What are the best mapping (city, castle, and overland) program out there that are easy to use and look halfway decent?
What are the best mapping (city, castle, and overland) program out there that are easy to use and look halfway decent?
I take it no one uses a mapping program?
<sigh>
Your "Free or Cheap" is eliminating the "easy to use and look halfway decent" part of your query.
What are the best mapping (city, castle, and overland) program out there that are easy to use and look halfway decent?
Autorealm is probably the best free mapping program available. There's a learning curve though, and it's not easy to just jump into and start using (easier than Campaign Cartographer however). It's the only free one that I'd recommend to anybody, and it has decent fan support, which is an advantage; a group on yahoo and some other websites. If you work with it enough you can do all three types of mapping that you want, but expect to put many, many hours in getting there, and don't expect professional looking results.
What are the best mapping (city, castle, and overland) program out there that are easy to use and look halfway decent?Autorealm is probably the best free mapping program available. There's a learning curve though, and it's not easy to just jump into and start using (easier than Campaign Cartographer however). It's the only free one that I'd recommend to anybody, and it has decent fan support, which is an advantage; a group on yahoo and some other websites. If you work with it enough you can do all three types of mapping that you want, but expect to put many, many hours in getting there, and don't expect professional looking results.
Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps. Sure your first few attempts probably won't look spectacular but you can learn and they look ever better each time you use it. With Autorealm your sort of stuck at not really all that great looking no matter how practiced you are.
Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps. Sure your first few attempts probably won't look spectacular but you can learn and they look ever better each time you use it. With Autorealm your sort of stuck at not really all that great looking no matter how practiced you are.
I was able to make some decent looking maps with Auto-Realm, took a damn long time to get the hang of it, but I did manage. I've no experience with Gimp however. I'm going to have to check it out.
I was able to make some decent looking maps with Auto-Realm, took a damn long time to get the hang of it, but I did manage. I've no experience with Gimp however. I'm going to have to check it out.
Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps. Sure your first few attempts probably won't look spectacular but you can learn and they look ever better each time you use it. With Autorealm your sort of stuck at not really all that great looking no matter how practiced you are.
My biggest problem is I'm left-handed but use the mouse righty. So to use a mapping program is a huge pain in the ass for me; I end up having to switch the mouse to left-handed just for that one program because for all my years using a mouse the one thing I cant do right-handed is very fine detail like drawing.
does anybody know of good mac-compatible mapping software? (doesn't have to be cheap or free)
I was able to make some decent looking maps with Auto-Realm, took a damn long time to get the hang of it, but I did manage. I've no experience with Gimp however. I'm going to have to check it out.
Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps. Sure your first few attempts probably won't look spectacular but you can learn and they look ever better each time you use it. With Autorealm your sort of stuck at not really all that great looking no matter how practiced you are.
Its basically Photoshop - but free.
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Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps.
Can you recommend a link, to see sample results, and what form is it (ie download from maker's website, or disc to order)?
BRING OUT THE GIMP!
(sorry; just wanted to say that for a long time...)
The Gimp - you can download it from here.
Ladies/Gents, are we talking about a program (Free or Paid) that will let us generate maps like unto Strahd's castle/Ravenloft quality? Or is that out of the question? My thanks for any replies on the question...
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does anybody know of good mac-compatible mapping software? (doesn't have to be cheap or free)
Dundjinni is MAC-compatible, it does fantastic dungeons, great battlemaps and some town stuff with user created artwork, but is somewhat lacking in the huge overland area (although there is some good graphics available from the user community to somewhat address the issue).
I use it and love it, easy to learn with alot of room for customization and detail work.Here is a link to the Gallery Page, you can check out some of the maps it can produce.
FH
Dundjinni is MAC-compatible, it does fantastic dungeons, great battlemaps and some town stuff with user created artwork, but is somewhat lacking in the huge overland area (although there is some good graphics available from the user community to somewhat address the issue).
I use it and love it, easy to learn with alot of room for customization and detail work.
Here is a link to the Gallery Page, you can check out some of the maps it can produce.FH
Thanks Fake Healer. I was looking for something to craft overland maps with, but I may very well check Dunjinni out; it looks pretty slick.
Personally I found Autorealm such a pain in the butt to use that I just went with Gimp. Gimp is probably about as difficult to learn and has the benefit of possibly making really great looking maps.Can you recommend a link, to see sample results, and what form is it (ie download from maker's website, or disc to order)?
BRING OUT THE GIMP!
(sorry; just wanted to say that for a long time...)
Try this link. It has some screenshots. But essentially its Photoshop and can do pretty much anything one can do with Photoshop - since Photoshop is almost universally the program Dungeon and Pathfinder cartographers use I take it for granted you can make spectacular maps using it.
As a side bonus there are versions of Gimp for Macs and Linux as well as windows.
Thanks Fake Healer. I was looking for something to craft overland maps with, but I may very well check Dunjinni out; it looks pretty slick.
Dundjinni is MAC-compatible, it does fantastic dungeons, great battlemaps and some town stuff with user created artwork, but is somewhat lacking in the huge overland area (although there is some good graphics available from the user community to somewhat address the issue).
I use it and love it, easy to learn with alot of room for customization and detail work.
Here is a link to the Gallery Page, you can check out some of the maps it can produce.FH
Yep, use Dundjinny on mac also - a bit buggy (save often ...) but useful.
You might also consider checking at Wal-mart in their cheap software racks. You can usually find a floorplan program for designing houses and landscapes, etc. Last one I saw was about ten bucks.
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Thanks Fake Healer. I was looking for something to craft overland maps with, but I may very well check Dunjinni out; it looks pretty slick.
Dundjinni is MAC-compatible, it does fantastic dungeons, great battlemaps and some town stuff with user created artwork, but is somewhat lacking in the huge overland area (although there is some good graphics available from the user community to somewhat address the issue).
I use it and love it, easy to learn with alot of room for customization and detail work.
Here is a link to the Gallery Page, you can check out some of the maps it can produce.FH
We also have a lot of people who contribute! There is so much fun free stuff on there...I have contributed as well! =)
Found this the other day. Probably for the more artistically inclined, but if you have (access to) Adobe Photoshop it's pretty nifty.
I've been tinkering around with it a bit myself, and I think it's very doable. He has about 16 vids, and many, many notes and tips.
Sadly he hasn't posted anything since the begining of October. I hope that he continues to post, as I've found the tutorial very insightful.