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

[Tiana]

Thanks for explaining the features I was failing to find! I knew in some cases it had to be simple things I just couldn't intuit. I didn't look at any tutorial information as I thought it might be helpful to know what happens when someone just drops in blind. It was significantly easier than if I'd dropped into literally any Adobe program blind... I really respect that you are here and trying to get feedback to improve the program. ^_^ I'll tool around with it again and see if I have better results by using the W/S shortcuts to reroll the fractal. I love being able to keyboard control things like the thickness of lines and the opacity of a stroke. In this case, what I would like to be able to adjust with the keyboard on the fly is how jagged versus how smooth the fractalization is.

Okay, so I pulled it up. I love what W/S does. Feels very natural to work with, and is exactly the kind of concept I was hoping for. My only complaint is that every time I push it, my computer makes the error beep even though it causes a program response. What I'd like now is for A to make it generate a smoother fractal and D to generate a rougher fractal. I love how you can move back and forth though, rather than losing whatever you rolled up. I ran into a bit of trouble trying to pan around to make a larger landmass, as I discovered I was unable to zoom out so far I could see the whole canvas with negative space around. I would like to be able to zoom out as far as I please, without getting an error sound effect. I would also like to be able to push the space bar to transfer to the pan tool while still holding onto a fractal item that I'm drawing, such as a river, lake, or landmass, so I can work zoomed in without having to merge a bunch of objects to get the final big one. It works when I'm not using a tool, which makes sense, but it also repeatedly makes the error beep sound while I'm holding it. Which is a bit annoying.

Oh yeah, I'd also like to be able to set if the shadow I give a landmass is multiply or screen, and it would be neat if it would be possible to set whether it's light or dark on the stroke to denote a shadow on one side and light hitting the other side, or to isolate lighter beach areas.

LOVE that I can copy the properties from one landmass to another with ease. Would like a keyboard shortcut to copy and past properties, since I imagine using that quite a lot.

And I discovered that I could move the layers menu to the other side and include it with the other menu, so that fixes my issue with the size, although it removes the ability to access the properties. It would be nice if it could be stored with 'presets' as a tab, and also drop the mini-map in there too. Or if you fill one sidebar up with all of the menus, a scrollbar appears that allows you to get to the bottom. Because it was nice that I could store the mini map and layers there, but sucked that I then no longer had space to scroll to the bottom of all of the preset options and layer options.

Also discovered that I could get a 'map only' view, helpful.

Now, when I clicked on a river after drawing it, I was able to grab on some green dots and drag it and change the shape on the fly. It felt very natural and I was quite pleased to see the w/s options worked to alter the river fractalization as well. But, when I clicked on my continent, while I got the same green line/dot option, pulling on one of the dots did nothing. I also got to an option that showed nodes for the entire vector shape yet pulling on them did nothing. Is there something I'm supposed to do other than click and pull? I suppose it doesn't really matter since if I started to use this as a main program I'd probably freehand coastlines over top of a sketch made with the fractal coast, and then merge it together. But it doesn't behave like I expect so I'm mentioning it in case that's a bug. I thought maybe my computer was delaying but I could never get even a little bit of a movement response and the rivers moved effortlessly.

Discovered the lake waveline echo fill, it was located exactly where I expected the rest of the shoreline options to be! I think it makes more sense if that was included in the main shoreline option. I love the look though, it's perfect, and the UI for all of the river options allows for a ton of different river looks, which I also love, the different tapers and strokes, etc. The only option I'd want that doesn't exist yet is a randomization of thickness instead of just the taper, or to literally be able to squeeze and pull sections. I suppose right now the best option for that would be to draw lakes over top of a river route if we want thicker regions.

To be honest I'm pretty impressed by the shortcuts that make my task easier without destroying the fun of still illustrating a map. I am seriously considering it as a base structure creator due to how it clears up the only problem I ever run into as a commission taker, which is when someone wants me to edit the underlaying continent long into the process and it's impossible without doing a crapload of extra work. The fact that this is vectorization that allows you to add raster textures while maintaining that node editability (I'm assuming either I'm doing something wrong here or there's a glitch).

It also allows me to save styles and thus replicate a map exactly by creating a storage folder, and do things like very rapidly change the entire feel of a map's color and texture and lineart.

There are a lot of things here I really like and I'd say it's quite likely I'll end up buying it even if it doesn't take over my entire process.

Edit: I sent you a sale =P

Edit 2: Now I'm working on promoting it to another person. Turns out your program may be a very easy product for me to sell.

[OWM]

There are a lot of things here I really like and I'd say it's quite likely I'll end up buying it even if it doesn't take over my entire process.

Edit: I sent you a sale =P

Edit 2: Now I'm working on promoting it to another person. Turns out your program may be a very easy product for me to sell.

Thank you so much!!! Really appreciate the support and telling others about OWM

Thanks for explaining the features I was failing to find! I knew in some cases it had to be simple things I just couldn't intuit. I didn't look at any tutorial information as I thought it might be helpful to know what happens when someone just drops in blind. It was significantly easier than if I'd dropped into literally any Adobe program blind... I really respect that you are here and trying to get feedback to improve the program. ^_^

A lot of the functionality in OWM came from user feedback, so it only makes sense listening to it

Okay, so I pulled it up. I love what W/S does. Feels very natural to work with, and is exactly the kind of concept I was hoping for. My only complaint is that every time I push it, my computer makes the error beep even though it causes a program response. What I'd like now is for A to make it generate a smoother fractal and D to generate a rougher fractal. I love how you can move back and forth though, rather than losing whatever you rolled up. I ran into a bit of trouble trying to pan around to make a larger landmass, as I discovered I was unable to zoom out so far I could see the whole canvas with negative space around. I would like to be able to zoom out as far as I please, without getting an error sound effect. I would also like to be able to push the space bar to transfer to the pan tool while still holding onto a fractal item that I'm drawing, such as a river, lake, or landmass, so I can work zoomed in without having to merge a bunch of objects to get the final big one. It works when I'm not using a tool, which makes sense, but it also repeatedly makes the error beep sound while I'm holding it. Which is a bit annoying.

We'll work do add the A/D shortcuts, that makes a lot of sense. We'll look into the pan and the error sounds, these are OSX only problems so very much appreciate the OSX feedback!

Oh yeah, I'd also like to be able to set if the shadow I give a landmass is multiply or screen, and it would be neat if it would be possible to set whether it's light or dark on the stroke to denote a shadow on one side and light hitting the other side, or to isolate lighter beach areas.

Could you elaborate on this? I want to make sure I understand what you mean - Thank you!

LOVE that I can copy the properties from one landmass to another with ease. Would like a keyboard shortcut to copy and past properties, since I imagine using that quite a lot.

Excellent suggestion. We'll add that!

And I discovered that I could move the layers menu to the other side and include it with the other menu, so that fixes my issue with the size, although it removes the ability to access the properties. It would be nice if it could be stored with 'presets' as a tab, and also drop the mini-map in there too. Or if you fill one sidebar up with all of the menus, a scrollbar appears that allows you to get to the bottom. Because it was nice that I could store the mini map and layers there, but sucked that I then no longer had space to scroll to the bottom of all of the preset options and layer options.

Good point, OWM actually used to let you to tab tool windows togeather, that went away when we changed UI frameworks. We'll try to bring it back.

But, when I clicked on my continent, while I got the same green line/dot option, pulling on one of the dots did nothing. I also got to an option that showed nodes for the entire vector shape yet pulling on them did nothing. Is there something I'm supposed to do other than click and pull?

When you are in full "Shape Edit" mode (and you can see all the individual points) there is a new toolbar at the top that lets you be in move/add/subtract point, as well as other options. You can also edit the "control" points instead of the full path, regen fractal segments and create nexuses for rivers.
Toolbar.png

The only option I'd want that doesn't exist yet is a randomization of thickness instead of just the taper, or to literally be able to squeeze and pull sections. I suppose right now the best option for that would be to draw lakes over top of a river route if we want thicker regions.

You can add size breaks to the rivers, holding "alt" or after you created the path from the Shape Edit tool. For really thick water ares combining the water tool with the river tool is the best way to go, but we'll look into giving the river tool more options on this.
Toolbar.png

To be honest I'm pretty impressed by the shortcuts that make my task easier without destroying the fun of still illustrating a map. I am seriously considering it as a base structure creator due to how it clears up the only problem I ever run into as a commission taker, which is when someone wants me to edit the underlaying continent long into the process and it's impossible without doing a crapload of extra work. The fact that this is vectorization that allows you to add raster textures while maintaining that node editability (I'm assuming either I'm doing something wrong here or there's a glitch).
It also allows me to save styles and thus replicate a map exactly by creating a storage folder, and do things like very rapidly change the entire feel of a map's color and texture and lineart.

Yep! That was the idea behind OWM - Anna Meyer (not sure if you are familiar with her) gave us a ton of early feedback and was really excited about OWM because of that very reason (though she's mostly making 3D terrain maps nowadays which is outside of our scope). Ability to import Shapefiles from GIS data and svg vector data you created in another program is also helpful for professional fantasy cartography. And, indeed, you can edit everything in the vector shape which remains as Bezier paths (it's not made into lines).

Again, thank you for all the questions and the detailed feedback (and your support!). I still owe you replying to some of your original comments, which I'll do soon.

- Alejandro