Custom Maps - Best Program To Use

[RJO]

I know there are many threads on this topic but I cant seem to find one that overwhelmingly endorses one map making program over another.

What is the best program to use these days? And where would I find the program and information on it?

Thanks!

[Nagozi]

I like UO Landscaper 1.1 and 1.3; both programs are downloadable from OrBSydia DevNet. Email Kaybel and he'll tell you the rest.

Orbsydia is one of the few sites that actually have real people behind it who can answer questions; they have a friendly staff, and everyone will try to help, like on runuo, as long as you aren't pushy.

UO Landscaper is one of their major projects and its still not 100% complete after all these years .

Its definately better than Dragon because its less complicated to use. This program generates templates for you to use and all you have to do is draw freehand on this templates and then use the utility to convert your bitmap into a mul file. Its that simple really.

Orbsydia boasts a new program called Genesis, but it has gone by way of UO Landscaper 2.0... meaning the developer probably got burned out and isnt working on it anymore due to real life issues. The once promising program is still listed on their project list, but alas the link is dead.

[Lord_Greywolf]

I agree - UO landscaper is what i use

it does have bugs, and things do have to be set up a certain way (like shallow water has to be at -5, etc), but it does make it a lot easier that editing a map totaly by hand using the other programs out there

now if just wanting to change small sections of a map - mulpatcher is much better for that (or if you want to keep the origiponal OSI maps and edit just part of them)

[floppydisc]

And if you want to work together with friends (or other people), CentrED is the way to go ;-)

[Nagozi]

I just downloaded it and tried to use it. For the most part its fairly straight forward; however how you save your changes to the map is beyond me.

Troubleshoot:
I asked myself: well what if i created a map, on UO Landscaper, (that has a coastline bug) which puts a brown boarder around the coast of all my land masses. How would I fix it?

Problem: I decided to destroy a piece of coastline, Keep in mind i still dont know how to save or delete mul files using this program, anyway i raised a section of costal water and deleted it. then i readded it by drawing it in myself; worked like a charm. I just couldnt delete what i had readded for some reason. Anyway just a note on my test.

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Overall an awesome editing program! I wouldnt use it to create a map from scratch though

[floppydisc]

All changes are (almost) instant. The server saves pending changes every 30 seconds.