2021-03-29 15:36:05

Some mainstream MUDs have a crazy amount of detailed areas where you're walking along a corridor that makes a circle with slices through the middle. You can run across areas that have wings that are mirrored, but otherwise look identical, such as in a starship.

I've thought of ways to do this. I could use Excel or a similar variant, but I'm going to be stuck against the top and left edges unless I start way down. Then coming back to it, I'd have to remember where I started. If I did nit an edge, I could insert more rows and columns, but that's a pain. I thought about using Brushtone, and while that would definitely work, it's not optimal either.

SO here's what I'm after. I would like a tool that allows you to start with a blank canvas, and add rooms to it. This could be done either adding one room at a time, or by using a shape tool.

I would like to see shapes such as circles, squares, rectangles, and trapezoids. The shape tool should allow you to place a marker in the center and expand from there, then a confirm step to actually place the shape.

There should be a sound every time you move the cursor while setting the dimensions of your shape, and another if the shape would overlap into rooms that already exist.

The shapes should say how many rooms it would take if you filled in the middle, and they always should start as an outline rather than filled in. When you build something you're happy with, you should be able to select around it, then copy it, paste and rotate.

It should work in all 16 directions. To handle 3D, each flor should be on it's own and you can go to the next and previous floor with a command. There should be two modes of navigation, free build and walk mode. The difference being that free build lets you go into empty spaces where walk mode ensures you can't by assuming that anywhere off the map is a wall you can't cross. There should be a sound for when this occurs.

You should be able to set an offset for building, and have it remembered across sessions. This is for MUDs that have a coordinate system and your new area will go somewhere in the game world. This will help ensure that your map coordinates line up with the in game coordinates. You should also be able to set a border you must stay in. This would ensure that nothing you build will overlap anything in game when you decide to commit by building in the MUD what you've just mapped out.

This is something I've been pondering on for a while now, and I think it could benefit not just me, but anyone who does building work on MUDs, but also wants a better way to place detailed structures in game.

I can't pay going rates for software dev work. I don't think many people who frequent this place can, but I'd be happy to slide something to anyone who completes this project. I would also be happy to contribute to the sound design effort.

If you think you want to undertake this, and then decide it's worth selling, I'd be glad to buy the first copy. Either way, I do hope that someone may take up the challenge, because I've been wanting to map out my areas better now for a while.

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2021-03-30 01:37:12

This is basically a world creator? Sounds really interesting for nothing else than it would be interesting to see some of CR's stations made into audio format for people to roam around.

i am in no way saying for certain I would pick up this project ( I have enough to do as is) so if someone else fancies a crack at it, please do. But if nobody has picked this up once my schedule is a little lighter (probably after university is finished at the end of April) I may pick this up.

Nathan Smith
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2021-03-30 02:06:04

A mapper more than a creator. I don't want and or need things to allow you to place ambiences and footsteps and all that jazz. This is the blind equivalent of sighted people mapping in notepad or excel.

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2021-03-30 09:27:09

it depends, do you mind what language is it in? What platforms do you want it to run on? Can you post more details on how should it work? Like... how should you place the trapezoidal and other shapes on the map? How should you export it? Code or tale arrays in a file, or something else? do you want it to be like a glorified ms paint with tools for the blind like brushtone? Or everything to be operated with menus, like insert>shape>circle>dialog(radius=?, center=?)>confirm>sound if it overlaps and then options to redraw or cancel? Can you think more about how you'd want it to be? Or am I overthinking it? If I think I could handle it then after more details are given, I might do it...we'll see once the fucking exams finish, I hate them.

2021-03-30 13:41:45

No, no notepad editing, this is a mapper. Shapes should be defined from the center outward, at least for circles. There's no need to export anything, just save it in a way that it can load each one if needed. Language, I really don't care so long as it isn't BGT.

SO yes, similar to Brushtone in that there are several tools. I would want the overlap detection to kick in as you draw though, not when you confirm. Something like what you may call the pencil tool would place one tile at a time. A line tool would ask for a starting and end point, then create the line between them. A circle tool that could create circles or ovals depending on how you allowed the shape to grow. Or a tool for circles and one for ovals. There would have to be a way to know when it's making a perfect circle - or at least, as perfect as you can get in the digital world.

No menus for giving numbers as the primary means of making shapes, this is a mapper, it maps things, so you draw right on the virtual canvas. If you could only do that, it would be annoying to try to build without hitting your own stuff.

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2021-03-30 18:17:51

I wonder how I can represent circle in an MUD? The map will be square anyway, even if I use middle directions like NE, NW ETC.

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2021-03-30 19:58:38

nah, it won't be.

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2021-03-30 21:39:47

Can you explain more? I didnt play MUD much.

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2021-03-30 22:39:38

If each tile is related to a pixel, you can make a circle. Granted, it'll be imperfect as there is no way to digitally create a perfect circle, but it will be as close as we can come. A circle is unending and there are no straight lines. You'd be calculating the dimensions of the circle and plotting points to make it look as close to a circle as it can look.

If I knew how to do this, I'd just do it, rather than asking someone else. But I don't. My coding skills aren't good enough, and certainly my math skills are not.

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2021-03-30 23:38:08

This would be nice for D&D mapping as well. Excel is a pain. I have trouble knowing how to size my maps for my sighted players on brushtone.
Also, a couple additional features that I would enjoy from such a project would be the following.
Having the ability to scale each plotted point to be a certain size, for my purposes the traditional 5ft square, for instance.
Allowing templates to be user created would be nice. Say I need a fifty foot hallway that is ten feet wide, I could select my hallway template, which has walls and colored for indoors, already set, set the length to 50ft, long, 10ft wide, and put it where I need it. Then I can add my door template where needed, or stairs, or whatever.
Regional scaling would be nice so say my castle is set so when I'm inside each plotted point is 5ft, but when I hit the nearby town, I can scale the streets and such to say, 50ft per plotted point, then when I go into a business that business would be the normal 5ft per plotted point again.
I guess that last one would also necessitate nested maps, so I hope I explained it coherently.
Either way, I would pay for something like this as well, although I think just updating brushTone to be a bit more novice friendly in terms of documentation and adding a couple of those features would work probably just as well for me.

thanks,
Michael