I'm working on an adventure and was thinking I'd whip up a map I could include in the PDF of the adventure. I'd goofed around a bit with AutoREALM but hadn't yet tried to make a map with it. In short, I couldn't get what I was looking for. Moreover, it was considerably slow compared to just grabbing a pencil and some graph paper. I've used Campaign Cartographer 2 in the past with similar results, slow and not what I was hoping for. Now, I've seen some good maps made with both programs but were they long in the making? Am I just not giving either enough trial-time or is it just the lengthy process that I'm seeing it to be? I also spent a little time with the demo of Dunjinni and was also less than impressed despite the glorious ads in Dragon. Also, would I be better served using a drawing pad versus the mouse?
- Chris Shadowens
Yeah, I found CC2 to be pretty spiffy in all the adds, demo's etc, but a tad complicated when it came to actually doing it myself. And very time consuming as you noted yourself.
My advice is the good old fashioned Pen and Paper. If you need to snazz it up a bit you can always scan and alter it via Photoshop etc.
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I'm working on an adventure and was thinking I'd whip up a map I could include in the PDF of the adventure. I'd goofed around a bit with AutoREALM but hadn't yet tried to make a map with it. In short, I couldn't get what I was looking for. Moreover, it was considerably slow compared to just grabbing a pencil and some graph paper. I've used Campaign Cartographer 2 in the past with similar results, slow and not what I was hoping for. Now, I've seen some good maps made with both programs but were they long in the making? Am I just not giving either enough trial-time or is it just the lengthy process that I'm seeing it to be? I also spent a little time with the demo of Dunjinni and was also less than impressed despite the glorious ads in Dragon. Also, would I be better served using a drawing pad versus the mouse?
- Chris Shadowens
Depends what you want to do as NWN does not do large scale maps well - but for battle maps or town/fortress maps - the NWN1 toolset is extremely fast and very flexible. Plus - it allows for arbitrary camera angle shots. 80-85 dgrees as opposed to direct overhead gives your map a neat pro feel to it.
A bonus: it may well be something you already own.
Build your map in the toolset (it's damned fast) - hit prinscreen - edit as necessary if you need to cut and paste some buildings so thay aren't all on a grid.
Works extremely well and very fast. Hordes of tilesets on nwvault.com free for the downloading.
.Robert (Steel_Wind)
I've used Campaign Cartographer 2 in the past with similar results, slow and not what I was hoping for.
Hi Chris.
I've used Fractal Mapper (http://www.nbos.com) in the past, and while it has its quirks, it is quite usable for outdoor maps. It doesn't do indoor maps effectively, and it has a smaller symbol library than CC, but in my opinion, it is much more user-friendly.
Now, I've seen some good maps made with both programs but were they long in the making? Am I just not giving either enough trial-time or is it just the lengthy process that I'm seeing it to be?
Making good maps takes time. Making a usable sketch takes me about 1 hour. Making a good-looking map takes about 8 hours.
I also spent a little time with the demo of Dunjinni and was also less than impressed despite the glorious ads in Dragon.
I agree.
Also, would I be better served using a drawing pad versus the mouse?
I use a mouse, but a drawing pad would probably work better.
Greetings,
Peter
I'm working on an adventure and was thinking I'd whip up a map I could include in the PDF of the adventure. I'd goofed around a bit with AutoREALM but hadn't yet tried to make a map with it. In short, I couldn't get what I was looking for. Moreover, it was considerably slow compared to just grabbing a pencil and some graph paper. I've used Campaign Cartographer 2 in the past with similar results, slow and not what I was hoping for. Now, I've seen some good maps made with both programs but were they long in the making? Am I just not giving either enough trial-time or is it just the lengthy process that I'm seeing it to be? I also spent a little time with the demo of Dunjinni and was also less than impressed despite the glorious ads in Dragon. Also, would I be better served using a drawing pad versus the mouse?
- Chris Shadowens
Depends what you want to do as NWN does not do large scale maps well - but for battle maps or town/fortress maps - the NWN1 toolset is extremely fast and very flexible. Plus - it allows for arbitrary camera angle shots. 80-85 dgrees as opposed to direct overhead gives your map a neat pro feel to it.
A bonus: it may well be something you already own.
Build your map in the toolset (it's damned fast) - hit prinscreen - edit as necessary if you need to cut and paste some buildings so thay aren't all on a grid.
Works extremely well and very fast. Hordes of tilesets on nwvault.com free for the downloading.
.Robert (Steel_Wind)
This is an interesting idea, and not without merit. I used to use screenshots of NWN 1 to illustrate locales, or even fire up the DM client and give a 3D tour of the area in game. It was an excellent way to get everybody's visual senses and imagination engaged.
I am interested in hearing more discussion of the relative merits of the various mapping tools out there, as I have long considered shelling out some dough for one of them, but having no experience with any of them, I am unsure of what I would be getting and which one is the best bang for the buck.
I am especially curious as to what Dungeon contributors and other professionals use. If it's not a trade secret, I would love to hear some recommendations from the pros.
I am especially curious as to what Dungeon contributors and other professionals use. If it's not a trade secret, I would love to hear some recommendations from the pros.
From posts I've read in the past the Dungeon maps are hand-done then digitally touched up. Ultimately this was my "Plan B" to avoid doing the same task twice. I tried that once with a character pic that I wanted to colorize and was horribly frustrated with my lack of skill.
That said, I like the idea of using the NWN Tools to build a usable map. The look would definitely be different from "standard" maps.
- Chris Shadowens
I hadn't even thought of it as something generally useful before this thread, because I had used it mainly in the adaptation of my NWN campaign to PnP a few years back. I think it could be really useful in general, especially to someone skilled in graphic arts on the PC, which I certainly am not.
From posts I've read in the past the Dungeon maps are hand-done then digitally touched up. Ultimately this was my "Plan B" to avoid doing the same task twice. I tried that once with a character pic that I wanted to colorize and was horribly frustrated with my lack of skill.That said, I like the idea of using the NWN Tools to build a usable map. The look would definitely be different from "standard" maps.
- Chris Shadowens
Hmm...I never got the impression that they were done by hand and touched up. The impression I got was that a map that had been included with a submission might well be scanned and touched up. However I suspect touched up means redone with the original scan serving as a base. Everything about the maps we see in Dungeion strikes me as being generated by acomputer. Its all very clean and you don't normally get that kind of sharp cartigraphy unless your using a computer.
Any way this question has been asked and answered before both by Mr. Jacobs and by Mr. West. James indicated that he believed that most of the map makers used Photoshop while Mr. West went into a slightly more detailed account of how he did it. I can't remember all the details but he first used a program to get the grid and then used Photoshop.
Personally I use Gimp for most of my map making as its free and pretty much the same as Photoshop. It's not, however, simple and intuitive. I don't think you can get really pretty maps thrown together quickly unless you have a ton of experience with an art program and a lot of talent.