Posted by Kim on July 8, 2023, 9:00am
Imagine that you have a map detailing some area relevant to your favorite RP. Maybe it's of a castle for a D&D game, or other TTRPG encounter. Maybe it's a map showing the bridge and captain's ready room of a starship. Perhaps it's a forest glade where the moonlight strikes with a suspicious focus at the center of a ring of mushrooms. Whatever it is, you set it up to be specific to the RP scene or scenes you have going.You head over to the forum topic where this RP is taking place, and attach the map to that topic. It could be a forum topic in a group -- or maybe it's even an inbox conversation. Now, that map appears above your chat, and everyone participating is able to move their character avatars to show where they are in your enchanted glade. Exact positioning could be very important when a certain spell triggers
Your imaginations of the scene are unified and fueled by the visualization of where you are.As it happens, I've been tinkering with a map builder, and I have a few convenience features for building the map of your dream already.
In phase 1, you can choose to simply "paint" broad areas of color, such as green for grass, brown for dirt, and blue for water. You don't need to be too fussy. Just rough in terrain.
Then, when you're ready, hit generate terrain, and the map builder will smooth out all the edges for you with appropriate transition tiles, and even add appropriate details like trees, flowers, stones, even reeds in the water.
Yes, you can turn off that grid -- it's just there to help with positioning
This is just one screen - you can scroll around to make much bigger maps.
Of course, if you want to take control of all the details yourself, you most certainly can! This feature is just intended to provide a starting place, an attempt to eliminate hours of fiddly work I've endured in other map builders. But it may even be useful for people who just want a "grab and go" basic map.
This demo just shows terrain and basic natural objects, but of course you will also be able to create flooring, walls, furniture, etc., in ye olde timey, modern and even futuristic flavors.
Something else I've already built is the ability to switch your map into different seasons - spring, summer, fall, and winter, with the click of a button!
Here is a more complete demo scene showing how the same area might look in different seasons:
If you're an artist who wants to add your own assets, the seasons feature might also be useful for night/day, active/inactive, or many other state swaps useful for changing a map to respond to changes in your RP scene.
I can't wait to expand this demo into a fully working prototype and let you all start playing with it!
Post tags: Lemonade Stand Fundraiser
Comments
@madam - Absolutely! One of my first goals is going to be producing a style guide for artists who want to start producing assets.
This is awesome, I can't wait!
Ohhh this is going to be very fun! If someone wanted to donate assets to the project, would we be allowed to help contribute to a public database?
*chomping at the bit to start making custom avatars as is my wont*
Im so excited!
I overlooked the part that you can change the season/time of day with the click of the button. WOW!!
That sounds pretty easy! I love it so far!
This is so precious looking! I love what I'm seeing thus far! I can't wait to see it all come to fruition! I enjoyed the cute little avatars too -- I hope there'll be a bit more personalizing of them and maybe even more options to choose from! That will probably be my favorite aspect of getting to see everyone's look! 
I'm so freaking excited!
Wow! This looks awesome!
Aah that looks so cool!! 
I'm not sure if I'll need it for any RPs but it would be fun to play with!
I'm not sure if I'll need it for any RPs but it would be fun to play with!
JT_the_Ninja
July 9, 2023
3:56pm