MapTool 1.1 build 15 Development progress

thelevitator · Post by **thelevitator** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:26 pm

Hey there Dorpond! I'm going to try and explain how I did it, although I'm worried that I'm going to look like a dummy because I probably did most of it the hard way.

I used the "mud" background to start the map. I then took a bunch of .png files that I've acquired from the Dundjinni site. I started by creating a cliff base. I took a couple different ones and copied and pasted multiple instances of them. Then I changed their facing and sizing a bit to make them look different. Next, I lined them all up and then changed them to Backgrounds. I just repeated the same process with some foliage and trees and bushes.

I designed it as sort of a repeating canyon, with cliffs on the west side and thick brush on the east. The guys are on horseback, so I wanted a large area in case there was some sort of chase. They are actually walking into a goblin ambush. If the encounter goes too far South I can just move the counters back to the North in their relative positions and keep running the encounter. I don't do screenshots very often, but here's what it looks like. The tokens are small because I wanted a big area. The areas to the east of the bush and west of the cliffs are not available for movement for the players.

Post by **trevor** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:35 pm

Cool, that's neat thelevitator, and thanks for the explanation

thelevitator · Post by **thelevitator** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:39 pm

Sorry about the image changing so much. I was trying different formats and quality settings and going back and forth between my ftp site and my leechftp program. I'm not the mack daddy of techie stuff like you guys!

thelevitator · Post by **thelevitator** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:40 pm

Oh, and please everyone, feel free to call me James. It's easier on the fingers!

Post by **trevor** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:40 pm

I encourage you to create a gallery album for yourself. You can store this kind of thing there and refer to it from the forums. That way you don't have to keep track of where it is stored.

thelevitator · Post by **thelevitator** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:47 pm

Should I do that here or at rpgmapshare?

Post by **dorpond** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:15 pm

Well if you wanted one for yourself, that would be the gallery 2. You can create your own album for stuff you want to show for examples and such. You can also store stuff at RPGMapshare but that is more of a community site where you save to the preset albums.

If you have maps and mapping objects that you made, put them at RPGMS but if you have stuff specific to RPTools, post it here.

As far as your situation, you did it the same way I would. Without having the "canyon" already made, you had do to it as you mentioned and it worked out very well.

Man, I am pumped! I am glad you are rocking with this stuff!

Post by **trevor** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:59 pm

We encourage any images that show up in the forums to be hosted in the gallery, that way there is a certain level of continuity regardless of outside influences.

So screenies and the like are fully encouraged in the rptools gallery.

Post by **trevor** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:28 am

UPDATE:

OK, I got the movement lock in place. I actually had to change something which has the side effect of making the strict token movement a play-time toggle, so we could actually make it changeable during play.

Couple notes though: it seems that players might get freaked out if they all the sudden can't move tokens. They might think the tool is broken. It seems like a good idea to somehow visually indicate that movement is locked. Perhaps some icon on the display or something.

Thoughts ?

Post by **dorpond** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:49 am

How about a lock icon?

Here are three different styles I came up with.

Post by **trevor** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:14 am

Those are good locks. The trick is that the lock is a global state for all tokens, so I was thinking like a lock on the map, perhaps in the top middle, or top left. That way it's obvious that all token movement is locked.

Conceptually, what do you guys think, and what do you think would be a good icon ? (Padlock is a valid answer)

Post by **dorpond** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:22 am

Well it is hard to say until tested. Maybe you can release it without and see if it cause problems with players - it probably won't be too difficult for you to implement quickly if needed, would it?

I play in the same room but I am trying to imagine what it would be like across oceans.

Nonetheless, I think it would be helpful to see what you have now first and see how it currently works before we can make suggestions.

Thoughts?

Phergus · Post by **Phergus** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:27 am

My thought was that the pointer would turn to a stop sign, or something similar, when a Player attempted to move his token out of turn. This would only show when he hovered the arrow pointer over tokens he would normally be able to move.

Post by **dorpond** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:05 pm

Phergus wrote:My thought was that the pointer would turn to a stop sign, or something similar, when a Player attempted to move his token out of turn. This would only show when he hovered the arrow pointer over tokens he would normally be able to move.

Stop sign.. How convenient.. I see how it is.. Anything that resembles a Hex...

I like that idea though but would suggest the pointer turning into a lock instead

Post by **trevor** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:04 pm

Hmm, interesting idea.

Well, I might release it the way it is so people can play with it.