Cartography: How do they do it?

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Lordnightshade

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #1

So I’m working on creating a palace in the Abyss, and I have a good deal of the rooms detailed, but I decided I needed to make a good map for the place.

Now I wanted my map to look really good, so I started looking at the Wizards Map-o-week maps and though I didn’t find one that would fit what I needed I liked the quality of those maps.

So I’m wondering if anyone can give me some pointers on how those maps were made. Was it with a cad program of some sort? Did they draw the maps by hand first and then digitize them?

It would be nice if there was some kind of tutorial out there for this sort of thing.

 

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boxstop7

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #2

I'm no expert, but I'd venture to say the maps were mostly made using a program like Campaign Cartographer or whatever the modern variant would be. These programs are essentially CAD programs, though I doubt they possess the full extent of a program like AutoCAD. Check the WotC page...I'm sure they've got something on it.

~Box

 

Dragongirl

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #3

boxstop7 said:

I'm no expert, but I'd venture to say the maps were mostly made using a program like Campaign Cartographer or whatever the modern variant would be.

Click to expand...

Campaign Cartographer is still around, they just came out with a new edition. You can find out about it at Profantasy.com. They have a number of add ons too.

 

Clumsy Bob

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #4

Christopher West is one of the main cartographers for Dungeon.
http://home.earthlink.net/~westwinds/fantasy.html

He uses adobe photoshop (I think!) for his maps. From what I can gather it is quite a difficult program to master but produces excellant results.
Campaign Cartographer is great for the more unskilled user, and with a little perserverence can produce some satisfying results.

Bob

 

Emiricol

Registered User

• Nov 16, 2002

• #5

Fractal Mapper 6.0 is another good program and costs less than the Campaign Cartographer.

You can find the fractal mapper info at www.rpgnow.com for the download, or go from there to the manufacturer's site to get a disc.

Note that the FM is not as full-featured as the Campaign Cartographer, but is faster and easier. And did I mention $50 cheaper?

 

Dragongirl

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #6

Emiricol said:

Fractal Mapper 6.0 is another good program and costs less than the Campaign Cartographer.

Click to expand...

Profantasy also has Fractal Terrains, which I have and love!

 

Mark

CreativeMountainGames.com

• Nov 16, 2002

• #7

Emiricol said:

Fractal Mapper 6.0 is another good program and costs less than the Campaign Cartographer.

You can find the fractal mapper info at www.rpgnow.com for the download, or go from there to the manufacturer's site to get a disc.

Click to expand...

I'll second that. Also, you can go to their site www.nbos.com and pick up a demo version to take for a test drive, (Left side, under the flag, downloads, trial version.)

 

Christian Walker

First Post

• Nov 16, 2002

• #8

Ed Bourelle works this way:

"I work primarily in PhotoShop for the final maps. Scanned textures and vector files from Illustrator and Flash are imported into the PhotoShop files and worked into the finished piece. I try not to use filters, other than blur, in order to keep my work from looking like something anyone with a computer can do. I do all of my work on a PC with a Pentuim 4 processor, dual monitors, an HP scanner and a few different printers."

You can see his work in products from SSS, Mystic Eye, Scrollworks Press, Fantasy Flight, and Gaming Frontiers.

 

L

Lordnightshade

First Post

• Nov 17, 2002

• #9

PhotoShop eh?

Hmmm I am most familliar with PhotoShop, and I have done maps in it before (Check out this one of my campaign world) but using it to create nice dungeon maps I think would be a little harder.

It would be nice if someone could post steps of what they do...

My guess would be:

1. Hand draw the map you want
2. Scan it into PhotoShop
3. Begin the colorization and touch up (making the lines darker and straighter, adding little dungeon features, etc.) What tricks do people use to make doing this in photoshop easier??

As you can see from the above map, I am moderately familliar with photoshop.

 

carpedavid

First Post

• Nov 17, 2002

• #10

My maps...

I use dungeoncrafter, a tile-based mapping program available at http://www.dungeoncrafter.com, to do my basic layout. Then I import the results into Photoshop and add detail and enhacements there. It's probably not the most efficent way of creating nice looking maps, but I've been pretty happy with the results so far.