Best Mapping Software?

[Spyke]

I tried Dundjinni today to see if it might help us out for some maps. Man, this thing is irritating. I think I'd rather draw everything by hand than use software like this. Of course, I don't know what I was expecting, but it seems like when I tried out Campaign Cartographer a few years ago that it was much more intuitive, and I could actually create things like villages with very little effort. Of course, I gave Dundjinni a grand total of 43 seconds worth of trial, so maybe I am quick to judge...

Villages are very easy in the new CC3 City Designer. You lay down a road, then drag your mouse along it and a variety of houses of your chosen design appear along it, even following curves. Drag or resize a few as desired, then turn the effects on. They get shadows from the sun and the map looks great.

Spyke

[PneumaPilot]

Cool, I'll have to try that one next. I remember CC2 being fun.

[Spyke]

I've just done the attached village in a timed 10 minutes using CD3. Obviously you'd want to spend some more time softening the water's edge, adding some more features like walls, text, a compass rose and scale, but it should give you an idea of what's possible if you want to whip something up quickly for a game.

Spyke

[PneumaPilot]

Yeah, that's cool. I wonder if modern type maps are as easy to do with CC3. I see that they have a modern/sci-fi pack of artwork available, but some of the features that make the fantasy part cool (randomly rotating village buildings, etc.) might not work so good in the inner city.

[Spyke]

You can use the random street settings with modern designs as well. I had a quick play, but I think you'd need to spend a bit of time getting the mix right and laying out the roads to the right sort of scale. (You can mix up to four types of building in the random street settings, with your desired frequency.)

But as you say, there is also the modern art pack, and if you subscribe to the Annual there are additional city templates for certain styles.

Spyke

[PneumaPilot]

Cool, that may be the one for me then. I'll have to see if there's a demo.

[Carlos]

I've recently begun using Google's Sketchup
https://sketchup.google.com/product/newin7.html

to draw:

1. 3D tactical maps where height is important.

2. Fun terrain maps.

3. "sketched" dungeon maps (rendering style applied)

Examples attached. I used the "sandbox" plugin to draw the map tiles in old-school style.

The 3D warehouse contains a large list of 3D fantasy structures.

[jrawkus2]

dundjinni really excels at making grid combat maps - there are modern packs available

I recommend a mix of dundjinni and CC3/2 - with a little photoshoping you can make some nice stuff

Heres a really quick generic map i knocked up:

[PneumaPilot]

Aaaahh! How do I get out!?

[Sorontar]

Aaaahh! How do I get out!?

How did you get in?