I used to scribble out a rough copy of my map and hand it over to one two players both of which are fairly good artists, they would then draw a excellent looking map for the campaign. Unfortunatly, one moved from the east coast to North Dakota, and the other got a wife, a full time job and no longer games. For my campaign that is about to kick off I plan on using a published setting. I have tried using map making programs but found them too compicated to use or lunable to produce a map I was happy with.
how do you make your overland maps?
derelictjay
Explorer
I freehand them, partially because I'm a decent artist and partially because I just cannot capture what I want with a program. Though I've been thinking of scanning my maps and then touching them up with a graphics program, just haven't gotten around to it.
Desdichado
Hero
100% agree. That is a personal pet peeve of mine as well. I really like the look of the CC2 maps, if you have enough optional items to add, but I can't be bothered to learn to use something that arcane.maddman75 said:
I've not used the Aurora toolset for Neverwinter Nights, but it sounds a lot like what you had with the campaign editor for the Heroes of Might and Magic series. If I could convert HoMM3 maps into jpgs without doing screenshots of the various areas, scrolling around, doing it again and trying to paste it together, I'd do that.
I really like the hand-draw, scan and photoshop in colors, fancy font text, and all that. Unfortunately my scanner's on the fritz again, but I'm sure I can access one without too much trouble somewhere else. Like Glassjaw, I'm not really a good Photoshop user, but I think I can handle creating another layer for colors, and using the airbrush or paintbrush tool, some blending and effects for texture and whatnot, and putting together a decent looking map with a little practice.
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Psion
Adventurer
The Shaman said:
That one.
For making a new world full of continents, I recommend Fractal Terrains by ProFantasy (not to be confused with Fractal Mapper, which is a more CC2-like application from a different company.) At the touch of a button you can create whole worlds. Once you find one you like, you can change the map projection to any of dozens of possiblities, and export the whole thing or sections in a variety of formats, including CC2, jpg, VRML, etc.
Once in CC2, you can add details, slice peices off, create different layers representing different things (political boundaries, secret GM info, ley lines, etc.), and can put just the details you want on any given map.
Davelozzi
Explorer
I mostly use freehand, and in fact always do for city or dungeon maps. My national/regional map is a hand drawn and hand colored, then scanned & Photoshoped. My continental/world map was drawn completely with MS Paint, thanks to a very slow temp job I had six or seven years ago.
As for Photoshop, I have only a very basic proficiency, but it's enough to add layers to my hand drawn maps to add in population centers, political borders, adventure sites etc.
As for Photoshop, I have only a very basic proficiency, but it's enough to add layers to my hand drawn maps to add in population centers, political borders, adventure sites etc.
I still do freehand and CC for DOS, but I use the mapper from the WOTC Core Rules for interior dungeons more often.
CC for DOS I've had for years and did a super detailed 3x5 foot world map of my homebrew. Lots of work. Steep learning curve back in the mid 90's. Now it's a thing of the past, but my map is mostly done, and I keep the old computer just for it.
the WOTC mapper has a terrible ink usage problem, and soaks the paper I print on. The maps look pretty good though, for both interior and overland. It's just too slow and wasteful to use often.
Freehand is where all of my maps start. I don't scan them in tho'. I just start my designs by hand, or for quick games I sketch out the events for the night, then later, if needed, I may do up the game map as a "handout" for the players reference.
I also use the free maps I get in other products: like the Sherwood map in Dragon a few years ago. That Sherwood map is the centerpiece for the campaign I've been running for the last 2 years. I've had to flesh out well beyond it now, but that was easy since I just plopped Sherwood down in my homebrew world. All is well.
CC for DOS I've had for years and did a super detailed 3x5 foot world map of my homebrew. Lots of work. Steep learning curve back in the mid 90's. Now it's a thing of the past, but my map is mostly done, and I keep the old computer just for it.
the WOTC mapper has a terrible ink usage problem, and soaks the paper I print on. The maps look pretty good though, for both interior and overland. It's just too slow and wasteful to use often.
Freehand is where all of my maps start. I don't scan them in tho'. I just start my designs by hand, or for quick games I sketch out the events for the night, then later, if needed, I may do up the game map as a "handout" for the players reference.
I also use the free maps I get in other products: like the Sherwood map in Dragon a few years ago. That Sherwood map is the centerpiece for the campaign I've been running for the last 2 years. I've had to flesh out well beyond it now, but that was easy since I just plopped Sherwood down in my homebrew world. All is well.
John Morrow
First Post
GlassJaw said:
On my iBook (Mac), I use Canvas 9 (which has a Windows and Mac version) to draw maps (if you creatively use some of the built-in features, you can get some really nice effects). It comes with a decent font and clipart library but I wind up drawing a lot of things myself.
I tried the Dundjinni demo and it looked like it could be useful for dungeons and towns, especially if you are writing D&D adventures. I'm torn about whether to buy it or not. Try the demo if you are curious.
I've also made a quite a bit of use out of Dave Allen's various world builder programs (the crude version he released on the Usenet as well as the PC and Linux shareware version) for plate tectonics and climate generation. They aren't perfect but they can be quicker than doing it by hand. If your Google Fu is strong, you can probably find some of this software.
More on Canvas 9 here (including 15 day demo):
http://www.canvas9.com/
Orius
Legend
I just keep drawing them by hand the old fashioned way. I've never been able to find any good freeware mapping software, AutoRealm, Fractal Mapper, Hex Mapper, even DungeonCrafter with overland type tiles, I've tried them all. And none of them worked quite the way I liked. Tile-based overland mappers are way too limited — it's hard to put in natural looking coastlines, unless you want your map contours to be all hexy. And software where I have to draw in all the coastlines and rivers take far too much effort. Since all the maps I did on computer were based on hand-drawn originals anyway, I'm just going to stick with doing maps that way.
I do scan my maps and print them out. But not for computer cartography. I do that so I can scribble notes and stuff on the copies so the originals don't get messed up.
I did make some maps for an online game I was running in AutoRealm. But since I don't really like the look of that program, I exported the maps to .bmp and then used DungeonCrafter to add some overland tiles to replace the ugly looking font based symbols. Then I used a cheap photo editing application to add the finishing touches and text labels. Here's the campaign map:
I do scan my maps and print them out. But not for computer cartography. I do that so I can scribble notes and stuff on the copies so the originals don't get messed up.
I did make some maps for an online game I was running in AutoRealm. But since I don't really like the look of that program, I exported the maps to .bmp and then used DungeonCrafter to add some overland tiles to replace the ugly looking font based symbols. Then I used a cheap photo editing application to add the finishing touches and text labels. Here's the campaign map:
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Woas
First Post
I voted Free-hand. I've drawn 100% overland/world/terrain maps myself. Even cities. Floor plans for dungeons or buildings and sometimes cities I'll do on the computer (see point B). The reason for this is because: A) I do not have a campaign website where I post digital images of the campaign world on for my players to refrence. Even if I did have one, it would not help since I do not game with a computer or laptop and thus it would be absurd to stop everthing, run over to the computer and load up a map everytime the players need to refence it. Having an actual, physical map is 1000 times more helpful. B) I like big maps. 8x11 is too small! 
I draw my maps on very large poster board size or larger pieces of paper and poster board. Cities and floorplans don't need to be so big, so I will do them on the computer and print them out 8x11. Otherwise everything is free hand.
I draw my maps on very large poster board size or larger pieces of paper and poster board. Cities and floorplans don't need to be so big, so I will do them on the computer and print them out 8x11. Otherwise everything is free hand.
Kershek
Sci-Fi Newshound
I find it funny that you say "technology of the day" would produce inaccurate maps, when a 5th level wizard could fly up and get a bird's eye view to get accurate cartography, or use a number of magical methods for accuracy not obtainable by Earth's technology of the middle ages. D&D != reality...Wombat said:Sometimes (often) I just go freehand.
In earlier campaigns I made extensive use of the Harn maps, so I didn't really need to do any work.
Of late I have been making "poetic maps", in that they have only a vague scale and are, in part, wildly inaccurate. The reason behind this is simply the technology of the day -- truly accurate maps are more a product of the 18th century and forward, rather than anything medieval/renaissance. They just "feel right" somehow and my players are beginning to really enjoy the sense of mystery.
Now if you were trying to produce a house rule feel of such an environment, that's great.
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