Dungeonographer Preview: Update and a Video Clip

Despite going off on tangents like the Random Dungeon Generator project or writing here, progress on Dungeonographer (dungeon mapping software) continues.  A video clip demo has been posted to the Dungeonographer site.  Keep in mind the software is still pre-alpha, so it has many rough edges and incomplete features.

I just finished off the first cut of the last major new feature in Dungeonographer: Shapes.  In Dungeonographer, you will be able to draw circles/ovals or polygons in a similar way to drawing lines in Hexographer. (Of course, you can draw lines in Dungeonographer as well.)  For polygons, you will be able to set the width of the border, the texture or color of the border and the fill and set the opacity of the fill.  Circles/ovals allow for all of those settings as well as an ability to specify partial circles and how a partial circle is closed.

Shapes are essential to dungeon maps because they answer two common needs:

• You may have round rooms or even a round tower.
• You may have irregularly shaped rooms or an entire cavern complex.

As I said, this was the last major new feature that I needed to implement before alpha testing can begin but there are some smaller (but many are still fairly big) things that need to be completed first:

• Finish the default/built-in set of icons. (If you’ve seen the prior preview, you’ll know there are two sets of icons–one is semi-realistic for battlemats, and the second is “simple” for classic/GM maps.)
• Allow lines to be textured.  This feature allows for walls that look like rock or wood in the semi-realistic mode.
• Allow a feature to be moved.  Currently in my development version if you place a door, chair, bed, etc., in the wrong spot you’ll have to remove it and re-add it.
• Create a texture chooser component.  In some places (like the fill or border of a shape, a line that is supposed to be a wall, etc.) you may choose a texture.  It will be nice to see them instead of just relying on the name.
• There are two or three other minor things, but this should give you an idea of where things stand.

Hopefully in just a couple of weeks alpha testing can begin!

Also: What should be the default set of icons?  Too many icons will cause the program’s download size to be huge.  But too few will make it less useful. (Of course people will be able to add their own graphics.  Even the free version in this case will allow some arbitrary graphics to be imported.)  That said, the current list is:

• Chairs: wood and metal
• Tables: wood and metal, circle and rectangle and rectangular w/benches (6 total)
• Doors: wood and metal, single and double (4 total)
• More doors: secret, one-way, false metal and false wood
• Crate, barrel
• Privy, washbasin
• Fireplace
• Window
• Beds: single and double, wooden and “futuristic” (?)  (4 total)

Please post feedback on the icons or anything else you see!