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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 3421035" data-attributes="member: 32740">The truth seems to be that it doesn't really matter WHAT software you use for making maps.  The results you get out of them correspond to the time you put into them, and knowing HOW to obtain the results you want (i.e. familiarity with the software and resources for it).Campaign Cartographer, whether CC2, CCpro, or CC3, is both better and poorer for being directly based upon CAD software.  As has been mentioned it makes the software more powerful, but it also means that most users are going to be utterly unfamiliar with its ways and will have to LEARN to make it work for them.  CC then, IMO, is the software of choice for those who desire to make their cartography almost as much of a hobby in and of itself.It is a mantra of CC users that you MUST do the tutorials that CC comes with.  It is the single best thing you can do to get yourself most familiar with how to make things work for you on a basic level before you then devote learning time and effort into really getting what you want.  Even before cc3 the results for the best users could be quite staggering.  Now that CC3 makes so much heavier use of non-vector elements like PNG symbols, bitmap fills, and lighting effects you can get much better looking results much quicker and easier - but you STILL have to expect to put more work into it to get better results out of it.I can't really speak to how other mapping software works.  I've only ever used CC.  I had it for about a year before I finally put time into making it work.  Since then my abilities with it get both better and worse over time.  I tend to use it in streaks, at times spending all my spare time working on new map projects and improving my skills, and then going for four months without using it at all and having to relearn a few things when I start up again.I bought CC3 as soon as it came out but I have yet to spend any time with it to actually DO something with it.  I actually still use CC2 instead because I'm procrastinating having to learn new ins and outs of CC3.If you can spend the time to hand-draw maps, scan them, and then also photoshop them, then you have time to do the CC2 tutorials and then use it to produce CC2 copies of your maps that you can then continue to improve over time as you learn more about CC, AND about what it is you want and need from the maps you produce.  Depending on what your hand-drawing skills actually ARE, if they are in fact anything like mine then at the very least your CC2 maps will be produced faster, look cleaner, will be vastly more consistent, and best of all have the advantage of being able to endlessly tinker with them to improve them.I tend to strip the oldest, crudest, least impressive CC efforts off my website, so what I have there is mostly the few things I think I really did well at from a LOT of poor to mediocre efforts, but if I can learn to produce stuff like what I have at <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/cc2/cc2.htm" target="_blank">http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/cc2/cc2.htm</a> then so can you.</blockquote>

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