A huge thank you to all the backers and beta testers for helping me get this far.
A new EULA: There’s a new EULA for early access which includes an Indie License for limited commercial usage. Check out section 3.3 for a full rundown on how you can use DMM maps commercially. The EULA can be found in the File > Info menu in app or on the Steam DMM store page in the info section on the right-hand sidebar.
Feedback/Bug Reports: All feedback and bug reports will now be handled through the Dragon Maps Discord server. The Feedback system in the app was a nice idea but Discord ended up being very much easier for the kind of communication needed to solve reported bugs. If for some reason you really can’t or don’t want to use Discord for feedback or bug reporting you can email [email protected]
Updates: News and updates will be done mainly through Steam and Discord from now. Find the Discord link in app (top right button) or on the Steam Store page (Right-hand info section).
Thanks once again and happy mapping!
Update #19
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 12:43:10 PM
Hi folks,
I Hope everyone is doing well and had a great holiday season.
It's been a while since I did an update here. The last couple of months have been a bit slow in progress due to some personal stuff I had to deal with. That's mostly sorted now and I’ve been concentrating on polishing a build I’m happy to release into early access on Steam.
Check out the patch notes below.
Mainly Assets and Bug fixes in this update.
Build: V0.231
Changed: Fixed spelling mistakes and UK vs USA spelling inconsistencies (switched to US)
Bug Fix: GridOn / GridOff text in the file name of the rendered map was always GridOff. Fixed.
Bug Fix: Windows layout objects were being replaced by doors objects when certain tools adjusted walls (wall fill tool etc). This was only a layout visual buff and didn’t affect the final map objects spawned. Fixed.
Bug Fix: The height under rooms would sometimes get reset when using other tools. Fixed.
Bug Fix: Wall Height and direction wouldn’t be dragged by the room drag tool. Fixed.
Bug Fix: Walls dragged onto the edge of the map with the Room Drag Tool would vanish on the west and south map edges. Fixed.
Bug Fix: Walls dragged from the edge of the map with the Room Drag Tool would not be editable with tools. Fixed.
Bug Fix: On the first load of the app, selecting the load map button in the file menu wouldn’t bring up the file browser until a save path was set.
Assets:
Added: Colliders added to walls so you can place items on them more easily with the Object Tool.
Added: Graves/Tomb/Sarcophagus themes - Room Tool (edge themes) and Object Theme Marker Tool. (Object Tool already added in the previous build).
Added: Viking, Celtic, Alchemic and Magic Symbols - Object Tool, change the colour by using Overrides and make them glow using the alternate override shader (Also found in overides for this theme).
Added: New Forest and Jungle Foliage objects - Object Tool (I'll add these to biomes in the next build)
Added: New Flower objects - Object Tool.
Added: New Manor house furniture (Many more colours and styles replacing the old models and being very much more efficient). Grimey and clean versions of the texture can be found in the overrides menu - Object Tool.
Added: New Ice/Snow Structures objects (replacing the old models and textures, over 10x more efficient, while looking more detailed with similar features to the DMM rock shaders but with icy textures) - Object Tool.
Added: Wooden Coffin Objects - Closed, Open, Lids and broken variants. Using overrides you can change the wood style texture - Object Tool.
Added: Wooden Bench Objects - X1 and x2 length versions. Using overrides you can change the wood style texture - Object Tool and Object Theme Tool.
Added: Kickstarter Legend and Hero tier names and quotes to the app and website.
What's next:
Once Steam Early access goes live and any issues with that have been resolved, my next main task is to get the Hero tier Asset rewards modelled/textured and added to DMM using Steams DLC systems. Hero tier backers will then receive a Steam key (through Backerkit) that will activate their new assets in Steam.
After that, I’ll be working on diagonal walls/rooms in layout mode. Some testing and progress were made in this regard while I added directional wall control, so I’m confident I can get this working.
Thank you, take care and happy mapping!
.
Dragon Map Maker progress update.
almost 2 years ago
– Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 06:19:20 PM
Hi folks,
Hope everyone is doing well. I thought I’d update people on what's been added to DMM since my last update here and my plans for the near future. Big thanks to all the wonderful people testing on the Discord server, the bug reports have been invaluable in making sure everything stays stable as I've added new features.
New features and improvements:
VTT support:
Added Virtual Tabletop support through the .vtt file format. I’ve tested this in FoundryVTT and Roll20 and it works well. Currently, Walls, Doors, Windows and painted Underground Biome Cave walls are supported.
WebP and PNG image export added.
.vtt file support. This is what you get in FoundryVTT
Rendering improvements:
Revamped the Method DMM renders maps.
Maps now render with more quality and less memory. You should notice a good increase in image quality.
Changed how map resolution is selected, we now use DPI (dots per inch/square). The current DPIs available are 160, 110, 80 and 50.
16k (100x100) maps are now possible to render (these are kind of extreme but some people asked for them).
Users with older graphics cards should be able to render larger resolutions now.
WebP and PNG image export added.
Map image file names have relevant info about the rendered map, resolution, grid size, dpi and grid On/Off included.
The new rendering method captures more details at the same resolution.
Lighting control:
Slider control for Sun/Moon Shadow strength so it can be turned off, reduced or increased. (Found in the lighting panel)
Slider controls for Ambient Occlusion (AO) effects for the final image. The camera view has also been updated to more closely show the Ambient Occlusion that will be present in the final render. (Found in the lighting panel).
Overrides:
Overrides have been added to assets used in the "Objects Tool", "Object Theme Tool" and "Room Tool" to allow the ability to change textures and colours of objects. Click the Overide button to check what's available on the selected theme.
Wall controls:
Wall height is now controllable using the edge tools (Walls, Doors and Windows).
Wall facing direction is now controllable. This allows for walls with specific features on only one side like castle crenulations.
New wall themes added to take advantage of wall direction controls
New wall Themes using new wall direction feature.
Example of different shapes with wall crenulations.
GUI:
Floating icons were added to Shadow caster objects and water planes and a bit of tweaking so they are easier to work with.
A search function for theme lists was added.
Lots of tweaks and fixes have been done to the UI for ease of use.
Optimization:
Optimisation for large numbers of “Object Tool” items (DMM can handle many thousands of these now).
Bugs/fixes:
As of right now, there shouldn’t be any game-breaking bugs. If you find any bugs please pop onto the Discord server and post them in the bug report channel.
Assets:
As I’ve gone through and added Overide control to most assets I’ve also tweaked and changed a bunch of these assets so they look better.
New assets added:
Statues:
Use the colour Overide on these to change the rock colour to match the colour of your maps rocks and stones.
Apollo (Greek-style statue) + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Seated Figure On Throne + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Angel 01 + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Angel 02 + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Gargoyle A + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Gargoyle B + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Tiger + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Lion + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Lion Sphinx + Broken versions (4 objects)
Sarcophagus Top + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Head of Jupiter (Bust) + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Sphinx A + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
Sphinx C + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
St Cyril + Flipped and Broken versions (8 objects)
New Statue assets
Stone/Rock Construction Set:
Similar to the wood construction set, I’ve created a Rock/Stone construction set for efficient assets made of rock-type materials. These match the style of the statues mentioned above and the current Rocks and stones used in DMM so they all work really well together. You can use Overides to control what colour they are to match the rock colours used on your map. I'll expose more shader controls in Overides such as moss coverage and moss colour in a future patch.
20 basic stone shapes (20 objects)
21 styles of Columns + broken versions (105 objects)
3 styles of Obelisks + broken versions (12 objects)
9 stone coffin styles + broken versions and separated parts (71 objects)
6 stone throne styles (6 objects)
4 Stone bowl styles + broken versions (8 objects)
Rubble piles to match this set (8 objects)
New Stone Construction set assets.
What's next:
My current goal is to get DMM ready for a Steam Early Access launch in the next few weeks. This will be when DMM is available to purchase to the general public.
Assets update and Steam keys
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Jun 09, 2022 at 04:41:59 AM
Hi folks,
I hope everyone is doing well.
Assets update: I’ve completed the asset reorganisation I mentioned in the last update. I’ve also added in some new assets. I’ve made sure there are equivalent assets for any that I replaced, so old maps should still look the same or very similar.
What I have done is update many of the assets with better models and shared higher quality textures (Wood and Metal). I’ve also done some behind the scenes stuff with assets to make it easier in the future to add assets and use them in different systems.
Steam Keys: I have been holding off on creating a Steam beta client until I got the assets cleaned up. Now that's done, I can send Steam beta keys to all backers. You will be receiving a Backerkit email with your Steam beta key. You can also go to https://dragonmapmaker.backerkit.com/ and check your account. All your keys can be found there.
Now I have completed the job of updating the current assets, I’ll be doing more regular updates with a mixture of features and new assets.
The next thing I am working on is an “asset search” feature and then exporting map data to VTTs. I’ll also be working on the list of requested assets from Discord, Hero tier assets and stretch goal assets.
Thanks for all the support and happy mapping!
Here are examples of the updated and new assets added in the last few weeks.
Traveler beta keys are being sent today
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 02:57:21 PM
Hi Folks,
I’ve sent out beta keys to traveller tier backers today (Through Backerkit). All backers should then have been sent a beta key.
There are about 55 people that have yet to complete the Backerkit survey, so if you haven’t please do so as I can’t send a beta key to you until you do. Go here to access your survey https://dragonmapmaker.backerkit.com/ (Log in with your Kickstarter email and make a Backerkit account if you have not done that yet, then you can complete the survey)
Keep an eye out for an email from Backerkit. This will contain your beta key and instructions on how to get into the beta. If you don’t receive an email (or lose it) please go here https://dragonmapmaker.backerkit.com/ and log in to your Backerkit account. All your beta keys and instructions will be there as well. There should also be an invite link to the DMM beta discord server in the instructions (section 15). If not there will be a discord link on the itch.io page for DMM as well.
I’ve also spent the last few days making a set of videos going over each feature/tool currently in DMM. It's quite a lot of videos (42!!), I’ll sort out an index on the page so it's easier to scan through but for now, I hope it’ll be somewhat useful to you folks getting started using DMM. You can find it here https://www.dragonmapmaker.com/howtomap you can also check out the live beta demo I did during the Kickstarter here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSNVr0i2zcSItk53OkuXNVk-LlcRDmWbn which shows me making a map from scratch.
Now all this mundane stuff has been sorted I plan on adding the assets I’ve made over the last month into a build and publish that build as soon as possible. As I’ve mentioned these mostly are a remake and reorganisation of current assets so assets are more efficient and easier for me to work with going forward. So expect that next week. Then it should be new requested assets and new features being added from then on.
