Dungeon View Maker
A downloadable tool for Windows
Dungeon View Maker creates all the static images used in oldschool dungeon crawler games like Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder.
If you have ever wanted to make one of these games Dungeon View Maker will cut out a lot of the work involved in the graphics department.
The tool exports a set of images like this.
which you then layer over each other to create the view of the dungeon.
Disclaimer(Dungeon View Maker does not create Dungeon Crawler games. It only creates the images needed to make a dungeon crawler. You will need to use the language/tool of your choosing to create your game)
Sure now a days its easier to do dungeon crawlers in full 3D but that loses some of the magic and feel of the older games.
All you need to do is load in your textures and choose your export method, its as simple as that.
Exported images are naturally made to fit a view window of 640x480 or 320x240 but this can be changed to anything less than 640x480
But as always I would be happy to make any reasonable alterations to improve the functionality.
This short video shows how to use Dungeon View Maker.
Any questions, bugs or comments? Come and join Grindalfgames on Discord https://discord.gg/xWcreuP
Purchase
In order to download this tool you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of £1.50 GBP. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Colors and bugsFeb 02, 2021
- Extra Camera optionsJan 28, 2021
- Extra tile rangeJan 16, 2021
- Camera OptionsJan 14, 2021
- SkyboxesJan 06, 2021
- Another small updateJan 03, 2021
- Small UpdateDec 23, 2020
Comments
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Any chance you can raise the resolution to this?
Dungeon crawlers are perfect for the current state of AI art but this tool's resolution limit is too low to properly take advantage of it.
Going up to at least 1280x960 (double current max) would be nice.
I made this a long time ago and my memory is a bit foggy about the whole subject but I do seem to remember having an issue with trying to scale the outputs bigger. I will have a look into it and see what I can do
Cool. If you ever get around to updating it, the word "ceiling" is also misspelled as "cieling" in a bunch of places (help text and selection button).
I would say I really need to learn how to spell but after 44 years I don't think its going to happen :P
can u add card payment for this?
Afraid not. But pop into my discord and pm me. I have a proposition
I think an updated system, and me moving the program stuff and its now only showing Memory Access Violation when I boot the program
Anyone got a solution?
So it worked before, correct?
Have you tried redownloading?
What OS are you using?(was it the same system as before when it worked?)
Nevermind, I redownloaded it and transferred my textures. Thank you!
By the way, do you know how to texture the 3d meshes already made, or would I do that manualy?
That would need to be done manually. The premade meshes was just an example that meshes can be added. It will import *.x and hopefully *.3ds
It occurred to me that I downloaded and used this tool and never even left a comment lol. Indeed, most of the traffic to the jam game I made with it actually comes from the link on this page, too!
At any rate, it will definitely help you make a dungeon crawler the old-fashioned way (and very satisfying if I do say so!). A whole dungeon in only a handful of sprites! Dungeon Calling!!
I seem to be getting an FPS of about 5 using the application. Im running it as administrator in Windows 11.
Oh this is worrying. I think this may be the first time its been used in win 11.
can I send you some exes and you can tell me if they run?
Sure thing
This is a FANTASTIC tool. If you want to export the images you'd need to build a quick Tales Of The Unknown tribute, it'd take a whole ten minutes to figure out. That's an impressive feat for a homebrewed UI. There are a lot of options out there if you're a Unity or Godot user, but those of us battering together our own engines in Lua (or whatever) are greatly advantaged by this utility.
If you want to go deep - add variable FOV for different lighting levels, have the floor and ceiling textures shift a little each step the party takes, add non-wall barrier types, mix in some "the party is in a faerie village / giant's house" wall scaling, add some drunken wall shifting - it's in there for you. Again, quick to learn, just a little more clicking through intuitive menus.
Update request : Can we get a 'save settings' option, or have the export include an option for the text file listing out what all the settings were to aid in later creating a variation of an export? ("I want to add a new wall texture to this level - what tricolor options did I have the fog set at for export #4325?")
Thanks for the kind words. I will have a look into the save settings option(And dig out the old code) as that is a great idea.
I am thinking that it will auto save all options on export but have a "reset options" button, what do you think?
It needs to try and stay simple but also intuitive.
Thanks for the great tool!
I think, as a user, if you implemented that auto-save I would probably make multiple instances of the program, one for each environment component. That would get me where I'd like to be. I know putting arbitrary save/load conditions in is a nightmare, so if the autosave/load is low hanging fruit... well, that's probably the 80% solution. And a relatively easy 80% is miles better than an impossible 99%.
I will look at the possibilities of having a saved options system where you can load whatever settings you want
If it does not look promising I will just go with the auto system. Anyway glad the tool has proved useful :D
Check out Ghost Hunter Dracula by SpringStreetOnline a jam game made using Dungeon View Maker
Ghost Hunter: Dracula by SpringStreetOnline (itch.io)
Fkn sick 10/10
hi just got it thanks it works! Is there a way to control the "maze" export map?
Do you mean the test maze? If so that is just for testing your Fake 3D tileset and is not intended to be used... But I included the source code for it in the folder DungeonViewSource its written in BlitzMaxNG which is a very easy to use language(and is free) and should translate across to any other language easy enough. In that there is a function at line 287 that generates the maze which you can modify to your hearts content. The main variable that holds the maze data is grid[X,Y] with that you could literally create your own maze digit by digit.
And you are quite free to use the DungeonViewSource as you see fit(even expanding it into a full game)
great!!
Do you know how to set walls and what coordinates the player starts at?
I assume you mean in the Source code? edit the code found in DungeonViewSource/DungeonView.bmx(The code is written in BlitzMax but will still open in notepad if you just want to view it or translate it to another language) You could always join the discord if you have any more questions https://discord.gg/xWcreuP
Good to know, I'll join!
Big updates to the old Flip3D Generator. Seeing this made me download my old Globa (SilverMoon) demo and play it again.
This looks pretty awesome and useful! Haven’t checked it out yet but will do so soon and see if it might come in handy for my game!
So, I managed to import a simple model successfully:
A quick and dirty tutorial :
- download an older version of Blender (2.79).
- enable the DirectX export add-on
- create your model, unwrap, adjust your mesh
- remove the default material
- export, and it is done
Nice to see that 3D models are working for other people. As far as I can tell you and I are the only people that have tried it :P
I use deled myself and that exports to DirectX natively. It should also import 3DS as well but I never tested that theory. Sounds like a plan for sunday(I have work tomorrow)
Thanks for posting your results :D
Great tool !
I did a quick test, here's the result :
If possible, I would have two requests : allow a higher resolution than 640x480 and allow a higher view distance than three cases away.
Damn that is really nice, I mean really really nice have you got a twitter page for that because I will need to keep up with progress and get a hold of a copy when you are finished.
Are those imported 3D models you are using?
On the note of your two requests. When I wrote the resolution change update it was supposed to work with higher resolutions but there was a bug stopping it from doing so, so as a temp fix I just trapped it at 640x480 as a temporary solution(most people seem to want smaller anyway) but I will try and get that fixed asap.(what resolution do you need?)
I was also thinking of allowing for farther away viewing distance, but was unsure of how far to allow, if i should add in extra skittles ect.
what are your views on this? 1 extra tile distance should not be a problem in the slightest and I could probably have that up in a few hours. I would probably skip skittles for any extra tiles though. How many more tiles distance do you need?
Glad to see the tool has proved useful though, I would be grateful for a rating(seems so hard to get them here on itch ;) )
ok resolution size fixed but 800x600 is the new maximum(because thats the window size)
going to see about adding an extra row to the export now(i will probably steal the half size 320x240 tick box in the export options as that is no longer needed with yesterdays resolution update)
Thank you !
I do not have a twitter yet, soon hopefully, and I will keep you in touch.
I didn't import meshes, just used a simple cube with transparency. I will try the import function next time.
About the view distance, 1-2 more tiles would be perfect.
I have just uploaded a new file with 1 extra tile range and 800x600 max resolution, Its not been tested much yet so I'm hoping its bug free. I will see about adding a second extra row tomorrow.
Great, many thanks !
That's super nice!
I've been working on my own dungeon crawler engine for a while, and have been stuck using actual EOB wallsets as a stand in. A product like this was just what I was looking for. Thank you for taking the time to make something like this!
I've noticed a few things:
1. Transparency does not appear to be supported. I imported one of the standard walls from EOB into the app, and noticed that the transparent pixels were converted to white pixels:
2. Altering the shape size causes issues with the testing app. It appears to assume a standard size for a shape, and thus looks incorrect:
And a request:
Would it be possible to test the wallset without needing to export?
I can't wait to see how this progresses!
Yeah its a shame but transparency(on the alpha channel) will never be supported as it is not supported by the language I am using. I can only do exporting with transparency by saving as .bmp then calling a different app in the same folder called H1.exe that is written in a different language that then opens and resaves the images as png, its just hidden so you never know its happening(anti virus programs play havoc with it though)
If you want to import textures with transparency, color the pixels you want transparent Pure black(0,0,0) that is the native transparent color(I will add that to the help files as that was an oversight on my part)
Your size issue looks like you have increased the tile along the X parameter this will mean it clips into the camera and you can only see a little poking out.
I should add the skittles(the little circles for checking positions) to the sides of the camera so people can check that position and see if its clipping.
I cant think of a way to stop it from clipping if the x is increased(I will play around with it and see what I can come up with)
I will add the ability to test without exporting, thats a great idea(it will still export but you will never know ;) )
Scratch that clipping has been fixed and it was incredibly easy :P , the extra 3 skittles have been added, looks a little weird but as you can see here you can increase the width up to 1.9 before you get clipping. I will add the ability to test without exporting and have a new version up ASAP
A new file has been uploaded with a test function added beside help(crashed on me first time :/ but worked fine every time after that), clipping has been fixed, extra skittles have been added to test the Left, Right and Under Tiles. Hope those changes work for you, let me know if you need anything else :)
Lovely, thank you for the update!
While messing with the fog colour sliders, I noticed another minor bug:
If you adjust the fog colour sliders, the test application renders a bit oddly:
Could I trouble you for one more update: I wonder if you could add an additional decimal place for Shape Size, and Shape Position (for example, 0.75 as a possible value)?
Ok thats weird. what were your sliders on for that?(I really should add the values beside them for making this sort of thing easier)
Yeah I can certainly add 0.5 increases, the only reason I didn't do that originally was I thought people would get annoyed with clicking the mouse button so much :P
I can have the .5 increases update done in seconds but before uploading a new file I will go on a bug hunt for this rendering problem.
If I can't track it down in the next couple of hours I will upload without. and then find it later. Can you replicate the bug? does it do it often?
Hey there!
I just have bought it, and I totally agree with the description:
"Sure now a days its easier to do dungeon crawlers in full 3D but that loses some of the magic and feel of the older games."
Nice tool! I will surely make some use of it ^^
When I do, I let you know :)
Glad to hear it :D
If you can think of any additions or changes that would be useful let me know ;)
Ok!
I will give it some tests before the end of the year, maybe, and let you know what I think ^^