Ravenous Role Playing » Cartography

Dundjinni and Hero Designer / Side-by-Side

Hungry — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:19:47 +0000

As you may have guessed by now, I love maps and mapping software. This includes the (seemingly abandoned) Dundjinni. I also love playing GURPS and Hero and pretty much any other “point build” system. However, GURPS and Hero are complex enough that I find that using software (GURPS Character Assistant or HeroDesigner) really helps streamline character builds and exposes me to other options that I may have not otherwise noticed for my character.

I’m not sure what programming language GURPS Character Assistant is built in, but Dundjinni and HeroDesigner are Java programs. Here lies the problem… HeroDesigner requires at least Java 6 (or maybe 5?) to function properly. Dundjinni requires Java 4. Anything newer than that causes the software to not operate properly. The Dundjinni developers claim that there is a bug in the newer versions of Java. I firmly believe that the API changed in some class that they use and since the software is no longer being developed, they can’t bring it “up to spec” to use the new API.

That’s neither here nor there. I want to use both pieces of software, but can’t… or can I?

Here are the basics of what I did to make both pieces of software happy:

Install Java 4 (aka 1.4) in C:\Program Files\Java\java4
Install Dundjinni
Install Java 6 (aka 1.6) in C:\Program Files\Java\java6
Install HeroDesigner
Write a batch file (remember those???) to point Dundjinni to the 1.4 Java. See below for the batch file.
Modify the Dundjinni desktop icon to point to the new batch file instead of the exe.
Profit!

Here’s the batch file for those that need it. This took me about 20 minutes of Googling for answers and about a minute to write.

@echo off
set JAVA_HOME="C:\Program Files\Java\java4"
set PATH=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%
set CLASSPATH=%JAVA_HOME%
cd "C:\Program Files\Fluid\Dundjinni"
"C:\Program Files\Fluid\Dundjinni\dundjinni.exe"

I really hope this helps someone out there that wants to run the latest and greatest Java for everything, but still allow Dundjinni to work properly.

Cartography Lessons

Hungry — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:03:43 +0000

I’ll admit it. I love maps. Give me a book of maps for Christmas, and I’m a happy clam for several days while I explore ancient and lost lands through the ink, paper, glue and covers of a good book of maps. This love of maps extends into creating them as well. I suppose that was why I fell into the role of GM for most of my games. I was the guy that loved to draw maps. I’d take the old blue-lined graph paper and draw dungeon-crawl after dungeon-crawl. When I discovered hex maps, I dove into creating overland maps as well.

Years passed before I discovered the joys of large artist pads for my world maps. The freedom of not using any lines for guides was quite refreshing. I would create world after world just for the sake of being able to draw maps. Hardly any of the worlds grew flesh on the bones of the maps, but I had the maps in case I needed them.

In the end, many of the maps (dungeon, world and otherwise) have fallen to the wayside and been lost to the ages. I still have quite a few of them, but they’re fairly tattered and torn. A sign of a good life for a map.

In the past decade (or so) I’ve discovered the joy of digital maps. Here, I’m mainly speaking of Campaign Cartographer, Fractal Terrains and Dundjinni. There are other products out there to fill the digital map niche, but these three products are all I need to get going with the creations from the macro down to the micro.

Some people can’t stand doing maps digitally because there is a fairly steep learning curve. A friend of mine suggested that I give some lessons on the blog about how to do digital maps using the products that I know and love. I’ve decided that’s a good idea, so I’m going to start a semi-regular series of blog posts with images, screen captures, maps and text explaining how to go about creating maps.

I’ll probably start with the basic world maps, but I’ll interject details on how to draw cities, castles, dungeons, ships and everything in between. Who knows? Maybe I’ll create another world while I’m at it and see where things lead with it.