Does a definitive Map/tiles program exist?

Hi everybody,

I was wondering if a tool like the one I have clearly represented in my mind do exist, and if so , if some good soul here at EW could indicate me where I can download/buy such a program.

What I am lookin for?

• A very user friendly tool which, with no need of extensive informatic skills, allows me to scale the encounter maps you may find in dungeon magazine adventures (or in published ones, too) to real miniatures dimension so you can print them and quickly have an adequate battleground for all of the encounters you care to run. It would help if sucha program could also work on pdf files such as the dungeon mags;
• A tool which possibly also allow you to scale maps not meant for miniatures battle (like for instance maps from older adventures) so you can use them for miniatures fights;
• As a plus: the possibility to apply grids to maps not having grids;
• As a plus: the possibility to modify the maps with small effects (perhpas obscuring some areas, adding simple things like trapdoors or pillars or similar).

Such a tool would be invaluable to those like me who like to plunder published adventures reworking them so they fit in the home campaign, and it would be useful not only for those of us who print maps but also for those recurring to the splendid projector solution.


Speaking of which: does anybody know where I can find a working download for Tabletop Mapper (which is free and I think does some of these points here above)?
The link Tabletop Mapper you can google does not work.

Finally, would the NWN editor work also if you print your maps and don't project them?

Thanks for your help guys!

Fabio

PS
I posted this in a wrong section of the forum before , General RPG rules discussion, apologises to those who read the double post.

I recommend Dundjinni. Dundjinni Mapping Software - Bring Your Game To Life is their website, I think.

Despite the fact that it's tile-based, you can get some great looking maps and it's pretty easy to add additional artwork (and you can find a metric buttload on their User Creation forums).

It can also print out the maps at the appropriate size to just plunk down minis and play.

Another vote for Dundjinni... I just picked it up and I love it.

Thank you for the good avice!

I see in the application site that there's also a nice demo, I'll try this tool out and see if it is up to the challenge (and up to my informatic dumbness too).

Well, any decent image editor like GIMP or Photoshop will let you do this, and most vector graphics programs like Illustrator or Inkscape will as well. The GIMP and Inkscape are both free, open source apps available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

First determine how large (in inches) the map should be. For example a map that's 20 squares by 30 squares will need to be 20" x 30" when printed. So create a 22" x 32" image file, and paste the scanned or extracted map in. Then resize it to be 20" x 30". If the map has borders, you may need to fiddle a bit on the final size or crop them off before resizing. Then, if needed, add an overlay for a grid. Lastly print it out, in this case, on a large format printer at Staples/Kinkos/wherever or load it in a program called PosteRazor that allows you to take a large image file and cut it up into smaller images and saves them to a PDF you can print out on a normal printer.

I personally use GIMP for this (although I make my counters and tokens in Inkscape), and if you want I can give you much more detailed directions.

If you're looking to make new maps, general purpose graphics applications or CAD applications do that well and it's not all that hard, but they do have a steeper learning curve then Dundjinni and most of it's competitors. Note that tools like Campaign Cartographer and it's add-ins or AutoRealm are (last time I used them) sort of a middle ground since they're, at their core, highly specialized CAD/vector graphics programs.

Krensky said:

I personally use GIMP for this (although I make my counters and tokens in Inkscape), and if you want I can give you much more detailed directions.

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Even if I'm not the OP, I would be very interested.

Nikosandros said:

Even if I'm not the OP, I would be very interested.

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Serves me right for volunteering... My father warned me about that.

Give me a day or two and I'll put something together.

Despite the recommendations for Dundjinni I would warn you against it unless you have a VERY powerful PC. Two of my PCs were significantly above the required specs but both basically stopped working as soon as I opened Dundjinni.

Krensky said:

Note that tools like Campaign Cartographer and it's add-ins or AutoRealm are (last time I used them) sort of a middle ground since they're, at their core, highly specialized CAD/vector graphics programs.

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I actually think Adobe Illustrator is easier to use than Campaign Cartographer and I have had ever version of CC. CC3 is not only a CAD program but it still uses the same basic interface as the DOS 1.0. They say their interface is intuitive, but what they really mean is "backwards" from graphics programs. So these days I take the symbol library from CC and port it into Illustrator and make my maps that way. They look waaaay better too than if I just did them in CC3 alone, or at least I think so.

Here is the world map for my homebrew for an example, it has lots of gradients.

Jeremy757 said:

I actually think Adobe Illustrator is easier to use than Campaign Cartographer and I have had ever version of CC. CC3 is not only a CAD program but it still uses the same basic interface as the DOS 1.0. They say their interface is intuitive, but what they really mean is "backwards" from graphics programs. So these days I take the symbol library from CC and port it into Illustrator and make my maps that way. They look waaaay better too than if I just did them in CC3 alone, or at least I think so.

Here is the world map for my homebrew for an example, it has lots of gradients.

Click to expand...

Well, a CAD program is really just a highly specialized vector graphics program. That said, CC2 and probably 3 are build on a CAD engine. This has some advantages, namely that the application understands scaled drawings and that 1" on paper is 5' in reality and lets you auto-scale and measure lines and such.

Like I said, I tend to use GIMP when I need to make or edit a map. I have a pile of CC2 discs around, but it never worked as smoothly or intuitively as I would have liked.

Nikosandros: I should have the directions up some time this weekend.