Dungeon Master Forum

interesting maps i think, in the way that they clearly distinguish the different paths (ku, dain, ros, neta) in each level - none of the maps i've seen have this peculiarity

they're far from being detailed but i don't think that's the purpose here

still interesting to see

I remember these, are they from ST Action?

MY CSB maps for my as yet unreleased DM website have the paths shown too. And much better designed if I say so myself

The idea of distinguishing the paths with colours is very interesting and I like it, but as Gambit pointed out, this particular map is not well designed - and it's actually burning holes into my eyes!

Maybe it was supposed to be printed? Eyes do not suffer that much when it is printed.
Anyway the idea is good, it makes me want to add a 'path coloring tool marker' to the dungeon map maker.

@Gambit, you don't want your site to be released after Duke Nukem Forever, don't you? (heard the news?)

The maps are interesting

These old and pain-in-my-eyes maps can be found here: http://www.trep4.com/amicheats/classics ... sback.html

Sphenx wrote:@Gambit, you don't want your site to be released after Duke Nukem Forever, don't you? (heard the news?)

Whoa, holy freaking hell. I won't tarnish this thread with off-topicness, but allow me just to say "Come Get Some!"

I understand what you're getting at, regarding the different paths, but "clearly distinguish" is a stretch. There is almost nothing that is clear about that map.

Gambit37 wrote:MY CSB maps for my as yet unreleased DM website have the paths shown too. And much better designed if I say so myself

But if they're unreleased... so what?

Gambit37 wrote: Whoa, holy freaking hell. I won't tarnish this thread with off-topicness, but allow me just to say "Come Get Some!"

Fairplay. I tried to apply quick colors markers on DMBuilder maps. But I am not fully convinced by the results. Maybe it is not the good way to do it. Here is the equivalent map for the one shown by èné:



Anyway, Gambit, I am still curious to see how you did your maps.

Sphenx wrote:I tried to apply quick colors markers on DMBuilder maps. But I am not fully convinced by the results. Maybe it is not the good way to do it.

Hm, it's a nice try, but as you said - the result is not convincing.

shpenx, I feel the contrasts should be more evident (from walls to floorplan).
Blue way works for me the most.
So also try and switch red wall to red floorplan color and vice versa. go make the light red even more subtle, less saturated.
-->you would create 2 Ways that have light floors and dark walls and 2 Ways that are represented by darker coloured/more saturated floorplans
This could help distinguish the Ways better, but also introduce other difficulites.

The aim is to be able to represent spinners and teleporters clearly in every colour scheme there is. The blue one gives
teleporters a greenish tint(due to simultane contrast).. You do not get what it is, cannot compare the same icons on different Ways.
I am not sure about the colours altogether. What colour would ROS stand for the most? maybe the mechanical blue?
For Ku I could imagine Red or blue(from the original image first post èné)
For priest I would use a yellow - brownish colour -- earthen colours . Could work if you look at priests from the druid side. and so on.

@Gambit: is it much trouble to show your maps? I would like to see them , too. Without or with the DM codex (aka dead or alive)

Sphenx: I like it.

I wish there was a way to somehow express the game flow in an editor.
I mean, especially with the complexity level of CSB, you hardly can say which paths are open under several circumstances and you may lose overview with the number of actuators between linearity and free movement, which then can unbalance the dungeon.
Said the other way - it also needs a lot of creation experience to keep the game in balance, because there's no function that can tell: okay, so far, you can expect so and so much experience points.
At the moment, a dungeon developer surely has to make lots of notes, and surely also has often to quit the editor to test.
Perhaps kind of a 'fog of war' would be necessary, and kind of a playlist for actuators too.
Can't express it better now, it's just some kind of a picture, a vague idea...
(and I think before I can really express it, Rasmus has realized it )

Oh, I read it 3 times to understand what you mean by 'fog of war'!
Actually, I started years before a quick DM engine that could plug into DMBuilder and then render a simplified game using the top view of the map editor. I also made a partial solver which color differently the floor tiles between two points (entrance and exit of a level); but it worked on a single map - quite OK in the case of DM but useless in the case of CSB ...
The idea behind this is exactly to test the dungeon within the editor, try actuators, see if all items (keys) are in the good place and reachable; all this with the help of the solver which tells possible ways as far as it could instead of letting random wandering by human.
I have still a lot of work to do on this, but you makes me want to go further.

Sophia wrote:I understand what you're getting at, regarding the different paths, but "clearly distinguish" is a stretch. There is almost nothing that is clear about that map.

i was only speaking about making the 4 paths differents from each other. It's the idea itself that i like and i find quite interesting. These maps however are not well designed, i give you that.

Sphenx wrote:Fairplay. I tried to apply quick colors markers on DMBuilder maps. But I am not fully convinced by the results. Maybe it is not the good way to do it. Here is the equivalent map for the one shown by èné

This is much better but as Zoom said, it needs to be improved about the colors and contrast and perhaps other things to add, though i couldn't say what exactly.. Still a nice try ! (actually very good compare to my ugly map )

Here's an example of how I did mine, basically the same as Sphenx but done in PhotoShop. (Funny that we chose the same colours!) On the website, you can toggle the colour layer on and off as well as the numbers.

Very impressive, Gambit, well done! When are you going to release all the maps? The dmcodex.com website is not working yet, is it? Or have I missed something?

Nope, not online yet, sometime early next year hopefully.

Thank you Gambit, your map is very neat. Now I see what's wrong. The original map shown by èné has colored walls but not floors. Your map has colored floor but not walls. My map has floor and walls colored which makes it a bit untidy. Then I know how I will fix this

Really great map there Gambit. Too bad they are not online yet, they are the best I've seen so far! Reminds me that your Conflux maps were equally impressive.

Now, this is a pretty impressive map, even better than the one made by Sphenx, I only wish dmcodex was online - nice stuff anyway!

Sphenx wrote:Thank you Gambit, your map is very neat. Now I see what's wrong. The original map shown by èné has colored walls but not floors. Your map has colored floor but not walls. My map has floor and walls colored which makes it a bit untidy. Then I know how I will fix this

Very true. the first time I compared this map with the one at dmweb's, I though to myself that the guy had completely messed up somewhere, then I realized he had colored walls that surround the path and not the path itself. It's quite disconcerting the first time you see it

for sure I should have mentioned it first.

While all the maps have their nice touches , I would still find some words for the first map:

Got rid of Colour information and I find that the symbols work very good(clear and concise)

Another thing I wanted to say about it are that the -not-square-ish approach that I find intriguing.
The maps look friendlier than square-maps and somehow the size of the rectangles re-uses the dm viewport- or atleast I have dm in mind as being rectangle viewport (16:10 or such and not 4:3)
dunno, here´s the b/w version..

I find that map much more confusing and not very readable at all. I guess we all see things differently.

Following a link Christophe posted in the Demo thread, you can find all sorts of DM & CSB goodies, for example:

http://cd.textfiles.com/geminiatari/FIL ... OS/ETMAPS/

These are in PC2 format which is apparently Degas Elite. I found the Windows Tool XnView which reads this format, though you have to set it's options to do so (Tools -> Options -> General -> Display all image file types).

There's some more here too which appear to be the ones first displayed by Ene at the top of the thread (can also be read by XnView).

http://cd.textfiles.com/geminiatari/FIL ... S/CSBMAPS/

Great map Gambit, certainly the most clear I have seen for CSB. Looking forward to the website!