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Post by muppetking on May 7, 2017 15:46:55 GMT
I absolutely need to start off by saying I love the program! The moment I saw how fast and easy it was to setup a quick dungeon I was completely sold. I know you plan on adding in more features to make it work for a live game mat however my friends and I have already used it as such by laying a cheap 40 inch LCD TV flat on a table and putting our mini's on it and it worked pretty damn great. With our use case, we're not looking for all the crazy features that come with Roll20, but rather we just want a live battle mat that our DM can quickly throw together dungeons or an inn we're staying at, and place our figures right on the TV. Our requests due to this will fall mostly into easier to implement quality of life type changes that would make our games easier to run. - When the library is full of imported objects, sorting becomes very difficult. The ability to either have a folder tree structure that could be defined with in the library folder or perhaps search box that looks at the image's name. The tagging system currently doesn't seem to be fully implemented, but with the amount of objects I imported tagging would take forever.
- The ability to add text to the map, perhaps the ability to designate an object as sign, that when clicked on would pop up information prepopulated by the DM
- Support for baked in doors, gateways, castle gates, things of that nature. The current solution is to drag a door PNG into the map and place it into a narrow opening but it would be very useful if we could get doors rendered in the map in the same way the walls are. This would allow for the possibility of click on doors to open or close them. Currently we need to place a PNG door, then remove it and place an open version of it.
- Fog of war, it would useful for us if the DM can click on a room and set it to be blacked out so that way areas we haven't discovered yet aren't visible.
- Layered Rooms - The layer system works great for individual elements of a map. The ability to define multiple floors that can be changed between and each contain their own rooms/dungeons. This would be extremely useful for situations where players descend or ascend stairs.
The editor suggestions would be the most useful for us in the short term. With over 500 objects in our library already, finding that perfect object wasn't quick so anything that could speed or aid in that process would be most useful. Thank you for making a fantastic and easy to use program! I showed my DM the video on steam expecting him to be indifferent but instead he was thrilled with the possibilities. I picked up a cheap 1080p LCD and we had our first game using the program on last Friday, and while some what rocky with learning, it was a great experience for the players. |
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Post by Arcane Architect on May 7, 2017 18:30:29 GMT
Thank you for your post, its very interesting to hear that some people are already using this software for Digital Tabletop play - something that I planned to support but I honestly didn't think the program was ready for yet.  I will respond to your list of suggestions below: 1. [Sorting] Sorting objects still needs some work. Objects already receive default tags based on their name but the system still requires refinement for the reasons you mentioned. This is planned. 2. [Text] At some point I would like to add a "notes" system, even for normal editing, so people can make notes to themselves for the future (marking various areas of the map, etc.). So that should cover this. 3. [Doors] Already planned, under the "Door System" build, see the Upcoming Builds news post. 4. [Fog of War] Unfortunately this is squarely in the Digital/Virtual Tabletop territory. Something that is planned but is definitely not an editor feature. The DM/GM will need to see the rooms on their end, which means having networked clients, etc.. So this one may need to wait until we can get further into the editor features. 5. [Layered Rooms] Also planned, under the "Multi-level / Exterior Support" build, see the Upcoming Builds news post. |
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Post by muppetking on May 7, 2017 19:29:45 GMT
Thank you for your post, its very interesting to hear that some people are already using this software for Digital Tabletop play - something that I planned to support but I honestly didn't think the program was ready for yet. I will respond to your list of suggestions below: 1. [Sorting] Sorting objects still needs some work. Objects already receive default tags based on their name but the system still requires refinement for the reasons you mentioned. This is planned. 2. [Text] At some point I would like to add a "notes" system, even for normal editing, so people can make notes to themselves for the future (marking various areas of the map, etc.). So that should cover this. 3. [Doors] Already planned, under the "Door System" build, see the Upcoming Builds news post. 4. [Fog of War] Unfortunately this is squarely in the Digital/Virtual Tabletop territory. Something that is planned but is definitely not an editor feature. The DM/GM will need to see the rooms on their end, which means having networked clients, etc.. So this one may need to wait until we can get further into the editor features. 5. [Layered Rooms] Also planned, under the "Multi-level / Exterior Support" build, see the Upcoming Builds news post. Thanks for the swift reply! Yeah, we're used the software in a live D&D session with all players being in person, and placing the player and monster figures on a TV laying flat. I think you had planned to allow normal rooms to have fog enabled for them, that would meet our needs. I assumed most of what I suggested was already planned but I wanted to cast an additional vote for'm It's good to get confirmation that the tag system is based on parsing the file name. I had thought that maybe it was doing that, but I couldn't get the program to now down the library by say chairs. In the mean time, I'll focus on making sure file names are good and descriptive. I guess the program has a set of tags or keywords it's looking for in a file name to check the appropriate tags, would it be possible to get the keyword list so I can name files appropriately? I'd like to restate my love for your program and I assure you, even in it's current state its completely workable for use as a live battle mat like my friends and I have done. I brought a ton of immersion to the the session, allowing the DM to setup rooms with Egyptian themes (we were in a pyramid) using some assets I found. Sincerely, -Muppet King |
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Post by Arcane Architect on May 7, 2017 20:51:34 GMT
Thanks Muppet King.
There is currently no UI for it but you technically can add and edit tags if you are adventurous (please make backups if you do)...
1. Find the ArcaneMapper folder on your desktop, probably something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ArcaneMapper\
2. Open up the UI\ folder.
3. Open tags.txt in a text editor.
4. In the file you will see all of the tags currently made. The system matches the tag names with substrings in the file names. For example "Table" will be applied to any filename with "table" as part of the name. Anyway go ahead and take a look and see if you can make heads or tails of it. Obviously you can also wait until there is a proper UI to use to add or change tags.
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Post by muppetking on May 8, 2017 1:35:06 GMT
Thanks Muppet King. There is currently no UI for it but you technically can add and edit tags if you are adventurous (please make backups if you do)... 1. Find the ArcaneMapper folder on your desktop, probably something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ArcaneMapper\ 2. Open up the UI\ folder. 3. Open tags.txt in a text editor. 4. In the file you will see all of the tags currently made. The system matches the tag names with substrings in the file names. For example "Table" will be applied to any filename with "table" as part of the name. Anyway go ahead and take a look and see if you can make heads or tails of it. Obviously you can also wait until there is a proper UI to use to add or change tags. I will likely leave well enough alone on that one. The only thing I'd probably do is ensure our PNG filenames are description so the tag system picks up on it. I very much look forward to seeing the program grow! -Muppet King |
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