# Experiences with Dundjinni?



## Morrus (Oct 14, 2010)

Anyone got an opinion on Dunjinni?

I bought it via RPGNow yesterday (after going round in circles trying to buy it from their website - turns out their store has nothing in it....)  Haven't got it working yet - and haven't gotten a reply to my email to them about it, although it's only been 24 hours so I'm not too concerned about that yet.

Turns out it doesn't work on Windows 7, although the product description doesn't indicate this.  I've heard that in can be made to work on Windows 7 with some effort - although the amount of effort I'm willing to make is miniscule, having fallen into the "waste a week of your life trying to get some software to work" trap before; if it's not a very quick and easy fix, I'll ask for a refund.

Anyone got any experiences to relate, good or bad?  How's Dundjinni working out for you?


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## heruca (Oct 14, 2010)

You happen to have bought Dundjinni (aka DJ) at a bad time. The site recently swapped servers and ISPs. THe process took weeks, and while the forums are finally back up, the DJ Store is still "broken".

There is normally a DJ v1.0.7 "Full Install" that the DJ Store can provide you with a download link to if the DJ v1.0.7 patch does not work properly (this seems to be the case with most Vista and Windows 7 users), but this is currently unavailable for download.

I suggest you email the store representative, providing your purchase information, and request a download link for the Full Install. Unfortunately, it can take several days for the store representative to respond (don't ask me why).

Rest assured that DJ _will_ work on Windows 7 once you get the Full Install. And once it's working, I think you'll find DJ to be a good mapping program.


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## Morrus (Oct 14, 2010)

heruca said:


> I suggest you email the store representative, providing your purchase information, and request a download link for the Full Install. Unfortunately, it can take several days for the store representative to respond (don't ask me why).




I emailed every email address I could find on the website a couple of days ago.  I'll give it another day or two.


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## falcarrion (Oct 14, 2010)

I bought DJ when it first came out. I was very happy with it. And still use it now and then. But after all that went on with the company I wasn't even sure they where still in business. Thats one of the reasons I don't have it on my Windows 7 machine, and don't use it much on my old xp machine. To get it loaded on my Windows 7 machine with the orginal disks, seems like alot of work. So for now I'm using PyMapper which is fine if you like WOTC dungeon tiles. I will be intrested in seeing what happens with your purchase.


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## Morrus (Oct 15, 2010)

Well, we're not into the third day with no reply.  I'm not sure how long is reasonable, but we're certainly approaching it.


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## falcarrion (Oct 15, 2010)

Found this on the Dunnjinni forums.

 "the owner of EnWorld recently bought DJ, and isn't 
receiving timely customer service. This could lead to bad press if it isn't handled promptly. 

Not that all customers shouldn't be treated equally, of course. I'm just sayin'..."


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## Morrus (Oct 15, 2010)

Oookay. Annoyance has arrived.

I think a simple rule of "If you have time to accept my money, you have time to supply the product" is reasonable. If they're soooooo busy that they can't supply me with my product, then they shouldn't be accepting my money.

So. I've emailed RPGNow in addition to my previous emails to Fluid.

Tomorrow morning when I wake up, either I have the working copy of Dundjinni that I paid for or I write my review and leave it on the news page for the weekend, coupled with a PayPal claim for a refund.  "Too busy" will not be an acceptable excuse.


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## Morrus (Oct 16, 2010)

I just got a "not our problem, contact the publisher" response from RPGNow.


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## Morrus (Oct 16, 2010)

OK, RPGNow has refunded me; I did say I was willing to wait a bit longer, but I guess a refund works.

So - any suggestions for alternative products?


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## falcarrion (Oct 16, 2010)

Morrus,
I don't believe fluid owns the product any more. I could be wrong.
Looks like DJ has dropped the ball big time on this.

You might want to check out pro fantasy.


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## raindog308 (Oct 16, 2010)

Unfortunately, DJ had kind of a unique niche in my opinion: good battlemat/tactical maps.  

I would like to buy this product but 


I want too see the art packs, etc. that are available for it before I buy.
I want to know what the Platinum edition contains in terms of art packs, price it out, etc.
I want to review the 1.07 license (I publish and I understand as of 1.07 you are finally allowed to use DJ-generated maps in publications but I need details).
I want to frankly know the company isn't going away.
Their web site does not have a "contact us" link.

Going to the store is a blank, and the "Contact Store Representative" page from there is also blank.

I could not find a single email address on their site to talk to, other than their forums.  And I posted a "Is DJ out of business?" thread in their forums and the only response with other people's speculations! 

Man, if this was my business...



CC3 is a mess.  I know some people like it but it's vector CAD and not intuitive for a lot of people.  I think the various art packs that come with it are pretty 1990s computer art as well.  The GUI is awful and completely unlike anything else.  BTW, I own the giant $200+ set of it, so it's not like I haven't played with it.  On the positive side, ProFantasy seems to provide good support and if you happen to like CC3's interface, then the product can do a lot.  I realized that I knew enough Photoshop that simply making maps in PS was easier.

AutoRealm is free and actually easier to use in my experience.  Again, lame symbols.  I use it for a lot of maps that players won't see.

The Cartographer's Guilde (Cartographers' Guild - The Front Page) is the place to get tutorials and info.  I've made some excellent maps with Photoshop and I'm hardly a graphic design genius.


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## raindog308 (Oct 16, 2010)

(deleted post)


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## IronWolf (Oct 16, 2010)

Morrus said:


> So - any suggestions for alternative products?




What kind of maps are you looking to make?  Tile-type maps, one off rooms and small dungeons or more wilderness maps or world maps?


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## Erdrix (Oct 17, 2010)

I use CC3 with no problem.  I did this map using CC3 and all the art was found on the dundjinni forum, except the doors.  

I use both programs depending on what I want to do.  Encounter maps I use dundjinni and maps that need more space I use CC3.


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## Morrus (Oct 17, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> What kind of maps are you looking to make? Tile-type maps, one off rooms and small dungeons or more wilderness maps or world maps?




Indoor and outdoor 1-inch grid battlemaps for 4E.  Tile works best for me since it's so much easier, but the results have to look professional, too.


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## Thanee (Oct 17, 2010)

This one, I suppose.

ProFantasy Software - Campaign Cartographer 3 - map making for fantasy, modern and SF RPGs, and historical cartographers
ProFantasy Software - Dungeon Designer 3 - map making for fantasy, modern and SF RPGs, and historical cartographers

Bye
Thanee


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## IronWolf (Oct 17, 2010)

Morrus said:


> Indoor and outdoor 1-inch grid battlemaps for 4E.  Tile works best for me since it's so much easier, but the results have to look professional, too.




I would probably give Pymapper a shot.  It's free so you can see if it fits your needs.  I haven't actually used it but I keep seeing the name mentioned more and more.


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## Merkuri (Oct 17, 2010)

Morrus said:


> the results have to look professional, too.




Are you going to be using these maps as subscriber material on the site?  If so, make sure to check out the licensing agreement in whatever software you end up going with.  Not all of them are okay with the results of their software being used commercially.


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## heruca (Oct 18, 2010)

Morrus said:


> So - any suggestions for alternative products?




I have links to a lot of mapping programs here. Two that you might want to check out that seem to be good for tactical battlemaps are Dungeon Demon and Dungeonographer.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

Merkuri said:


> Are you going to be using these maps as subscriber material on the site? .




No.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> I would probably give Pymapper a shot. It's free so you can see if it fits your needs. I haven't actually used it but I keep seeing the name mentioned more and more.




I just get a bunch of error messages about LoadLibraries and dlls when I try to run that.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

heruca said:


> I have links to a lot of mapping programs here. Two that you might want to check out that seem to be good for tactical battlemaps are Dungeon Demon and Dungeonographer.




Thanks - I'll take a look!  Although the Dungeon Demon website doesn't exist.


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## IronWolf (Oct 18, 2010)

Morrus said:


> I just get a bunch of error messages about LoadLibraries and dlls when I try to run that.




Hhhmmm, I just installed and ran it with no issues on a Windows 7 machine.  Did you install the pymapper_core_setup.exe and then the pymapper5.1 installer for windows?


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## heruca (Oct 18, 2010)

Morrus said:


> Thanks - I'll take a look!  Although the Dungeon Demon website doesn't exist.




Weird, the site was up not that long ago. I will try to contact the developer to see what happened. In the meantime, here is some info and screenshots about Dungeon Demon.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> Hhhmmm, I just installed and ran it with no issues on a Windows 7 machine. Did you install the pymapper_core_setup.exe and then the pymapper5.1 installer for windows?




Ah, didn't know about the core setup bit.  It seems to be working now, but only has four tiles.  Where would I get tilesets for it?


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## heruca (Oct 18, 2010)

The soon-to-be-released Mallet Combat Mapmaker looks decent, but has some major limitations.

Link

Here is a thread about it over at rpg.net.


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## jcayer (Oct 18, 2010)

I used Dundjinni for several months before cutting out the maps and taping them together took too long.

I recently started using maptools.  Having the projector makes this reasonable.  It really is slick as I can build just a room or an entire dungeon in it.  There are also some great video tutorials for it.  And if you use monster tokens, etc, you can have a fog of war which is really slick at the table.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

heruca said:


> The soon-to-be-released Mallet Combat Mapmaker looks decent, but has some major limitations.
> 
> Link
> 
> Here is a thread about it over at rpg.net.




Ah, sorry - I wasn't clear.  I was primarily after software I can use without the added expense of a TARDIS.


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

heruca said:


> The soon-to-be-released Mallet Combat Mapmaker looks decent, but has some major limitations.
> 
> Link
> 
> Here is a thread about it over at rpg.net.




Ah, sorry - I wasn't clear.  I was primarily after software I can use without the added expense of a TARDIS.  My game is on Thursday night.


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## IronWolf (Oct 18, 2010)

Morrus said:


> Ah, didn't know about the core setup bit.  It seems to be working now, but only has four tiles.  Where would I get tilesets for it?




I think this Yahoo Group has tilesets.  I am not 100% certain though:

dungeon_tiles : D&D Dungeon Tile Maps (WotC)

But it was mentioned in the announcement here of the new Pymapper version:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/softwa...-utilities/291263-pymapper-v5-0-released.html


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## Morrus (Oct 18, 2010)

IronWolf said:


> I think this Yahoo Group has tilesets. I am not 100% certain though:
> 
> dungeon_tiles : D&D Dungeon Tile Maps (WotC)
> 
> ...




I'm "awaiting approval".  Hopefully I'll be allowed in!


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## jimmifett (Oct 18, 2010)

I used to use Dundjinni. I liked it overall.
I've been wanting somethng more powerful and keep kicking the can on writing something myself, but wow, that Mallet thing just blew my mind. Now all my programming gears are spinning, if only gaming, job, and family didn't occupy all my time


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## falcarrion (Oct 19, 2010)

The yahoo website does have the tiles.  There 2 different types of tile files one set for masterplanner and one set for pymapper.

Go into Files>PyMapper>Tilesets.  These are the ones for pymapper.


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## Redrobes (Oct 19, 2010)

I'll post a few sample vids of ViewingDale just so you can compare.

Dungeon
Big Dungeon
Extended Dungeon

And then this is the community world at the cartographers guild all put together into one map. The map images here were not necessarily made with ViewingDale tho. This is the collection of maps from everybody. This shows its ability to put them all together into one map - which is the main point of the app really.
World

This app is also compatible with the images from Dundjinni (PNG type with alpha channel masks). The app can also read in BMP and JPG and export to any of those three as well. It links maps together and also links to web pages, text files and so on as shown in the last vid.

Any questions you can PM me here or email me at the web site or go on Cartographers guild.

BTW: Aside from the mapping apps were still looking for more people to contribute to the guilds community world. All those maps are free to download and add to if anyone is interested - its all under CC license. Theres a wiki and lots of info there already including character drawings and more sketches etc.


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## RockwaterSoftware (Oct 21, 2010)

Hi, Folks.  I was wondering why the hit count on that intro video suddenly doubled in one day.  I should have expected a bit of cross-posting from RPG.net to ENworld.

Anyhow, thanks for looking in on it.  I am certainly keenly aware of how unenthusiastic folks are about purchasing new art assets given that most of us have a pile of art that has been accumulating for the last decade.  but, hopefully, once I've got a solid working program the value of having all the art guaranteed to work without fiddling right out of the box... maybe then it will start to seem a bit more compelling.

And Morrus, you don't have to worry.  You'll be bribed with a full set of everything once it's ready to fly.  

A quick development report for those that are interested:  Today I dropped a grand on the LeadTools Pro Imaging Library.  I may be a passable programmer, but doing ad hoc gaussian drop shadows in reasonable time frames requires math skills I haven't touched in a decade, and low level coding (SSE vector processing) that I'd rather not have to mess with.  The end result is that I now have working code that does hard and soft shadows with varying degrees of blackness/transparency.  I'm going to have to re-work a bit of my mapping layers to deal with the new features (and I'm going to have to look hard at incorporating the new library's lens flare, light processing, and other fun items) but it should only push me back by a week or two.

Heruca's right that it is quite narrow in its purpose in life.  I haven't run across any really good combat mapping programs that are quick and easy to use for near-photoreal output... and I've tried a lot of stuff.  Should Mallet go over as well as I'm hoping it should give me the opportunity to expand the scope and scale of the mapping tools I'd like to eventually offer.  I wouldn't mind trying to compete with Profantasy and Dundjinni, but I'm not foolish enough to shoot for that mark right out of the gate.

Plus, I've got some other ideas for, uhhh, CARP (computer assisted role playing) products.  (I just made that up... I'm sure it'll resonate with the fish-slapping-dance crowd.)  Some of them assume success with the smaller projects to fund the larger ones, and with time, energy, and a couple good d20 success checks I'm hoping I can get there.

Sorry if this has been a bit of a threadjack, but thanks for the interest!

-jason


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