Battlemat Generating Software

[Sam]

Does anyone know of software that will generate battlemat (1" square) sized layouts? I was thinking it would be really cool to have pre-printed layouts of rooms, streets, etc., rather than have to draw them on the battlemat. I'd even use transparancies so the gridlines showed through.

Has anyone heard of any program/utility that allows you to generate rooms/maps like this? I'm not very artistically inclined, nor do I have a ton of time to figure out how something works (ala CC2). Drag and Drop, kind of like Visio for D&D battlemaps would be great. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
--Sam

 

[Painfully]

Most art programs will easily let you create a 1" grid. Beyond that you can just cut and paste images of tables, rocks, doors, etc. There's nothing to stop you from scanning and reusing the ones you probably already have from other layout maps in Dragon Magazine.

Try Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.

 

[Zandy]

Sam - I understand what you said about CC2 having a LARGE learning curve, but once you get past it, it is WAY too slick to pass up.

Plus, as you are looking for, CC2 can print 1" squares. I've taken to creating all my buildings and dungeons in CC2, then expanding them, printing at scale, and taping together the pages. The first time I whipped out a 3'x4' map of a tavern where the party was fighting, with all the tables, kegs, chairs, bar, etc detailed, ... they were mighty impressed.

The tavern was an elven hangout, and had a tree in the middle of it. I printed the wide branches that had some tables on them, pasted them to foamcore, and pushed them into a styrofoam cone base to make the tree.

Now, the group expects this "feature" from my games. It makes games run SO much more smoothly without the constant stopping to update the white board.

CC2 can do it for you. SPend the time to learn it, and you won't regret it.

 

[Sam]

Zandy & Painfully, thanks for the info. I guess I was looking for a simple, drag & drop way to create rooms/encounter areas without having to figure out CC2. Something that already had pre-painted tiles appropriate for D&D.

It's going to be a while before I get around to slogging through CC2. If anyone sees anything, even if it isn't pretty, I'd be interested in looking at it.

Thanks again,
--Sam

 

[DMFTodd]

DungeonCrafter is a tile-based program for creating Dungeons. SHould work for creating normal rooms.

I though AutoRealm was tile-based as well?

 

[Sam]

DungeonCrafter is a tile-based program for creating Dungeons. SHould work for creating normal rooms.

I though AutoRealm was tile-based as well?

DungeonCrafter doesn't seem to allow you to adjust the tile size, and the largest scale I could get AutoRealm to was 1.29 squares to an inch. I liked AutoRealm better, but it still doesn't get me where I want to be. Thanks for the info though.

--Sam

 

[dvvega]

Sam: you can email me requesting an Excel spreadsheet that a friend made up and we both use for our respective campaigns.

It prints out 1" squares, and I use 4xA4 sheets tape together for all sorts of things.

You can use coloured squares to add walls etc to the grid layout, and if you wanted graphical kinds of things, you can just import GIFs/JPEGs/etc into Excel and pop them in.