Help! Novice map maker.

[Purple Dragon]

I was wondering is some of you techno gurus could help me. For years, I have been collecting maps of cities and building floor plans for my Forgotten Realms campagin becuase my artistic talents are less than desirable. I am seriously considering purchasing a map making software program because I would like to create my own cities and buildings. For example, I can not find a map of Phsant (in Thesk) anywhere, and I own the Unapproachable East.

So which program would you recommend to a guy who never used a drawing program, not even photoshop? I realize that CC2 Pro is the standard program for many of the Realms websites, but it seems like Djunni (spelling) has recieved some good reviews on this forum.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hand of Evil]

You have a number of options and everyones mapping needs differ, I tell people to download the demos and see which one meets your needs. Dunjenni looks good and is great for floor plans but I have not see campaign nor city maps from it. CC2-Pro has everything you need but it still has a learning curve and you would want the cty builder add-on so cost goes up. Then you have NBOS's Fratral Mapper, also has everything you need in it and does good maps. If you want to go free, there is Autorealms, not a bad mapper at all. There are some others.

Bottomline: I like CC2-Pro but for your needs I think you should look at NBOS.

web site here: http://www.nbos.com/

 

[Hand of Evil]

Oh, a note on CC2-Pro, you can download Profantasy's Viewer (free) to view and print their map formats.