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turelus
October 3rd, 2008, 17:06
I just wanted to ask if any one knew of any good programs for making world maps, or region maps. I have tried using Campaign Cartographer 2 but didn't get on with it very well I never really figured out how anything worked or how to make a good map.

Griogre
October 3rd, 2008, 18:14
If a simple hex mapper will work for you like this:

https://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m222/Griogre/ValonRegionPlayer.png

This was made with AKS, which while pretty dated works fine and is really simple (and free). There is a yahoo group for the software here: https://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Hexmapper_Haven/

Valarian
October 3rd, 2008, 22:12
Campaign Cartographer is based on CAD technology and can take some getting used to. It's worth the effort to do the tutorials and to persevere. The output you can get out from it is worth it. The Cartographer's Guild is a community of mappers and there are a fair number of us that use Campaign Cartographer. Why not drop by and see if we can inspire you to give CC2 another go.

Some examples of Campaign Cartographer stuff I've done, and I certainly can't claim any artistic talent:
https://forum.cartographersguild.com/album.php?albumid=18

Hamish
October 13th, 2008, 19:59
Check out these CC/DD tutorials. Might make you reconsider CC.....

https://rpgvirtualtabletop.com/articles/article5.html

mcgarnagle
October 18th, 2008, 17:08
Also, there is a program called Dundjinni. It is mostly used to make encounter maps but there is a growing number of regional/world maps being made with it as well. I've tried using CC as well and gave up on it once I found how easy it is to use Dundjinni.


Dundjinni Main Page (https://www.dundjinni.com/default.asp)

Be sure to check out the community forum as well because there are thousands of art peices to download that can then be used in your map making. For world mapping, check out the Isometric forum for art peices.

ISO forum (https://www.dundjinni.com/forums/forum_topics.asp?FID=15)

unerwünscht
October 18th, 2008, 19:05
So what do you need in a world map?
Will something like this help any? If so I can make you as many of these as you need (within reason)

wigwam
November 9th, 2008, 22:22
Slightly off-topic but someone recently sent me this link:
https://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

Thought y'all might find it useful...

PneumaPilot
November 10th, 2008, 17:39
In all (half) seriousness, crayons and colored pencils may be the quickest and easiest to control.

Oberoten
November 10th, 2008, 18:32
Slightly off-topic but someone recently sent me this link:
https://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

Thought y'all might find it useful...

Saved this one.
Sounds like a FUN way to create a gaming world.

Phystus
November 11th, 2008, 00:08
In all (half) seriousness, crayons and colored pencils may be the quickest and easiest to control.

Yeah, but.

I converted my campaign from paper & pencil to FG, and tried scanning my old colored-pencil maps. And frankly they looked like crap. I ended up redoing them (with my wife's help) in PaintShop Pro. It goes fairly quickly once you get used to it, but I'll grant that getting used to it takes awhile.

I did get Fractal Mapper (version 7 if anyone cares) but didn't like it. I haven't tried any of the other options out there. I tend to go for old-school hex and graph paper styled maps rather than the works of art that you see out of CC3 and DJ, so any paint program would do for me, I had Paint Shop Pro so that's what I used.

~P

Sorontar
November 11th, 2008, 01:18
There are some good guide's knocking about for using a scanned image of an old paper map as a guide layer in various art packages. I'll try and find it.

Phystus
November 11th, 2008, 01:33
Yep, that's what I ended up doing.

PneumaPilot
November 11th, 2008, 03:24
If you want good free vector and bitmap graphics suites, try Inkscape and GIMP.

Griogre
November 11th, 2008, 04:41
Another free alternative art program is Paint.NET - I really don't like GIMP's interface.

JMOxx75
November 16th, 2008, 04:40
If you have any skill with photoshop or similar program I would check this site out: Zombie Nirvana Games (https://www.zombienirvana.com/)

I also have fractal mapper 7. What I like to do is get the water and continents down and take a screen shot and edit it in photoshop to make it more realistic looking by blurring the water lines and stuff.

Oberoten
November 16th, 2008, 08:13
Slightly off-topic but someone recently sent me this link:
https://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf

Thought y'all might find it useful...

Tried this one out last night, and it was a blast. We now have a very detailed world with several races and a political structure with GAMING TIME as the cause instead of a lot of hard GM-work.

- Obe