think they should be seperate.

Yeah, that's a bad one. But somewhat expected, you are just adding drawables after all

But it does bring up a good point. I've been wanting to create a background drawable layer and a foreground drawable layer. One for map drawables, and one for play-time stuff, like templates and "I'm going this way" kind of drawing. Then when you erase the top layer, it leaves the bottom layer.

[trevor]

Not sure why this is happening with certain overlays textures but with some, you can see a line around the outside of the texture and with others, you cannot.

That's really weird. Could you email me one of the textures that's creating the surround ?