Quote from: Bobloblah;731939I apologize if I missed it in one of the walls o' text above, but what happened to MapTool?

No patches/updates in a year to the "stable" 1.3 version, and development on 1.4 is looking increasingly like vapourware.

Annoyingly, 1.3 requires Java 6 and doesn't work on Java 7, and Java 6 is now out of support by Sun even for security fixes I believe.

So basically, it's currently an abandon ware product that requires you to install in insecure SDK to run it. There's a kickstarter currently running for "Mote", which as far as I can tell is some new developer's fork of 1.3. Quite why I should pledge money to an unknown developer to produce a fork of an abandoned product that was previously free escapes me, but I admit I've not looked in to it too much as I gave up on MT about 9 months ago in favour of Fantasy Grounds.

Quote from: Grymbok;732115No patches/updates in a year to the "stable" 1.3 version, and development on 1.4 is looking increasingly like vapourware.

Annoyingly, 1.3 requires Java 6 and doesn't work on Java 7, and Java 6 is now out of support by Sun even for security fixes I believe.

So basically, it's currently an abandon ware product that requires you to install in insecure SDK to run it. There's a kickstarter currently running for "Mote", which as far as I can tell is some new developer's fork of 1.3. Quite why I should pledge money to an unknown developer to produce a fork of an abandoned product that was previously free escapes me, but I admit I've not looked in to it too much as I gave up on MT about 9 months ago in favour of Fantasy Grounds.

Great summation of the state of things with MapTool.  My group left MapTool as well, but we switched to Roll20.  Roll20 is heavily supported and constantly adding features.  Also, it is very user friendly and easy to ease out of the box.

Quote from: estar;732097The more I think about it the Dwarven Forge style approach would probably "solve" the issues with 3D and online tabletop roleplaying. We already have people dealing with the issues of managing 3D terrain during face to face. Just like the virtual Whiteboard is a good translation of the real whiteboard that many use. Perhaps looking at how 3D terrain are used in actual play would give insight on how to make a VTT to incorporate them.

The tiles seem like a good way to go; and I will look into adding something like that in.

Although I think I should add that I'm not sure that my current method is as difficult to work with as you might think.

The current landscape is built out of blocks, which are basically like 3D pixels. And really, the 3D part of built up of a series of flat layers. So it is like a bunch of stacked 2D images.

You previously mentioned that it was an "order of magnitude more difficult to create than just slapping a scanned image of a map in a VTT", but doesn't have to be much more difficult in my set-up. It would be pretty easy to just read in a scanned image (say maybe of a bunch of lines representing walls) and then convert those pixels over to the blocks (walls) in my set up.

Working form within the program, drawing in walls and such is pretty easy. It is just like a paint program, only instead of choosing a color to draw with, you choose a material type to draw in (a palette with lots and lots of material options is presented, and you just chose what you want to draw with). You can freehand paint with a given material, or fill in rectangular areas, or draw lines, and/or circles. You can also just as easily erase blocks.

And, if a designer wanted to stay on a single plane (single-layer), it wouldn't be any more complicated than that. But if a user can understand that my landscapes are built up like layers on a cake (each layer is basically 2D), and understand about selecting layers (which is easy), then that is all one needs to know about building up a full 3D landscape in my set up.

To deal with a specific comment:

Quote from: estar;731929

Quote from: warp9;731884Shot of a character flying along a dry creek bed. . . .
Hovering at the edge of where the dry creek meets a larger river. . .
.Hovering over a bridge that crosses another point in the river. . . .

Sorry that setup looks to be too much work. What would be nice is a set of 3D "tiles" that I can throw down an snap in. Designed like Dwarven Forge to look good in a variety of configurations.

As far as being too much work, the landscape and bridge only took a few minutes to build.

First, I started out in my favorite paint program (GIMP), and created a gray-scale image (nothing fancy) for the landscape I wanted. I used white for cliff tops, gray for average height, slightly darker gray for the dry river bottoms, and the darkest colors for pits and the main river bottom. My program read in the image (as an elevation map), and converted it over to the 3D landscape you saw.

For stuff like the bridge, I had to tweak that a bit.

I selected a gray-stone-block for my drawing material. And went to rectangle draw mode (so I could window an area, and fill it with my material). I selected the layer that I wanted my bridge to be on. And windowed the area where I wanted my bridge to be. That rectangular area was filled with the stone I'd selected. And, as simple as that, I had a stone slab running across the river for my bridge. And I could have ended the whole process there if I wanted to.

However, since I wanted my bridge to look fancy, I did a bit more than that. But I still used the exact same process of drawing in materials, by selecting various draw rectangles.

Again, the landscape and bridge took just a few minutes to create.

I will admit that working in 3D is probably always going to be slightly harder than working in 2D, but I don't think my set up is too much harder than that.

I'd argue that it would probably be harder to select and manipulate a whole bunch of tiles than it was to do things my way. However, the tiles have merit because they look better. What I'm doing for a land scape, unfortunately, has a sort of block-like look to it.

Dwarven Forge tiles would look really cool if implemented, and I will try to do something similar. My only concern there is poly-count (which is something the DF folks don't have to worry about). A really cool looking piece could have a lot of polys. And, if you put enough of those cool pieces next to each other, you'll end up with a real strain on your system.

Quote from: Drohem;732130Great summation of the state of things with MapTool.  My group left MapTool as well, but we switched to Roll20.  Roll20 is heavily supported and constantly adding features.  Also, it is very user friendly and easy to ease out of the box.

I've not tried Roll20. We've always used - and valued - the ruleset integration in MapTool and Fantasy Grounds, so with Roll20 pitching itself as "just" a die roller and map sharer it didn't look of interest.

We're also finding that we prefer the way that FG downplays the map a bit. MapTool (as you'd expect from the name) makes the map very much the focus of the experience, and so pushes you towards thinking in terms of minis based combat all the time. FG feels a bit more like a real game table with a pile of stuff on it.

Quote from: warp9;732234The current landscape is built out of blocks, which are basically like 3D pixels. And really, the 3D part of built up of a series of flat layers. So it is like a bunch of stacked 2D images.

Your screenshots look like terrain made out of heroscape. No matter how well made or painted a heroscape setup is not going to look as good as the Dwarven Forge style equivalent.

With the Dwarven Forge approach each tile is a fully rendered (and of course optimized for performance) piece of 3d Terrain. The trick to design a small number of very good looking pieces that interlock to form a variety of setups. Just like Dwarven Forae and similar products.  
 

Quote from: warp9;732234You previously mentioned that it was an "order of magnitude more difficult to create than just slapping a scanned image of a map in a VTT", but doesn't have to be much more difficult in my set-up. It would be pretty easy to just read in a scanned image (say maybe of a bunch of lines representing walls) and then convert those pixels over to the blocks (walls) in my set up.

Converting pixels to vector (which is the first step in a 3D conversion) is a tough task. And with straight line dungeon it would be worse because the scan will rarely be perfectly aligned. Resulting in bad looking errors.

At the average consumer level it works well as first pass tool but then you are back to a process that is more time consuming than just slapping a 2d image up and using tokens. I run into this issue all the time while writing and maintaining CAD-CAM software for metal cutting machines.

Quote from: warp9;732234It is just like a paint program,

Right there is the problem. Even with VTTs, most referees are not using paint programs. They rely on bought or downloaded images for the most part. You could make your 3D editor as easy to use as the best paint programs out there but it still would be an order of magnitude more time consuming than just taking an image, download/scan, and slapping it up there.

For a VTT to successfully compete the 3D has to be addition too not instead of the whiteboard.

Then to add on using the most easy to use paint program is still more time consuming then using a tile based program like Hexographer.


I will admit that working in 3D is probably always going to be slightly harder than working in 2D, but I don't think my set up is too much harder than that.

I'd argue that it would probably be harder to select and manipulate a whole bunch of tiles than it was to do things my way. However, the tiles have merit because they look better. What I'm doing for a land scape, unfortunately, has a sort of block-like look to it.

Quote from: warp9;732234Dwarven Forge tiles would look really cool if implemented, and I will try to do something similar. My only concern there is poly-count (which is something the DF folks don't have to worry about). A really cool looking piece could have a lot of polys. And, if you put enough of those cool pieces next to each other, you'll end up with a real strain on your system.

Go here

Dwarven Forge Map Maker

Look at the 2d Tiles put by Wizards.

You will see that there only a limited number of shapes. Because of that you can create highly optimized models. Because they are laid on a grid you have options for optimizing culling.

Just look at Neverwinter Night I and the aurora engine.

Quote from: Grymbok;732251I've not tried Roll20. We've always used - and valued - the ruleset integration in MapTool and Fantasy Grounds, so with Roll20 pitching itself as "just" a die roller and map sharer it didn't look of interest.

We're also finding that we prefer the way that FG downplays the map a bit. MapTool (as you'd expect from the name) makes the map very much the focus of the experience, and so pushes you towards thinking in terms of minis based combat all the time. FG feels a bit more like a real game table with a pile of stuff on it.

I like Roll20 because it is system neutral which allows you to play any game system.

Quote from: Drohem;732309I like Roll20 because it is system neutral which allows you to play any game system.

Yeah. It's good to have both options out there, IMO.

It's certainly possible I'll swap over to Roll20 (or similar) for my next campaign, as the rules I'm considering using are not supported in FG, and I'm not sure I will have the time to develop a ruleset module for it myself.

Quote from: Warthur;731906I'm currently running AD&D 2E on Roll20.net, which I don't see listed in your post.

I am running on Roll20 as well, and I love it.  I highly recommend Roll20.

Quote from: Grymbok;732115No patches/updates in a year to the "stable" 1.3 version, and development on 1.4 is looking increasingly like vapourware.

Annoyingly, 1.3 requires Java 6 and doesn't work on Java 7, and Java 6 is now out of support by Sun even for security fixes I believe.

So basically, it's currently an abandon ware product that requires you to install in insecure SDK to run it. There's a kickstarter currently running for "Mote", which as far as I can tell is some new developer's fork of 1.3. Quite why I should pledge money to an unknown developer to produce a fork of an abandoned product that was previously free escapes me, but I admit I've not looked in to it too much as I gave up on MT about 9 months ago in favour of Fantasy Grounds.

I'm happy this thread touched on our Kickstarter project, but I didn't want to take away from the original topic. I do realize my thread about it isn't where most people in these forums go to, so here's a link.

Anyway, I felt compelled to correct several misconceptions made on the qoute above.

First, the latest official Maptool 1.3 build (90) is Java 7 compliant. It's been out there for months, though the devs understand that people are averse to the word "beta", which is odd, since even roll20 is in constant beta with regard to new features.

It is by no stretch or means abandonware, as the community actively adds to the content, whereas there have been numerous patches submitted over the past months. Also, since Mote is being developed, it stands to reason that MapTool's code base is very much alive and looks to be on par with any VTT offering, given enough support. Our Kickstarter page clearly shows how far we've taken it, if people take the time to peruse the video proof and their annotations. (Most don't, understandably). Aside from Mote, there are 2 hobby-based forks that seek to add plug-in support, and replace MT script with Groovy.

Which brings me to myself, I've submitted most of those patches, and anyone can review my contributions by visiting the RPTools' forum. I'm also the lead developer for Mote, and being "unknown" would easily be mitigated if one puts MapTool beside Mote and makes a comparison, since I did most of the interface improvements, code refactoring, library upgrade, and architectural drafts for the development roadmap. I'd understand the comment if we came around and said "Hey, we've forked MapTool!" and had no evidence to show for our work.

And while it escapes some people as to why support should be given to our Kickstarter project, the reasons are simple, as they are profound:

• People back the project to support development time, and not the final product, which is meant to be free for everyone to own and use.
• Frameworks, which is MapTools' version of rulesets, were always a good idea. This is where commuity driven development trumps relying on an application's developers to make stuff for everyone.
• With that being said, Mote provides world building tools to people who can leverage them, with the contract being, they should make their work available to the tabletop community.
• Specifics of such tools are SQL databases (for large, public compendiums on any game set), headless service (for people who want to make their own, and in our opinion, more reliable,  Roll20 service), HTML5 and Javascript, a full animation API, a market of its own, and so much more.
• All of these, and more left unsaid, for FREE, and the code will be open sourced to boot. This is good attribution to the original topic of this thread, though your (OP) idea seems akin to Storyscape.
• Lastly, like a select few VTTs, people will own Mote. No subscriptions; no reliance on a central service that may or may not live forever; people will have freedom to host their game related content anywhere they choose; and no internet requirement.
  

People will knock the difficulties in setting MapTool up, and try to attribute the same to the Mote Project, but we wouldn't be calling it a "heavily enhanced fork" of MapTool, without first dealing with user experience issues. I understand people will be skeptical, so I'll just say this: Keep an eye out for Mote. It will be good for the tabletop community.

Please refer any questions regarding Mote to the thread shared above

Thanks.

Quote from: estar;732286Your screenshots look like terrain made out of heroscape. No matter how well made or painted a heroscape setup is not going to look as good as the Dwarven Forge style equivalent.

That is probably true. Although I do think the Heroscape stuff like this looks pretty cool.

And, I'll add that while heroscape seems limited to hexes, my set-up also incorporates rectangular shapes too (as you can see with the creation of the bridge).

Quote from: estar;732286Converting pixels to vector (which is the first step in a 3D conversion)

Not in my case.

What you are probably talking about is going from pixels, which are just a bunch of little squares, and trying to figure out what kind of larger mathematical objects they make (lines, arcs, etc).

However, in the case of my system, everything is built up of little 3D blocks. There are no larger-mathematical-entities. So all I'm really talking about is converting 1 pixel to 1 block. Which is simple.

Quote from: estar;732286Then to add on using the most easy to use paint program is still more time consuming then using a tile based program like Hexographer.

Actually looking over at Hexographer's site, it looks like they are talking about the exact same thing as I am. It seems to me like what they are talking about is basically "painting" in hexes. . . .

http://www.hexographer.com/instructions/quick-start/
   
5. Customize it by clicking a terrain button on the right side of the map then clicking hexes on the map where you desire that terrain type. (You can also drag over terrain to change a bunch of terrain to the selected type or you can right click a hex on the map to pop up a menu.)
So, it is "chose a hex-type, then click on the hexes on the grid you want to change" ---sounds basically like "painting in hexes" to me. That is just like how you change pixels on the screen grid to a given color. Although rather than drawing a single pixel, we are talking about drawing a terrain element.

They even have the same type of ability to window a large area and convert the whole area over to a given terrain type. Again, that sounds exactly the same as what I'm doing.

The only real difference is that my set-up incorporates both hexes and squares (having squares allows for you to build up stuff like the bridge---which would be hard to build out of hexes).

Quote from: estar;732286Go here

Dwarven Forge Map Maker

Look at the 2d Tiles put by Wizards.

You will see that there only a limited number of shapes. Because of that you can create highly optimized models. Because they are laid on a grid you have options for optimizing culling.

Just look at Neverwinter Night I and the aurora engine.

Yeah, that is all true, but some of the coolest DF stuff  is like this :
here,
or here,
or here.
A lot of that stuff is not exactly going to be low poly.

Of course, you can do simpler pieces, and you can make a low-poly object look pretty good, if you do things correctly.

Quote from: lcalbas;732463I'm happy this thread touched on our Kickstarter project, but I didn't want to take away from the original topic.

That *IS* part of the original topic, so I hope we do get to discuss your project here.  

I'll be happy to answer questions regarding it when it comes up then

I forgot to mention, aside from Storyscape, did you see Tabletop Connect? This, hands down, is the most top shelf 3D VTT, successfully funded to boot.

Hopefully the creator releases tools to import 3D models into his applications, though I do understand it may be more lucrative to be the sole provider of 3D minis for the time being. It does allow for paper dolls, so I guess there'll still be some diversity with regard to image assets. All in all, impressive work, though not surprising given his industry experience.

Quote from: lcalbas;732467I'll be happy to answer questions regarding it when it comes up then

Awesome!

I do have a few questions, but I may need to know more about MapTool to really understand what you are trying to do. I watched your videos over on  your kickstarter site. I liked the one with the Map-system, but I found some of them hard to follow. That was especially true with the ones about the macro-editor and the data-base stuff. Maybe I just need to watch them again, but I think a voice-over describing what was going on might have helped me a bit.

Quote from: lcalbas;732467I forgot to mention, aside from Storyscape, did you see Tabletop Connect? This, hands down, is the most top shelf 3D VTT, successfully funded to boot.

No, I hadn't heard about that, I will check it out now.

Cool np. All our videos have annotations, you just have to turn them on (unless you did already of course). We had a deal for voice-overs but something happened with the coordination and it didn't make it on launch day.

I hope you enjoyed seeing TTC. I know I did

Quote from: lcalbas;732463I'm happy this thread touched on our Kickstarter project, but I didn't want to take away from the original topic. I do realize my thread about it isn't where most people in these forums go to, so here's a link.

Anyway, I felt compelled to correct several misconceptions made on the qoute above.

First, the latest official Maptool 1.3 build (90) is Java 7 compliant. It's been out there for months, though the devs understand that people are averse to the word "beta", which is odd, since even roll20 is in constant beta with regard to new features.

OK... Except the MapTooks homepage still links only to b89, and has the Java 7 is unsupported warning. B89 isn't linked on the downloads page, and there's no thread for it that I can see in the announcements forum.

So it's not exactly easy to find for casual MT users. I'm assuming the download link is somewhere in the b89 thread?

Oh, on the "beta" question - MT releases other than public releases have been notoriously buggy over the years, so it's a flag that means more to that community than sum I'd expect.

QuoteIt is by no stretch or means abandonware, as the community actively adds to the content, whereas there have been numerous patches submitted over the past months. Also, since Mote is being developed, it stands to reason that MapTool's code base is very much alive and looks to be on par with any VTT offering, given enough support.

Is anyone active on MT outside of Mote now? To me it looks like MT is dead and your Mote fork is all that is being actively developed.

Don't get me wrong - I think MT is a good product that deserves to live on, and I'm happy that someone is still supporting it. At this point given the lack if interest from the original developers, a fork is probably the best option.

On the kickstarter - if it was for core MapTool and being run by Trevor or dorpond (or even RPTroll), then I'd understand it. Getting some funding in would allow them to drop the day job for a while and work on the tool, I get it. But for you as a new developer (who has not, unless I've misunderstood you, shipped any useable builds yet) there is that question of "why should I trust you?". Hopefully your videos will help build that trust with your potential backers. As I've moved on from MT to other tools myself I've not taken the time to watch them through.