New version of OgreMap
 

Here's the link to download the new OgreMap, version 2.0.0.0:

https://sites.google.com/site/robots...ogremap2?pli=1

With it you can make your own maps for Ogre and GEV. New maps mean new scenarios which mean more fun for everybody.

It runs on Windows, and requires the Dot Net Framework 4 Client Profile, which should already be installed for Windows 7 and newer.

The zip file contains an exe and a pdf manual. The exe doesn't need an installer, just run it. Of course, you should always virus scan any exe you download from the internet. Even mine. :)

Notable improvements over the ancient first version include:

• You can now save maps as image files (jpg, bmp, png, and gif)
• You can now "paint" with the selected terrain instead of clicking every hex
• Many additional terrain images

Known limitations:

• Memory errors if the map gets too big for a Dot Net Image (100x100 or so) just click "continue" and make a smaller map
• Mouse tracking is offset if editing at a zoom level other than "native"
• Extra blank pages sometimes produced when printing (as you can see in the Print Preview window)

Enjoy!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Very cool!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thanks again, tomc!

D.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Brilliant! Thank you!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thanks! :)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

I'm really enjoying playing around with this. The classic maps imprinted themselves upon my deep consciousness when I was young and to this day I start to salivate slightly upon seeing a hexagon. Getting to fiddle with the actual Denis Loubet hex images is purest joy.

http://i.imgur.com/9XHQmWM.jpg

I think I should write all of my posts in the form of GEV maps from now on.

One question: I can't seem to resize the screen so that I can select Beach. It's too far down. Am I doing something wrong?

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

That's what I get for adding Damaged Forest... It pushed everything down. What's your screen resolution?

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

1366 x 768

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

try version 2.0.1 at the same site. I squeezed things a bit.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Now that's what I call Agile programming...

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

I can see as far as rail, can't even see the top of the next one anymore.

Maybe I should just change resolution.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

If that's an option, then yes. Depending on your version of Windows, you could also try unlocking the task bar or moving it from the bottom to one of the sides to free up some vertical space.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

My taskbar autohides so that's not the ish. I'll fiddle with the rez. Thanks again, this is a beautiful little digital object.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thank You so very much for sharing this...this is fantastic! :)

The Age of new OGRE Scenarios is upon us.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Very nice Tom!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

I updated the first post in the Ogre Tools thread to get the new version and location.

Thanks, Tom. :)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Great work. Thank you!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Looks great bbbuuttttt.....I didn't see any option for mountains in the screen shot. Is it available?

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

I don't know about the rest of you but this looks like great tool to make terrain overlays for the main board.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

yes, Mountains are available

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Fantastic...Thanks GP

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

This looks really nice! A couple of notes:

1) It would be great to be able to load a saved map from the opening 'New Map' screen, so it doesn't have to create a new blank map first.

2) Running under WINE on Linux, it mostly seems to work just fine. The one problem I've had so far is that when I try to load a saved map (23x23), I get an out of memory error. Not sure if that's related to my setup or not, but it might be worth looking into. (Another datapoint - a map saved on Windows generates serialization errors when loading on Linux, and vice versa.)

Which segues into my other question. I created a blank (clear) 23x23 map, put one hex of each other type on it, along with one of each road/rail and some hexsides just to get a feel for how things worked. When I look at the save file, it's almost 6MB in size on Windows, and 10MB on Linux! I'm not sure what all you've got stored in there (file calls it TrueType font data, and I can see a bunch of other things in there before it turnes to 100% gibberish), but that strikes me as being rather inefficient. Given that the hex images are chosen from an existing known set within the program (even with, e.g., 4 different images for green clear terrain (which I have to say is pretty awesome!)), I would think you could simply store what image is at what hex location by numeric value using 1 or 2 bytes, and do the same for each hex side. Roads/Railroads could then simply be stored as 2-byte hex pairs (which would limit maps to 255x255, but that's probably a good thing :)) with a header for each type of road before the pair listing along with how many of them there are (4 bytes?).

Thus, a 23x23 map using 2-byte hex identifiers and 1 byte for hexsides, plus 4 byte headers for each 'road' type would need 4144 bytes for the hex data (plus some sort of header indicating the map size and shape, probably only 3-4 bytes there), plus an additional 4 + 2N bytes to indicate each type of road, where N is the number of sections (between 2 hexes) of that type of road (and that would max out at ~6Kbytes if every hex had 6 roads leading out of it). Even if you stored it as text (or even XML) it would still be a lot smaller that the current output.

Just a thought, since smaller files are easier to share, and the large size made me curious as to what you were storing in there (and how)... :)

In any event, thanks for making such a great tool!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

He's probably just using .NET's built-in object serialization code. Each hex is probably an instantiated object of the same type, so that multiplies out the overhead significantly. Sure it's not efficient, at all. But it's literally one line of code, that doesn't have to change even when you add new features to the program.

Memory, bandwidth, and HD space are cheap. Developer time and mindspace is expensive. And premature optimization is the root of all evil. :)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Exactly right on all points. Developer time is the scarce resource. Also, Dot Net isn't the best choice for graphics applications, but it's what I'm most familiar with and gave me the best chance to release something before life intervened again. (It worked!)

Offsides - you make a number of good points though. The next version won't require you to make a map before you load an existing one. I made OgreMap the default application (on my PC) to open .om2 files, so just double clicked the map file to start the program and automatically load the map, so I kinda forgot about the other scenario.

I expect your Wine problems are also related to the Binary Serializer in Dot Net. I don't Linux or WINE, but I'll see if there are any reasonable accommodations I can make.

Thanks for everyone's interest and feedback. Now go make some scenarios for me to play! :)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

While I'll partially disagree on the 'X i cheap' argument, I can totally understand the 'one line of code' reasoning. Not how I would do it, but that's just me (and properly designing your file format is NOT premature optimization unless you try to squeeze things into too few bytes fo future expansion!).

Don't know anything about .NET other than that I won't touch it, but I understand about limited developer time. It's a fantastic program - don't think I'm saying otherwise - I was just surprised that the map file format was so big and had so much stuff in it (much of which I couldn't identify). Knowing that it's a serialization makes a lot more sense now, thought I'm surprised that each hex image appears to be stored separately, rather than just one copy of each image and pointers to the correct one - at least that's my assumption, given the file size.

That makes sense. It's easy to miss little things like that when your both author and tester - I've done it enough myself :)

Knowing what little I know about Wine, I would agree that it's related to the .Net Serializer working differently in Wine. Don't worry too hard about it, I can run it on Windows if I have to save in .OM2 format, iut's just less convenient. But that is one of the limitations of using a binary serializer - I wonder if .NET has some way to export to XML instead, and if that might work in a more cross-platform manner. Just a thought, even if XML is often overkill too :)

Thanks again for making this, and I already did - there's 2 of mine in the Scenario Contest winners :P

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Which is just a short step away from this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128248...57649789633815

Modular OGRE DE Map or "MOD Map"...lol

This would be so easy to create using whatever SJGs used to make the OGRE DE terrain tiles and maps. The black lines between the hexes on the map would be cut away, which would leave some wiggle room so the individual OGRE DE Mod Map terrain tiles would fit nicely inside the OGRE DE Mod Map Frame.

Basically this is the perfect sweet spot between the upcoming PC Game and OGRE DE for map customization, and best of all would be fully compatible with all the OGRE DE terrain tiles. You set the map frame size and then have fun filling it in as you customize the terrain.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

This is a snippet of the G1 map from a previous edition (I don't remember which one, I long ago lost my little plastic GEV tote to the ravages of growing up and moving.

https://puu.sh/rwhRP/c5ef957953.jpg

And this below is a screengrab of OgreMap @ DE Zoom with the hex numbers turned on:

https://puu.sh/rwipL/8bbc86e97d.png

Did the numbering system change with DE?

EDIT for clarity:

When Hex Numbers are turned on for High & Big maps, the top row of the odd columns starts with ##01, while the even columns start with ##02. Can that be fixed so the even columns start with ##01 as well?

When you export the map as a PNG, it numbers the hexes even if you have numbers turned off in the editor--so I can't add the correct numbers in post edit, unfortunately.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Nice. I used an earlier version to draw an Icepick map, and I recall some horsing around to get that printed the way I wanted. This new version seems even easier to use.

The speed and ease of editing, the fidelity to the original graphics, and the options for saving to PNG, etc. are sweet. Thanks again, Tom.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

No, the numbering did not change in DE; that is a bug in the map software.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thanks for the clear info. I'll put these two issues on the list for the next release.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Bug is such an ugly word. I prefer to think of it as an "alternate feature".

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thanks! I usually save the png and use a photo editor to "posterize" it. I've had good luck mounting DE scale maps on foamcore. It's light, easy to store, and fairly durable. It takes about 3/4th of a glue stick to mount it though. I might look into spray adhesives...

"Icepick" (more or less, I might have made some mistakes)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...i02cHNxT3N0OGs
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...HNUMnFwQ096U0k

"Excercise K" (use the left half for plain Ogre)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1...3pSOGxaRXVzYkE

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Is that something that will be fixed in a future release? It would also be really nice if the hex numbers didn't render with the image export when you have them turned off. I could at least add the labels in GIMP then.

EDIT oops i see you already addressed that missed your reply on the previous page!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

"works as designed, but not as expected" :-)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Any ETA on the hex number fixes? I'm really stoked to make some nice ODE sized maps on the drafting printer at work, but since I can't at least print them without numbers I'm stuck. :)

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

New Version up on the site:

version 2.0.2.0
1) Hexes no longer numbered in saved image if "hex numbering" is unchecked
2) Row numbering of even columns in Big and High maps now starts with 1, instead of 2
3) No longer starting with New Map dialog

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Hey tomc!

Thank you for re-doing your OGRE map generator. I've got your original version from 2006 still on my HD (and backups.) Amazingly, the original program still runs just fine after going through XP, WIN 7 and now WIN10.

Anyway, nice work on the redesign. Love all the new terrain types.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Thanks so much. I'm glad I can contribute something to the Ogre community. It's been great fun.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Love it! Thanks so much!

Two more quirks I've noticed:

1. When placing Water adjacent to Swamp, the edge trees from the Swamp disappear (Maybe the water texture draws over them?)

2. The DE roads nearly cover up parallel tracks in the same hex. I'm assuming this is because the DE roads follow the exact same route as the old-style black line roads, which are fairly close to railroads. The tracks are still visible with DE roads, but it's definitely overlapping pretty bad.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Have a look at http://www.zutalabs.com/ .

Not color yet, but we'll be able to print maps on a sheet of posterboard with something that fits on a bookshelf.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

What is this wizardry???

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Bonus "feature". By working with the "Cthulhu" style water overlay, on a field of "Classic" water, you can get a depth effect to show shallow and deep water along a coastal shelf. Cthulhu water has several shades, so by placing (and replacing) individual hexes, you could do various depth effects.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Tried to use the program to create an overlay. Very disappointed. Size of Hex was way too big. Anyone have this problem and a solution.? Also says to save the file and edit with Gimo, Paint etc but only saved in its own format. Anyone have a workaround on that. Otherwise a very innovated and useful full map program but not what I expected.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Just had an email from Tom. To make it work he suggests saving in "native" and selecting the proper file format in that mode allowing for editing in Gimp or whatever. Thanks for the quick response Tom

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Version 2.0.2.0 works on OSX using Wine/WineBottler to make it into a standalone app.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Neat! Thanks for the info.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Do you have any setup steps you can share? What version of Wine are you using,etc?

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Honestly I just installed the latest version of WineBottler which comes with a version of WINE. I basically just followed the instructions for WineBottler to create a self contained app from the OgreMap2.exe including a copy of WINE in the bundle. As much as I hate to say it, "it just worked".

Before this I've never used WINE, Parallels or any such tool as I have not needed a windows application in over 15 years.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

That's cool. I didn't know that Winebottler was a thing. I thought it was just a part of Wine. Neat little tool.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Any possibility that some future version might include bridges?

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Sure, someday when life gives me a pause and I can get back into it.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Can no longer load a file under Wine on OSX 10.13.5. Dont know what changed. Application just crashes. Tried repacking int with WineBottler several ways including the Windows 7 option and installing MS's .Net4 but to no avail.

Sometimes I get this error:

https://imgur.com/a/vUpyn92

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Hi Izzy. I don't have a Mac, but I work with some sharp folks who do. I'll see what they can tell me.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Much obliged!

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Hi Izzy. Either the file is damaged (can you create and then load a new one?) or there's something wrong with your environment in Wine. OgreMap is built for Dot Net 4.0 Client Profile, which means it's compatible with Dot Net 4.0 or newer.

If nothing changed on your machine (an OS update or something), then I'd try reinstalling. If you did have an OS update, see if there's a new version of Wine for it. If not, there may be a release soon, if there are known incompatibilities.

Sorry I don't have more, but keep poking around and maybe the internet will smile on you.

Re: New version of OgreMap
 

Seems the file was damaged AND something Wine related. Sent the file to a native windows user and it wouldn’t open. However I still can’t load saved files consistently.

I redid the work and will come back to troubleshoot later