Drawing maps

[draquila]

Just wondering what tools you guys have used in terms of drawing tiled maps on a PC which is then printed out and used as tiles.

MapTool appears to be the tool of choice for online play, but it doesn't seem to be good at drawing tiled things at all unless you already have a tiled map image, nor does it produce printable versions of maps.

Any ideas?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, maptool doesn't really let you export maps. Its maps don't actually have a grid incorporated, it's just an overlay. Not really much good for use outside of the program itself.

Personally I just use GIMP. I haven't tried making a grid, but I'm pretty sure there is a plugin that will draw a grid on an image. You'll have to look it up, but I'm sure its in the GIMP plugin archive.

 

[Smoke Jaguar]

I use a pdf maker to create a grid paper. I draw on the graph paper random dungeons that I make up on my own or I take ideas from preset dungeons and modify them to my liking.

When it is game time, one of the party goers has a chessex mat that we use wet erease markers to draw. It works out really well for us.

PDF maker:
Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs

Mat:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Chessex-Role-Playing-Play-Mat/dp/B0015IQO2O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1278949927&sr=8-2]Amazon.com: Chessex Role Playing Play Mat: Battlemat Double-Sided…[/ame]

 

[Ahrimon]

I think dundjinni lets you make maps with grids. Although I haven't looked at it in a very long time.

 

[draquila]

I think dundjinni is the kind of thing I am looking for, but US$40 plus art packs seems a bit hefty! I'm thinking of coding up something simple myself, that takes an ASCII input file, a tileset, and dumps out an image. I'll see how I go.

 

[Kazoo]

I use EXCEL sometimes. You can use the built in shapes, import graphics, and you can size the grid easily.

I've also used Paint Shop Pro. Having layers is very helpful.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, if you want to draw maps, Cartographer's Guild.com is your best bet.

 

[OnlineDM]

I've used MapTool with pretty good success for some not-too-huge maps so far. The finished products are outlined on this recent blog post. They're formatted into PDFs that can be printed out and taped together, and I think they look pretty slick - but maybe my standards aren't that high!

 

[Cor_Malek]

As to Dundjinni - check out the demo first. I'm quite sure it really is worth the $40, but as been said - it has quite high learning curve. Demo let's you play around, without printing or saving your projects - which isn't as big problem as you'd think, as first couple of hours is swing and miss

As to gimp - yeah, you could find a plugin, or just do it manually: make a new image, and choose the size from templates menu - whichever paper size you use (ie A4). Add transparency layer (rmb->layer->transparency-> add alpha channel), and click delete to get rid of white background. Now draw a couple of straight lines by clicking once at ie 2 cm (or whatever you want your grid to be), scroll down , and holding shift click ot 2 cm's on opposite side again. Copy-paste first 2 or 3 lines, and do it again horizontally. Save the image as png or xcf to maintain the transparency, and after you finish drawing your map - add this file as new layer on top. The nice thing is, that you can always adjust transparency and colour of the grid on your new map.
It should take about 2 minutes to make the file, and you're good forever

edit: I forgot - you can track exact position of your cursor in bottom left corner (first number is width, second height). Make a zoom in (100-150%) and it's really easy to pin-point full cm's/inches/whatever.

 

[weem]

I use Photoshop...

>> Full Versions here

>> Quick Tutorial here