Some players and I on the Vintage Story Discord have been talking fairly in depth about how a "Crude Map for early game, where players can draw on it themselves." would work, and I wanted to share the ideas here for any modders who would be interested, because I think this could be the basis for a far more interesting and creative mapmaking system. The idea is basically about an early game map, which is drawn 100% by the player themselves. Used in tandem with a Sextant, these player illustrated maps would accumulate detail over time, players would be creating their own Lord Of The Rings style map illustrations, with unique artistic embelishments and distortions that you'd see in old historical maps. We're picturing the functionality like this:

1. Map is blank parchment with no player position or details. Charcoal is included in the item just to keep the use of it simple.
2. Player walks to a location and uses the Sextant by looking through it and aligning sun with horizon.
3. That Sextant position is marked on blank parchment map.
4. Player must look around and sketch surroundings as they see it. Level of detail is up to their discretion.
5. Can choose to draw or erase super easily by holding Shift.
6. Can also add fancy old map font text, but maybe requires Cartography table for that.
   
   

If the player does this whenever they encounter a new important area, the map will slowly develop into a much more sophisticated level of detail over time. At first I was skeptical about the practicality and enjoyability of a player illustrated map, but after seeing this map shared from Thalius' server, drawn entirely by their server's player community themselves, I’m convinced that this would be a lot more worth the effort put into it than a pixel accurate auto-generating map.

Lucio I have no idea how to do that

@DanaCraluminum

Have you tried hijacking the map display code to overlay the drawn texture on top of the current map as a layer and then save the drawing locally on the players computer to be loaded later on? maybe save the drawn pixels as vectors that get trasnformed into a text file once the player exits the game and then gets loaded back in as the player logs in again? maybe have the vectors drawn out from an "anchor point" that gets set as the player first starts using the mod, that anchor point being a reference for the vectors origin.

DanaCraluminum

Blast! Maybe the mod community might be able to brainstorm a solution. I'd really love to be able to use this.

Nephelangelo I haven't found a way to implement saving of existing drawings

Putting in my request for this mod to get finished. I would really, REALLY love the ability to draw on the map and have those markings get saved.

Can someone adopt this bandoned mod and make it able to save? This would be SO useful. It would be nice if words show on the minimap too :P

Thats so depressing, I hope you regain interest at some point in the future. Keep up the good work friend!

zackadiax24 I lost interest in this mod

I cant wait for this to be done, even just being able to draw lines between 2 translocators alone would make this mod worth downloading.

need this. so need this.

Wow awesome mod then, hopefully you can get it to the point it saves, would love this to mark spots on my world

NateDoesLife It is completely client side so no blocks

So how does this work, does it actually place blocks in the world to show up on the map or is it its own independent layer on the map and it only effects the map not the world?

Wandour Thanks

oh my god

my dream to scribble on my map like some pirate nutcase on "where me treasur at!"