new mapping software

[marco_fera]

Greetings to all the community.
I'm developing a strategy game, and in the past months I have completed an usable version of the map maker part. I think this piece of software can produce good looking results, but I would like to have comments from veteran cartographers like you, and most of all, I'd like to see full potential of it by using your skills.
It can be used to produce fairly big maps, I have yet to decide the limits but on paper, performances and optimizations aside, we're talking about a potential thousands of square kilometers.
I think it's interesting because it uses 3d shapes, so you're actually placing meshes in a 3d space, and this poses a few limits to the size of the objects you're placing, so if you try it you'll see the size spans from the tiny to the ginormic. With your help I might decide which size is best suited for the various terrains.
I have implemented a decent list of terrains, both plains and reliefs, plus roads and bridges.
Let me quickly explain how the controls work. When you open the game you'll find a situation like this

1.png

At the bottom of the screen you find the icons for creating a new map, loading, saving, loading an overlay image, setting the overlay on/off, setting the grid on/off, and exiting to the main menu (which is disabled).
At the right there's the terrain type menu, which is visible when bringing the mouse near the edge of the screen.

2.png

You can select a terrain type and then paint by pressing z (I need to adjust this in order to paint with standard left mouse button).
The buttons to the immediate left of each terrain type let you to activate/deactivate the eraser, the topmost of these smaller icons lets you choose whether or not to paint coasts or beaches along with the desired terrain, this choice is not valid for example for roads or rivers.
If you select a plain type of terrain (e.g. farmland, which is the first), you'll see new icons at the top of the screen, these buttons let you choose the size of the painter.
To navigate the map is very easy: right mouse button rotates the view, middle mouse moves on xy axis, use the scrolling wheel to zoom in and out, if you press both right and middle mouse buttons you can zoom in and out more quickly.
Note that if you click the "New map" button you can choose the size, in abstract units. Each unit equals 8 square kms.

The link to download it is

http://bit.ly/1WTRyhj

so please let me know your impressions, critics, suggestions and so on.
Marco

[marco_fera]

I've seen some people have downloaded it, any impression?
By the way, I'm working on upload and download from a central server, so that you'll be able to see other people's maps.
In the meantime I'm working on the scenario maker, which will use the map created in the map maker to create starting conditions for the opposing factions, e.g. initial units' deploy, available reinforcements and so on.
I'm also thinking about a wheather system but maybe it's better to leave it to a later upgrade.

[marco_fera]

I've released a new version of the program, this version includes the ability to upload and download the maps to the cloud.
Download the new version here
http://bit.ly/1pZlDSO

In order to use the new cloud function you must register on a forum, hosted at this site for the moment
https://54.209.25.103/index.php

and then use your username and password in the "OPTIONS" tab of the main lobby gui (which at this point is not really nice to see, but it's functional)
See the image
1.png

Inside this tab just fill the username and password and click login
25.png

If everything is gone well you should see your avatar in the main lobby.

In the CREATE MAP tab you can start painting your maps, there you find two new buttons
2.png

the third is for upload and the fifth for download.
I also add some new functions the toponymy terrain type, so now it's possible to add labels to the terrain more easily and you can rotate and resize it.
Have fun and remember that any kind of feedback is appreciated.
Marco