Forgotten Adventures and DPS2

[Stryxin]

I had high hopes for DPS2 because when first announced I thought that emulating 3d environment is a good idea for lighting purposes. I did some testing today and I'm sorry to say that DPS2 is certainly not what I was hoping for, DPS2 is a step in a different direction than what I was thinking.

Forgotten Adventures assets wont work with this version very well (or any other custom assets from the workshop for that matter) unless something drastically changes.

Some major issues I encountered right away:

* The global lighting is very off and orange tints every texture and object, destroying it's original colours... with no way of adjusting it.

* Overall Rendering quality is frankly... horrendous, objects have white artefacts since there is some kind of re-scaling going on, and when I tried to place couple of objects down just to test the export quality in case it's just in the app and exports are clean, nope...

* Walls can now only be boring perfect lines with a texture, only way to use our walls for example is by placing them as objects, which also doesn't really work because again some kind of scaling is applied so snapping and seamlessnes of our tiles is broken.

All this was in the first 5 minutes of my testing and then I just lost interest in testing further tbh....

Example of all the issues in one simple image:

DPS export on top at 200dpi ( that's the same as our assets are drawn at ) vs "Default" , the same assets thrown together in other software.

https://i.imgur.com/hbcNGQ9.jpg

The quality is terrible even tho it's supposedly the same resolution, it's blurry and has almost a film grain effect on top of everything, objects have white outlines, the orange global illumination tints everything and the wall tiles cant even be aligned properly (the actual png files are completely seamless)

:/ It's a bit disappointing ... because of these issues I don't think we will be supporting DPS2 because it presents our assets in unflattering way.

[ItsMySecret]

While I am hoping that these issues are addressed for the better of everyone, I can't blame you. Seeing this, I have no real interest in trying to work with DPS2. DPS1 is a good basic program, but I wish they had worked on bettering it for the benefit of people that have stayed loyal for so long. If they don't change these things for the better...

All this tells me is Dungeon Draft, here I come. Ty Stryx.

[Fuzzy]

I agree, I feel DPS is trying too hard to be like these other programs that "do it all for you". What made DPS great was you had control of everything. Every wall. Every floor. Every object. You could manipulate them all with a super simple interface that worked on a basic layers model like in GIMP.

Making it all "pseudo automated" and having all these assigned effects by default has moved away from what DPS offered, it can no longer do what it once could. That's my big problem. I really hope that DPS2 can be updated to permit everything that DPS1 did, as easy as DPS1 did it, in the exact same manner with the exact same tools and assets able to be used.

[Sesser]

I haven't had a chance to play much with DPS2 yet, but if things are as Stryxin is saying, that's a big problem. A huge part of the draw to DPS is the workshop integrated art assets. These issues should probably be put to the top of the list.

[sheep from hell]

* The global lighting is very off and orange tints every texture and object, destroying it's original colours... with no way of adjusting it.

as a workaround, sunlight preset and in "global lighting" sun beam angle to zero will give you the original colours. But yeah thats pretty messed up

[Wall]

Originally posted by Stryxin:

:/ It's a bit disappointing ... because of these issues I don't think we will be supporting DPS2 because it presents our assets in unflattering way.

Try to be a little bit more patient. I am sure that these are bugs that will be ironed out. As far as I can see, it is looking pretty promising, all issues considered.

I need to also express my gratitude for the amazing assets from forgotten adventures: it prompted me to support you guys on patreon. You do good work! =D

[pyro]

Originally posted by Stryxin:

The quality is terrible even tho it's supposedly the same resolution, it's blurry and has almost a film grain effect on top of everything, objects have white outlines, the orange global illumination tints everything...

I did not set myself the task of showing assets as they are.
I want to show them in an environment, and the environment MUST affect them.
This leads to some distortion, the main contribution here is made by the generated on the fly normal map, light, and postprocessing.
I'll make a neutral environment, and I think we will see results close to the original image.
And you are comparing the high-quality source with the compressed jpeg.

[Stryxin]

Originally posted by sheep from hell:

as a workaround, sunlight preset and in "global lighting" sun beam angle to zero will give you the original colours. But yeah that's pretty messed up

That's not really a solution, colours are no way near what they are originally and it makes everything much darker as well.

Originally posted by Wall:

Try to be a little bit more patient. I am sure that these are bugs that will be ironed out. As far as I can see, it is looking pretty promising, all issues considered.

I need to also express my gratitude for the amazing assets from forgotten adventures: it prompted me to support you guys on patreon. You do good work! =D

From what I've seen based on Pyros replies about issues, all of this is intended behaviour and not "bugs" so I'm judging it as such. Like I said in the begging of the post, I think the idea of emulating 3d enviroment for shadows is a good one and that's why I was very interested where this was going and it had great potential, but I cant get behind some of the decisions that were made.

Thank you for supporting us ^_^

Originally posted by pyro:

I did not set myself the task of showing assets as they are.
I want to show them in an environment, and the environment MUST affect them.
This leads to some distortion, the main contribution here is made by the generated on the fly normal map, light, and postprocessing.
I'll make a neutral environment, and I think we will see results close to the original image.
And you are comparing the high-quality source with the compressed jpeg.

First point, good, I understand that, and having environment/lighting affecting the assets is not the issue at all, the issue is that there is no control over said effect and you are just forcing a hue, brightness and contrast change across everything without an ability to adjust it. Default should be as neutral as possible with an option to add filters if people want to. If you go outside, not everything is tinted orange because of sunlight... unless you live in Hollywood movie India/Mexico -_- Default Global illumination should definitely not affect overall colours unless it's specifically a sunset, night etc.

At the moment this just means there is absolutely no consistency at all in the software, asset selection screen shows one thing (original colors) , when you place it down it looks completely different, and not to mention when you export colours change again.

To your other point that I'm comparing high quality source with compressed jpeg... that's simply not what the issue is... here is a detailed comparison:

https://forgotten-adventures.net/wp-content/uploads/wp_dndcf7_uploads/2020/12/dps%20comparison%20details.jpg

I uploaded it to my website so there is no imgur compression just in case that would be the next point....

overall Image is 10x10 at 200dpi separated in 4 sections, top left is screenshot of what you see in DPS editor, top right is what DPS export looks like... they don't even match, so what you build and what you export will look differently, again, no consistency...

other issues: there are still white render artefacts around (some) objects.

Objects themselves but mainly the shadows are very blurry and grainy - loss of details.

The overall lighting "blending mode" also affects pure blacks (line-work) so all objects that use line-work look washed out and lose detail as a result.

I'm sorry but your compression vs high quality source point doesn't hold much water because bottom right is JPEG 70 quality compressed export that is smaller in file size than DPS export with much higher overall quality....

[Lemmiwinkz]

aww man, shame to hear, your workshop files were the thing that made DPS1 so worth it.

[Earthydove]

I must agree with Lemmiwinkz. The Workshop assets of Forgotten Adventures is really what helped make DPS1 worth while. Which, sucks because now I feel as though I am going to have to try to move onto a new map making software because I almost strictly use their content because of how detailed it is and how beautiful the work is.

I hope that there is something that can later help make this work out. I love the IDEAS of DPS2. However, if we lose quality from DPS1, there is no point. Also! If you want to make a DPS2 - legit make a new one and don't have us just update to new everything. For people that use roll20, DPS1 is all you really need. The lighting stuff is cool, but, much like Stryxin said - that as a default light setting is BS. And, if we want to do crazy light settings, give us the chance to turn it on and off and have a neutral light setting. That is WAY too extreme for A LOT of settings. How am I meant to make a snow filled environment when the default is so warm in lighting?

I hope that, in the long run, we can still use DPS1, and that Stryxin and the lovely folks with FA continue to add stuff for us to use there. But, other then that, I may need to follow them to wherever I can get them, as my maps have come to heavily rely on their beautiful work.

[SkuzzillButt]

Originally posted by Earthydove:

I hope that, in the long run, we can still use DPS1, and that Stryxin and the lovely folks with FA continue to add stuff for us to use there. But, other then that, I may need to follow them to wherever I can get them, as my maps have come to heavily rely on their beautiful work.

I switched over to Dungeondraft, which I had bought previously before buying and only using DPS1 instead, After the DPS2 release I went back to give Dungeondraft a second try as DPS no longer was supported what I needed the program for. FA actually has full asset conversions for Dungeondraft that are easy to import, Dungeondraft also has a lighting system that works in the manner I was hoping DPS would eventually use. Overall I am much happier with Dungeondraft than the current state of DPS. Although it does suck that all the other assets I have other than FA are going to require some adjustment to import into Dungeondraft.

[Earthydove]

Is there a way to get all the new assets and put them in DPS1? I frankly, don't have the money atm for Dungeondraft, but, as the DM, I need to keep making maps and the latest assets that have been added (I follow their Patreon, but I can't afford to pay for it), would be REALLY helpful in my maps. And, while FS is about 70-90% of my maps, there are a lot of other assets that I use to make maps that I got HERE and don't have a way to put them in Dungeondraft, even if I COULD spare the cash right now. =/

Like, If there is a way to get the assets and put them into DPS1, that would be so helpful! I can do it myself if FA doesn't want to do so, but, I a kinda struggling here and would like to know if there are solutions for me, or do I honestly need to save up money for this stuff?

[Stryxin]

Importing FA stuff into DPS1 yourself is pretty easy actually, go to:

...\Steam\steamapps\common\Dungeon Painter Studio\data\collections

Look you should have other packs there already if you got them from the workshop - For example "FA - Dungeon Decor" folder

You can either add new assets into existing folders, or make new Folders yourself, just make sure they follow the same file structure inside the folder so Textures go into "floors" and assets go into "objects" etc. (it has to be small "o" and small "f", first letter cant be capitalized ) , you have to restart DPS to see the changes.

[Earthydove]

I have all your other stuff, it's more so the other assets such as your dungeon decor 3-5 that I need to build up.

Are there particular settings that I need to convert them to, so that they work with the program? I've also never imported a floor texture. I'm sorta hoping that there isn't anything big I need to do to prevent it from just making it a repeating stamp texture like I've seen in a few mod packs. If I can easily make it as beautiful a 'self implemented pack' can be, then I would be VERY grateful.

I guess it's now just a matter of tracking down how to get the assets for those collections and future ones ^^'

[SafeString]

Damn this mod/pack was the reason I bought this software

[Jenvas]

No more FA packs is a huge loss for the future of DPS. Sadly it seems like Pyro doesn't heed the communities wishes much. It's really a shame.