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Best Mapmaking software
- Thread starter Mirkurnas
- Start date
torstan
First Post
I'd recommend Gimp (free software that runs on any platform. Just google it). If you want some good advice on mapmaking and mapmaking software head over to the cartographer's guild (Cartographers Guild :: Homepage). The tutorials section will give you good advice for mapmaking with almost any software.
Sigurd
First Post
Torstan's game maps are as good as any I've ever seen. I'd trust his advice.
The Gimp and Paint.net or Inkscape are all really good choices because, well, they're free. You may find they give you everything you need.
What you choose will depend on what you expect or need. Speaking broadly....
If you can draw elements (houses, hills, buildings, durngeons etc...) free hand then you will probably want a drawing program. Vector drawing or raster drawing:
Vector - Paint.net, Inkscape, Corel Draw$, Adobe Illustrator$$
Raster - The Gimp, Corel Painter$, Adobe Photoshop$$
(And many others.
Another approach is sort of the stamp collecting approach. You gather your elements from other artists or third parties. You can of course make your own elements too but the elegant part here is you dont have to.
Campaign Cartographer uses this approach in a Cad program which is elegant because the vector shapes scale very easily and rotate\render cleanly.
Dundjinni also uses this approach but the elements are raster not vector - overlay a picture of a building on a picture of a field.
Their are many other products and the above products have more value than I have listed. If you have an eye for maps you can accomplish beautiful work with almost any graphics package.
Thats why I'd start with the free packages and give www. cartographersguild.com a look. Lots of friendly people. There's even some work by Torstan!
Sigurd
The Gimp and Paint.net or Inkscape are all really good choices because, well, they're free. You may find they give you everything you need.
What you choose will depend on what you expect or need. Speaking broadly....
If you can draw elements (houses, hills, buildings, durngeons etc...) free hand then you will probably want a drawing program. Vector drawing or raster drawing:
Vector - Paint.net, Inkscape, Corel Draw$, Adobe Illustrator$$
Raster - The Gimp, Corel Painter$, Adobe Photoshop$$
(And many others.
Another approach is sort of the stamp collecting approach. You gather your elements from other artists or third parties. You can of course make your own elements too but the elegant part here is you dont have to.
Campaign Cartographer uses this approach in a Cad program which is elegant because the vector shapes scale very easily and rotate\render cleanly.
Dundjinni also uses this approach but the elements are raster not vector - overlay a picture of a building on a picture of a field.
Their are many other products and the above products have more value than I have listed. If you have an eye for maps you can accomplish beautiful work with almost any graphics package.
Thats why I'd start with the free packages and give www. cartographersguild.com a look. Lots of friendly people. There's even some work by Torstan!
Sigurd
Last edited:
Silverblade The Ench
First Post
Paint Shop Pro is good, similar ot Photoshop but MUCH cheaper 
Campaign Cartographer is outstanding, but an utter pain to use.
you can also use 3D proggies for,well, less map making and more visualizations of areas:
See my older stuff in that vein:
Erynavar, Adventures
Campaign Cartographer is outstanding, but an utter pain to use.
you can also use 3D proggies for,well, less map making and more visualizations of areas:
See my older stuff in that vein:
Erynavar, Adventures
Jupp
Explorer
Interesting enough I just had the same question about a week ago. I've used Dundjinni before but the software was not really powerful enough for my tastes and it uses too many system resources for the relatively small maps I tried to do with it.
I also wanted to make battlemaps for our next Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk session this Friday. So I've just jumped into the water and purchased Campaign Cartographer + Dungeon Designer 3 on Sunday. I've heard (and saw) some bad things about the cluttered UI in CC2 but when I had a look at the screenshots of the CC3 UI I thought that it wasn't really that bad so I made the blind purchase for CC3 and Dungeon Designer 3.
What did really help me was a very nice set of youtube movies from joesweeney88 about Campaign Cartographer and Dungeon Designer. I built the dungeon in the tutorial while having it run in the background. After that tutorial I was able to build the first battlemap for the campaign and I have to say it looks very professional for the time I have invested so far for learning the product. Two days later I had all the 5 maps I needed to be prepared for the next gaming session and probably another session as well (Tower of War, the whole the Arena level, for those that know EttRoG).
The maps have shadowed walls, lighting, props, everything that makes them nice and sweet so they look pretty fancy after being printed out on a plotter in A2/A1 format. The whole sheets and layers functions really do help in creating impressive looking maps without having to fumble around in additional applications like Gimp or Photoshop.
As a conclusion I have to say that CC3 is not that hard and complicated to learn as some people might think. And CC3 is certainly not as hard to use as CC2, which I've tried some years ago for a short while.
Just my 2 cents.
Oh, and I really suggest watching those youtube tutorials. They will save you alot of questions and forum digging.
I also wanted to make battlemaps for our next Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk session this Friday. So I've just jumped into the water and purchased Campaign Cartographer + Dungeon Designer 3 on Sunday. I've heard (and saw) some bad things about the cluttered UI in CC2 but when I had a look at the screenshots of the CC3 UI I thought that it wasn't really that bad so I made the blind purchase for CC3 and Dungeon Designer 3.
What did really help me was a very nice set of youtube movies from joesweeney88 about Campaign Cartographer and Dungeon Designer. I built the dungeon in the tutorial while having it run in the background. After that tutorial I was able to build the first battlemap for the campaign and I have to say it looks very professional for the time I have invested so far for learning the product. Two days later I had all the 5 maps I needed to be prepared for the next gaming session and probably another session as well (Tower of War, the whole the Arena level, for those that know EttRoG).
The maps have shadowed walls, lighting, props, everything that makes them nice and sweet so they look pretty fancy after being printed out on a plotter in A2/A1 format. The whole sheets and layers functions really do help in creating impressive looking maps without having to fumble around in additional applications like Gimp or Photoshop.
As a conclusion I have to say that CC3 is not that hard and complicated to learn as some people might think. And CC3 is certainly not as hard to use as CC2, which I've tried some years ago for a short while.
Just my 2 cents.
Oh, and I really suggest watching those youtube tutorials. They will save you alot of questions and forum digging.
heruca
Explorer
Here are links to a number of map-making programs, several of which are Mac-compatible. I recommend Dundjinni for making battlemaps, but other programs are better-suited for continent/world maps.
Thanee
First Post
That does sound really promising.
Once I have a decent color laser printer, I will probably want some nice cartography/floorplan program as well.
Bye
Thanee
Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
Silverblade is right, CC2 (and now CC3) is a great program. It's a pain to use if you don't take the time to learn how to use it right. It has a high learning curve, so it isn't for everyone. I have been using it for a LONG time so I instinctively know how to use it.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
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