Other World Mapper (mapping software), feedback request and future changes

[OWM]

Hello!

I'm one of the three devs behind Other World Mapper, a (fantasy/sci fi/modern) map design software for overland, regional and local maps. We asked for feedback while in early development and during development and beta, and we ended up with a lot of good feedback that let us take our program to what it is today. Having completed most of the original goals (and many more added along the way), we are planning for future additions and are looking for feedback and suggestions.

If you are currently using Other World Mapper, let us know what you'd like to see added to the program over the next year. If you aren't, we would love if you could tell us what you think of the program as it currently is, and what could we do better or add to the program over the next year.

These pages from our website have a nice overview of the program
https://www.otherworldmapper.com/program.html

https://www.otherworldmapper.com/engine.html

https://www.otherworldmapper.com/tools.html

And this video is a basic overview

https://youtu.be/q05srtCvk9M

Boiling it down to only a few points:

• OWM is a DRM Free, royalty free, one time purchase app. Currently Windows/OSX, with the Linux version being almost ready.
• Drawing tools are designed around map elements such as land, rivers, bodies of water, regions and roads, as well as customizable settings for each.
• Everything drawn with the map tools is stored as vectors, yet rasterized real-time. Objects can be scaled, rotated and modified from their vector outline, while their borders, textures, fills and effects are rasterized again (real time) after each change. You can go as deep as modifying individual points.
• Each map element is a separate layer so that after it is drawn or placed, it can be moved and manipulated.
• You can import real GIS data and use it as a base for your map
• Support for various grid overlays
• Support for world projections as well as transforming existing maps between projections
• Ability to fully customize each item properties (color, line widths, texture opacity, etc), so you are not limited to the preset/themes we provide.
• Ability to import your own artwork.

You can see some map examples on our website
https://www.otherworldmapper.com

And also user submitted maps (better than ours!) that we shared on FB
https://www.facebook.com/otherworldm...type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/otherworldm...type=3&theater

We are about to start regression testing for a new release which is already including several additions

• Tiled map exporting
• Archipelago/fill tool
• Doors/window tool will allow to open/close and have options for being a "gap", portcullis, etc

We have functionality already planned for later this year.
This is a short list of some of it, but the rest of the changes will depend a lot on the new feedback we receive. So far user feedback has being incredibly helpful growing OWM so we want to take it where users want us to go

• Contour regions
• Light sources
• More options and modes for feature/symbol tool

We appreciate any and all feedback and suggestions.

Thank you!!

- Alejandro

[Tiana]

I just downloaded the test version and I've made notes throughout my use process. I ended up crashing it because I couldn't get what I assume is the guideline for the text to double click to turn off. I had trouble with making the river tool stop rivering, and I literally could not get that text guideline tool to stop until the program crashed. It had an apparent first way of adding text which I was unable to determine how to operate before said program crash.

Prior to that I did make a landmass, figure out how to alter the texture of the landmass (but not how to get my own textures in), how to alter the stroke width, figure out how to add water, and all of that seemed mostly intuitive, although I would expect the water outline echo stroke option to be contained in the stroke panel and it wasn't? Eventually I found it under 'coastline' and was disappointed that I couldn't set the spacing between lines and the amount of opacity trail off, since I have a specific way I like to set mine up. I would also like to be able to add custom waves that either follow around the landmass like a ribbon or are oriented left to right, depending on my preference. I would like a button to go straight to this tool on the 'stroke' section of the sidebar for the coastline, since it would make sense to decide what color and width the land stroke will be and then want to adjust your waves accordingly.

I would also like a couple of more options for outline jaggedness. I'm not convinced it's better than what I can draw by hand. What might help is if you could change the fractalization using the number keys while not losing your "grip". Or a randomization option to increase and decrease how fractalized it is.

I was annoyed that I could make the side panels wider but not narrower, especially since there seemed to be no good reason for the amount of space the left hand panel took up on my monitor. I'd like to be able to make that shrink down to half the size so I can see more of my map work. I'd also like to be able to snap the toolbox into where the mini map is instead of having the mini map there. It moved and faded like it wanted to snap into place but I was never able to find a good place to position it. I would have liked to be able to shrink the tool box down to only 2 squares wide and set it on one of the sides or the top. I found an option to change the sizing and was shocked everything was almost already small by default; I changed what I could and it did not get me any more space in the view of the map.

I rebooted and found the art asset manager and find it very annoying that I can only see two rows of textures that then horizontally scroll. I couldn't figure out how to add my own textures, maybe a limitation of the demo but I got an error message when I tried to add a folder. I then tried to make a railroad and was only able to click once, and any other place on the screen it would not let me click or double click to add another part of the route or escape. I was able to escape by hitting esc though, leaving one slice of rail behind. While I have figured out how to intelligently merge the layers (which is the only feature this has which I might consider buying it for, the one thing I do waste time on while drawing is fixing up overlaps between paths and such) I do expect the tool to actually work to click down several road pieces and then give me a way to escape and leave what I drew intact.

The city wall/tower placing feature worked pretty well, though I was also having trouble figuring out how to make the walls stop, I did at one point run into a pop up that said 'click to merge'. My second attempt to make a wall was much worse. It only stuck when I clicked half the time and I could not figure out a way to make just a straight wall instead of one that went all the way around. I was particularly impressed by the house rooftop placer, that's another thing I could see myself actually using, although the amount of vector rooftops is limited enough that again, I would want a way to import my own assets to use.

The route measurer is neat but I couldn't make it stop routing.

So, the biggest bug which hindered my ability to create art was the way the tools would get stuck on and either not let me click down to end it or delete everything when I would hit escape or right click. I'm using a Macbook Pro.

One thing I did not observe was the ability to put textures on layers set to overlay, hard light, soft light, screen, multiply. I do this with almost every map I make, not just opacity adjustments. I would also want these types of layer interface effects for the terrain coloration effect.

The fact that the terrain objects can only be tinted and not recolored in the same fashion as the houses and walls seems like a lack of foresight. One of the key reasons I use Clip Studio Paint was their advanced brush system. I was able to set up a bunch of black line with white fill trees that the program will pick up and color in with whatever color I choose instead of white. Also the ability to make a brush set full of dozens of different trees scattered, but also had some encoding to shift the tint and lighting, flip randomly horizontally, and shift the size and angle just a little bit, so it looks even more diverse. I usually set my randomization to no more than 5% on all these features, maybe even 2% on the angle. This lets me throw in a forest in like, a couple of minutes, while making it look extremely complex. Never mind brick and tile fills. I also use it for the ribbon brush, but I still have to go and clean up my ribbon roads where they intersect, so your road maker tool is better (especially if there's an obvious key to push to indicate to the program you're done drawing that line), but your vegetation filler isn't.

I would like live preview on colors when I am testing them for a new waterline, background, or foliage, instead of having to click back and forth to get into the colors and out of the colors. I would prefer to not have to click at all to get to a color scroller but I certainly don't want to have to click three times each time I want to change a color. I would like to be able to click anywhere outside of the color pallet box to turn it off at the very least, instead of just the tiny x.

There are a couple of really good ideas in this program that would make it possible for me to consider using, things that make great sense for cartographic use and are more natural and intuitive and allow future editing in a way that my current "paint in a raster program" method does not. Right now I would see myself wanting to draw in features by hand still, though I can see myself using this to set up the base on which I draw if the bugginess with the road tool was gone.

If there's a way to draw elements in using a raster tool that has some decent stabilization (another reason I like Clip so much) that'd be neat.

Update: I was able to add some text on a horizontal line! There is no way to align the stroke to the outside of the text? I would like to be able to echo strokes on text too. Great for comic style text. And I would like to be able to adjust the glow style to screen or linear dodge or multiply for the shadow/glow outside of the text possibility, not just change the opacity. I was not able to intuitively figure out how to make text on a curve.

I also grew frustrated trying to select the text due to everything else being grabbable. I would like an option to "lock everything" and "lock everything except for what I have selected" and "lock everything underneath my current layer". The few times that I've brought myself to use Illustrator, I've definitely used an option something like that to make things easier when managing tons of asset layers.

Welp, that's all the thoughts I have for now, it seems like a great beginning to a program that could be exceptionally useful for many types of maps. Especially since it can integrate gis data and keeps everything vector editable, great ideas, acceptable execution, but it could be better, and would have to be in a few places to pull me away from hand-drawing everything! Still, I don't think it would be an impossible sell on me in the future, well done.

[OWM]

I just downloaded the test version and I've made notes throughout my use process. I ended up crashing it because I couldn't get what I assume is the guideline for the text to double click to turn off. I had trouble with making the river tool stop rivering, and I literally could not get that text guideline tool to stop until the program crashed. It had an apparent first way of adding text which I was unable to determine how to operate before said program crash.

WOW, thank you so much for the detailed feedback! I'm going through it so I can properly respond and ask more questions about some of the suggested functionality. One early note: you can right click to stop drawing an item and finish it. Also, under settings you can enable "tutorial mode" which adds a window that gives an overview of each tool as you select it.

Again, thank you very much. We don't have a lot of OSX users so your feedback is particularly helpful!

- Alejandro

[OWM]

First set of comments and question from us . Again, thank you for the feedback!!!!

I also grew frustrated trying to select the text due to everything else being grabbable. I would like an option to "lock everything" and "lock everything except for what I have selected" and "lock everything underneath my current layer". The few times that I've brought myself to use Illustrator, I've definitely used an option something like that to make things easier when managing tons of asset layers.

Currently you can select a group of items and then under Edit, "Lock in Place" and "Lock Properties." The next release is adding the ability to set which item types are selected when using the selection or transform tools - so perfect timing!

I would also like a couple of more options for outline jaggedness. I'm not convinced it's better than what I can draw by hand. What might help is if you could change the fractalization using the number keys while not losing your "grip". Or a randomization option to increase and decrease how fractalized it is..

Currently you can set various fractalization parameters from the toolbar across the top (factor, aplitude, auto segment, etc). You can also regenerate/re-roll the current fractal the W and S shortcuts (in Windows there is a mouse scroll shortcut too). You can also set the pen to "Bezier Fractal" to create fractal segment along curve paths.

We can definitely add the ability to tweak some of these settings from the numpad. Which parameters would you like being able to modify as you draw?

One thing I did not observe was the ability to put textures on layers set to overlay, hard light, soft light, screen, multiply. I do this with almost every map I make, not just opacity adjustments. I would also want these types of layer interface effects for the terrain coloration effect.

Good point, thank you! We'll work to add the option later this year.

[Tiana]

Thanks for explaining the features I was failing to find! I knew in some cases it had to be simple things I just couldn't intuit. I didn't look at any tutorial information as I thought it might be helpful to know what happens when someone just drops in blind. It was significantly easier than if I'd dropped into literally any Adobe program blind... I really respect that you are here and trying to get feedback to improve the program. ^_^ I'll tool around with it again and see if I have better results by using the W/S shortcuts to reroll the fractal. I love being able to keyboard control things like the thickness of lines and the opacity of a stroke. In this case, what I would like to be able to adjust with the keyboard on the fly is how jagged versus how smooth the fractalization is.

Okay, so I pulled it up. I love what W/S does. Feels very natural to work with, and is exactly the kind of concept I was hoping for. My only complaint is that every time I push it, my computer makes the error beep even though it causes a program response. What I'd like now is for A to make it generate a smoother fractal and D to generate a rougher fractal. I love how you can move back and forth though, rather than losing whatever you rolled up. I ran into a bit of trouble trying to pan around to make a larger landmass, as I discovered I was unable to zoom out so far I could see the whole canvas with negative space around. I would like to be able to zoom out as far as I please, without getting an error sound effect. I would also like to be able to push the space bar to transfer to the pan tool while still holding onto a fractal item that I'm drawing, such as a river, lake, or landmass, so I can work zoomed in without having to merge a bunch of objects to get the final big one. It works when I'm not using a tool, which makes sense, but it also repeatedly makes the error beep sound while I'm holding it. Which is a bit annoying.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to be able to set if the shadow I give a landmass is multiply or screen, and it would be neat if it would be possible to set whether it's light or dark on the stroke to denote a shadow on one side and light hitting the other side, or to isolate lighter beach areas.

LOVE that I can copy the properties from one landmass to another with ease. Would like a keyboard shortcut to copy and past properties, since I imagine using that quite a lot.

And I discovered that I could move the layers menu to the other side and include it with the other menu, so that fixes my issue with the size, although it removes the ability to access the properties. It would be nice if it could be stored with 'presets' as a tab, and also drop the mini-map in there too. Or if you fill one sidebar up with all of the menus, a scrollbar appears that allows you to get to the bottom. Because it was nice that I could store the mini map and layers there, but sucked that I then no longer had space to scroll to the bottom of all of the preset options and layer options.

Also discovered that I could get a 'map only' view, helpful.

Now, when I clicked on a river after drawing it, I was able to grab on some green dots and drag it and change the shape on the fly. It felt very natural and I was quite pleased to see the w/s options worked to alter the river fractalization as well. But, when I clicked on my continent, while I got the same green line/dot option, pulling on one of the dots did nothing. I also got to an option that showed nodes for the entire vector shape yet pulling on them did nothing. Is there something I'm supposed to do other than click and pull? I suppose it doesn't really matter since if I started to use this as a main program I'd probably freehand coastlines over top of a sketch made with the fractal coast, and then merge it together. But it doesn't behave like I expect so I'm mentioning it in case that's a bug. I thought maybe my computer was delaying but I could never get even a little bit of a movement response and the rivers moved effortlessly.

Discovered the lake waveline echo fill, it was located exactly where I expected the rest of the shoreline options to be! I think it makes more sense if that was included in the main shoreline option. I love the look though, it's perfect, and the UI for all of the river options allows for a ton of different river looks, which I also love, the different tapers and strokes, etc. The only option I'd want that doesn't exist yet is a randomization of thickness instead of just the taper, or to literally be able to squeeze and pull sections. I suppose right now the best option for that would be to draw lakes over top of a river route if we want thicker regions.

To be honest I'm pretty impressed by the shortcuts that make my task easier without destroying the fun of still illustrating a map. I am seriously considering it as a base structure creator due to how it clears up the only problem I ever run into as a commission taker, which is when someone wants me to edit the underlaying continent long into the process and it's impossible without doing a crapload of extra work. The fact that this is vectorization that allows you to add raster textures while maintaining that node editability (I'm assuming either I'm doing something wrong here or there's a glitch).

It also allows me to save styles and thus replicate a map exactly by creating a storage folder, and do things like very rapidly change the entire feel of a map's color and texture and lineart.

There are a lot of things here I really like and I'd say it's quite likely I'll end up buying it even if it doesn't take over my entire process.

Edit: I sent you a sale =P

Edit 2: Now I'm working on promoting it to another person. Turns out your program may be a very easy product for me to sell.

[OWM]

There are a lot of things here I really like and I'd say it's quite likely I'll end up buying it even if it doesn't take over my entire process.

Edit: I sent you a sale =P

Edit 2: Now I'm working on promoting it to another person. Turns out your program may be a very easy product for me to sell.

Thank you so much!!! Really appreciate the support and telling others about OWM

Thanks for explaining the features I was failing to find! I knew in some cases it had to be simple things I just couldn't intuit. I didn't look at any tutorial information as I thought it might be helpful to know what happens when someone just drops in blind. It was significantly easier than if I'd dropped into literally any Adobe program blind... I really respect that you are here and trying to get feedback to improve the program. ^_^

A lot of the functionality in OWM came from user feedback, so it only makes sense listening to it

Okay, so I pulled it up. I love what W/S does. Feels very natural to work with, and is exactly the kind of concept I was hoping for. My only complaint is that every time I push it, my computer makes the error beep even though it causes a program response. What I'd like now is for A to make it generate a smoother fractal and D to generate a rougher fractal. I love how you can move back and forth though, rather than losing whatever you rolled up. I ran into a bit of trouble trying to pan around to make a larger landmass, as I discovered I was unable to zoom out so far I could see the whole canvas with negative space around. I would like to be able to zoom out as far as I please, without getting an error sound effect. I would also like to be able to push the space bar to transfer to the pan tool while still holding onto a fractal item that I'm drawing, such as a river, lake, or landmass, so I can work zoomed in without having to merge a bunch of objects to get the final big one. It works when I'm not using a tool, which makes sense, but it also repeatedly makes the error beep sound while I'm holding it. Which is a bit annoying.

We'll work do add the A/D shortcuts, that makes a lot of sense. We'll look into the pan and the error sounds, these are OSX only problems so very much appreciate the OSX feedback!

Oh yeah, I'd also like to be able to set if the shadow I give a landmass is multiply or screen, and it would be neat if it would be possible to set whether it's light or dark on the stroke to denote a shadow on one side and light hitting the other side, or to isolate lighter beach areas.

Could you elaborate on this? I want to make sure I understand what you mean - Thank you!

LOVE that I can copy the properties from one landmass to another with ease. Would like a keyboard shortcut to copy and past properties, since I imagine using that quite a lot.

Excellent suggestion. We'll add that!

And I discovered that I could move the layers menu to the other side and include it with the other menu, so that fixes my issue with the size, although it removes the ability to access the properties. It would be nice if it could be stored with 'presets' as a tab, and also drop the mini-map in there too. Or if you fill one sidebar up with all of the menus, a scrollbar appears that allows you to get to the bottom. Because it was nice that I could store the mini map and layers there, but sucked that I then no longer had space to scroll to the bottom of all of the preset options and layer options.

Good point, OWM actually used to let you to tab tool windows togeather, that went away when we changed UI frameworks. We'll try to bring it back.

But, when I clicked on my continent, while I got the same green line/dot option, pulling on one of the dots did nothing. I also got to an option that showed nodes for the entire vector shape yet pulling on them did nothing. Is there something I'm supposed to do other than click and pull?

When you are in full "Shape Edit" mode (and you can see all the individual points) there is a new toolbar at the top that lets you be in move/add/subtract point, as well as other options. You can also edit the "control" points instead of the full path, regen fractal segments and create nexuses for rivers.
Toolbar.png

The only option I'd want that doesn't exist yet is a randomization of thickness instead of just the taper, or to literally be able to squeeze and pull sections. I suppose right now the best option for that would be to draw lakes over top of a river route if we want thicker regions.

You can add size breaks to the rivers, holding "alt" or after you created the path from the Shape Edit tool. For really thick water ares combining the water tool with the river tool is the best way to go, but we'll look into giving the river tool more options on this.
Toolbar.png

To be honest I'm pretty impressed by the shortcuts that make my task easier without destroying the fun of still illustrating a map. I am seriously considering it as a base structure creator due to how it clears up the only problem I ever run into as a commission taker, which is when someone wants me to edit the underlaying continent long into the process and it's impossible without doing a crapload of extra work. The fact that this is vectorization that allows you to add raster textures while maintaining that node editability (I'm assuming either I'm doing something wrong here or there's a glitch).
It also allows me to save styles and thus replicate a map exactly by creating a storage folder, and do things like very rapidly change the entire feel of a map's color and texture and lineart.

Yep! That was the idea behind OWM - Anna Meyer (not sure if you are familiar with her) gave us a ton of early feedback and was really excited about OWM because of that very reason (though she's mostly making 3D terrain maps nowadays which is outside of our scope). Ability to import Shapefiles from GIS data and svg vector data you created in another program is also helpful for professional fantasy cartography. And, indeed, you can edit everything in the vector shape which remains as Bezier paths (it's not made into lines).

Again, thank you for all the questions and the detailed feedback (and your support!). I still owe you replying to some of your original comments, which I'll do soon.

- Alejandro

[Tiana]

Could you elaborate on this? I want to make sure I understand what you mean - Thank you!

When I set up my maps, I often put a fuzzy glow around the edges of the coast on top of the land, very much like the current shading option allows. Yours is adjustable only by opacity at the moment. But then I will drop a clipping mask over it, and draw on parts of it to make certain regions light beach sand instead of shadow, or set it as a different layer style so it responds to the underlying texture.

I imagine you could have a variegated option as well as a beveled option so that it creates the idea that light is hitting one side, and the other side is casting a shadow.

Thanks for being involved in the community to make your program better. You owe me nothing re: replies.

[OWM]

When I set up my maps, I often put a fuzzy glow around the edges of the coast on top of the land, very much like the current shading option allows. Yours is adjustable only by opacity at the moment. But then I will drop a clipping mask over it, and draw on parts of it to make certain regions light beach sand instead of shadow, or set it as a different layer style so it responds to the underlying texture. I imagine you could have a variegated option as well as a beveled option so that it creates the idea that light is hitting one side, and the other side is casting a shadow.

That makes sense, right now you would have to use a different tool (i.e. region tool) to add shading to certain areas. We'll look into having more options for the shadow, particularly something that would give the casting a shadow effect.

Thanks for being involved in the community to make your program better. You owe me nothing re: replies.

Good feedback requires a reply . But I think I ended up covering everything, some of the other points were Mac specific bugs, but let me know if I missed anything.

By the way, team already implemented the copy/paste properties and the A/D shortcuts, so they will be there with our next release.

[Tiana]

Nice! If I purchase it (let's be fair that is pretty likely ) am I able to install it on both a Windows and a Mac computer for use non-simultanously? I have both available, I've just been testing on the Mac OS since I figured it was likely you would have less feedback about that.

[OWM]

Nice! If I purchase it (let's be fair that is pretty likely ) am I able to install it on both a Windows and a Mac computer for use non-simultanously? I have both available, I've just been testing on the Mac OS since I figured it was likely you would have less feedback about that.

Glad to hear!

Yes, you can use either or both. Next release is going to include a Linux version, and you could use that one as well if you wanted. Currently the Windows version is the most polished one, but OSX should be there as well with the upcoming release.

Basically, the license is a "household" license, so you can install it to as many computers as you have at home.

Thank you!