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

[OWM]

The Help File contains the following:

18 Presets and Themes
Presets are saved under folders which together make up a “Theme.” You can create a new
Theme and add Presets to the Theme using the Preset window.
These folders are saved in the installation path and may be copied and shared with others.
That's good news, of course. Is there any information anywhere on how to make a new theme and preset?

You can save new presets from an item's property window (button near the top left of an item's properties). From there, you'll be prompted for the preset's name and a parent theme (any you can create a new theme from there too).

I've also learned that you folks have a forum. Unfortunately I can't post there yet because my account remains inactive. So it goes.

Sorry about the delay! I gave you forum access yesterday morning. Spam/bots have been terrible over the last few months so we do manual verification of new users. It takes a bit longer to grant access, but it's better than having bots getting through.

1. What does one need to do to make presets like your river presets that will work in OWM?

2. How does one make presets with faded edges like those delivered that will work in OWM?

FYI: I've read the full help guide and the homepage tutorials, and I've run the two videos you have on YouTube, but I have quite a number of questions to raise and points to make. However I'll wait until that day when my forum account is active.

You can change any item's properties from the property window and then save those as a new preset, but I fear I'm missing part of your question. Let us know here or on our forums (either is good) - or if you have any other questions.

Thank you!

[Mark Oliva]

OWM shouldn't need to be installed as an admin, but it could be an issue if you are logged in as a domain user rather than a local user.

FYI: I was logged in as a local user with a local administrator account. I just did a test installation on a laptop (Windows 10 Home/8 GM RAM) without admin log-in. The result I got on my main machine occurred again. I uninstalled and reinstalled as admin, and the problems were gone. I was logged in again as a local user with a local administrator account. However, a German-language protective program installed on all of our computers called HS Wächter may be causing this, rather than it being a normal problem.

Servus,

[Tiana]

Uh ... 20 x 30 what?

Uhm, sorry, I grid most of my work in inches and assumed it was easy enough to infer. On the topic of inference, I assumed your title of "publisher" and your swanky realistic looking maps meant you were a professional map publisher. I now assume it must have been the automatic title generated by the forum for a certain post count.

Yes, I was a bit confused as to why you would want a program to intentionally use up all of your available RAM, I believe I understand better now what your problem is. For the record, I installed in the Administrator account, and do not seem to be experiencing the same bug. i'm only seeing the program slow down because y'know, I loaded up that map with a LOT of things and it's poster sized.

Ya blew my mind, that's all. It is the logical progress, I just thought 32 was where we were at for the top end civilian personal computer. Nothing wrong with us having had different experiences lead to different conclusions. Many in your sphere may have beefy systems. That's cool, I don't discount that. Even though a remarkable number of people I know are professional artists in some fashion, they are all mostly younger poor people or non-computer-passionate older professional artists who include computers only as an incidental side part of their art. I don't know very many people who are retired and they would be people who have a "the computer for Facebook". If your people group are the people who picked up on computers as they started growing in popularity and just rode the train of improvements forward, naturally following their growth it would make sense higher end equipment would be more familiar to you than me. Like I can think of one guy I know who might have equipment hanging around like that, a serious video editor and audiophile. Wouldn't be surprised. He seems to have the cutting edge stuff. Winnipeggers are notoriously cheap, so yeah...

Recently I had a discussion with my programmer housemate about how much RAM I should have in the new computer. Her opinion on the matter was that most computer use wouldn't require 32 gigs except for intense 3D work and we got 16 and beefed up other aspects instead.

I look forward to having more RAM now that I know it exists, and is not ridiculous to want for the art I do. Now I have reason to aim higher. As well, I look forward to what the Vintyri project ends up bringing to OWM. If your maps are made out of your project Alpha then it will be a good expansion.

Interesting about your style, I initially thought by looking at your portfolio it used some sort of 3D rendering to get the semi-realistic style. Is it maybe what would be called "Photo bashing"? That's an art form that's not exactly photo editing, but turning photos into tools to create a new piece of art or extensively painting over it in some way so that the original photo/s is/are completely unrecognizable. It's obvious to me it's not intended to be completely photorealistic, but photo-evokative?

Love that what you're doing is free and open source, that's amazing for the community, what a sweet way to spend your retirement.

I should note I also observed there was an OWM forum but it looked sort of dead, heh, so I didn't join it, sorry.



Oh yeah, to save presets for things like river and road styles. The official explanation Alexandro just posted confused me so I figured I'd provide a visual aid. Just have the tool set up however you want it and click this button and it will bring up the window to save it. This toolbar is by default located on the right side of the monitor, but may be triggered off, in which case you'd pull it up from settings, windows, properties. I circled the button to click in red. It kind of slides into the UI for me if I don't intentionally look for it, something about how it engages with the monitor static. Also it kind of seems decorative too. I think it could be made more obvious.
presets.jpg

[Mark Oliva]

I assumed your title of "publisher" and your swanky realistic looking maps meant you were a professional map publisher. I now assume it must have been the automatic title generated by the forum for a certain post count.

No, it's because we're publishers. We just publish non-commercially, and we've published more RPG publications than a number of commercial publishers. Our download statistics and support request volume suggest that we have a good user base.

people I know are professional artists in some fashion, they are all mostly younger poor people or non-computer-passionate older professional artists who include computers only as an incidental side part of their art.

It depends what kind of artist you mean. Commercial artists in the graphics business who do a lot of work with Photoshop, for instance, have and need pretty beefy computers.

I don't know very many people who are retired and they would be people who have a "the computer for Facebook".

I avoid Facebook and co. like the black plague. My partners Carl and Trevor also stay far away from it.

If your people group are the people who picked up on computers as they started growing in popularity and just rode the train of improvements forward, naturally following their growth it would make sense higher end equipment would be more familiar to you than me.

After years as a newspaper reporter and editor in the U.S., I switched to computer programming after moving here to Bavaria and started my own software company. I also taught computer programming in a school. My motivation for having a power computer is my absolute dislike of having to wait more than 5 seconds for anything. The computers that I have give me that luxury.

Recently I had a discussion with my programmer housemate about how much RAM I should have in the new computer. Her opinion on the matter was that most computer use wouldn't require 32 gigs except for intense 3D work and we got 16 and beefed up other aspects instead.

That probably was good advice.

I look forward to having more RAM now that I know it exists, and is not ridiculous to want for the art I do.

If you're using an ordinary hard disk on your computer, a better first investment would be in an SSD drive for Windows, your most-used programs and your frequently-opened graphics and data.

look forward to what the Vintyri project ends up bringing to OWM.

The instructions haven't been written yet, but here's the first alpha:

https://www.vintyri.org/downloads/vcc_owm_alpha1.zip (490 MB)

Download it, unzip it and run Setup.exe. Install it into:

(Install drive and location)\Three Minds Software\Other World Mapper

If you used the default installation location, that's:

C:\Programs (x86)\Three Minds Software\Other World Mapper

Is it maybe what would be called "Photo bashing"? That's an art form that's not exactly photo editing, but turning photos into tools to create a new piece of art or extensively painting over it in some way so that the original photo/s is/are completely unrecognizable.

That's about right for many of the objects.

Servus,

[3l3phant]

I just discovered OWM and I'm rapidly wondering why I didn't do better research on map-making software before spending money on a ton of other applications. This is brilliant!

I have a question (and I apologize if I should have started another thread to ask): When placing mountains via the Along Path option it doesn't appear to allow the same "cycle" and "random order" options. That would be fantastic for doing mountain chains that didn't look so homogeneous.

[Mark Oliva]

When placing mountains via the Along Path option it doesn't appear to allow the same "cycle" and "random order" options. That would be fantastic for doing mountain chains that didn't look so homogeneous.

I don't think it can do that either ... but the folks are looking for suggestions.

Servus,

[Mark Oliva]

In my reply to Tiana (two posts above) I mentioned the new OWM alpha version of the Vintyri Cartographic Collection but also added that the installation and usage guide was not available.

The Guide is available now. You can get it here:

https://www.vintyri.org/downloads/Vintyri OWM Guide.zip (24 MB)

The add-on itself is available here:

https://www.vintyri.org/downloads/vcc_owm_alpha1.zip (490 MB)

Download it, unzip it and run Setup.exe. Install it into:

(Install drive and location)\Three Minds Software\Other World Mapper

If you used the default installation location, that's:

C:\Programs (x86)\Three Minds Software\Other World Mapper

This products all are released on a free, open gaming, open source products for personal and commercial usage.

Because this thread probably still is of limited use to most guild cartographers, I've moved further discussion over to the OWM forum. Those interested in continuing new information can go to:

https://www.otherworldmapper.com/for...php?f=19&t=415

Servus,

[wthrasherb]

I haven't read through all the posts here, so forgive me if I am repeating something someone already discussed.

I have not tried out the program yet, but I'm watching the Basic overview video right now.

You asked for feedback.

A problem I have with most "mapping" software is they all seem to lack the ability to select and copy a region of a larger map. In photoshop, I make a large landmass (for world maps) and while I'm making the map, I create regions by creating a "shape" of the region. I add a new layer, select the entire landmass, then I remove the regions I don't need and I am left with the shape of one region. Then I fill that shape in with black and use it later to select only that region.

Once I have the shape, I can create a new document and move the one region shape to the new document, enlarge the shape (if needed), then I make a new map of the region.

Mapmaking software like Other World Mapper is great in a lot of ways, but I haven't found a way, with any software on the market, to duplicate the process (or similar) that I just described.

The idea is to be able to draw multiple versions of a map or parts of a map and not have to redraw the base land shape. Also, in Photoshop, I'm able to do "non-destructive" changes, trying out multiple techniques without losing anything or having to redraw anything.

Let me know if something like this is possible in Other World Mapper and I will buy it.

Otherwise, the app looks cool and useful. Good job.

[Mark Oliva]

A problem I have with most "mapping" software is they all seem to lack the ability to select and copy a region of a larger map

I haven't tried to do this yet, but Three Minds Software says that Other World Mapper can do this easily and without loss.

Servus,

[OWM]

I haven't read through all the posts here, so forgive me if I am repeating something someone already discussed.

I have not tried out the program yet, but I'm watching the Basic overview video right now.

You asked for feedback.

We love feedback!

A problem I have with most "mapping" software is they all seem to lack the ability to select and copy a region of a larger map. In photoshop, I make a large landmass (for world maps) and while I'm making the map, I create regions by creating a "shape" of the region. I add a new layer, select the entire landmass, then I remove the regions I don't need and I am left with the shape of one region. Then I fill that shape in with black and use it later to select only that region.

Once I have the shape, I can create a new document and move the one region shape to the new document, enlarge the shape (if needed), then I make a new map of the region.

You can easily do this from Other World Mapper, either by selecting items and doing "New Map from Selection" or by simply doing copy/paste of items (landmass, water, regions, etc) across maps. Since everything is stored as vectors, you can also upscale when you do a new map without loss of quality (and if you need more resolution for the fractal coastlines you can add "nested" fractals to existing segments). The new version that is about come out also lets you do "new map from area" instead of having to select map items.

Let me know if something like this is possible in Other World Mapper and I will buy it.

You can do all of these from Other World Mapper, but before buying please try the free demo. It has all the functionality except for saving (and only a small subset of the artwork).
https://www.otherworldmapper.com/demo.html

Thank you!