D&D 5E (2014) Mapping Software Input [What's in your wallet?]

[CanadienneBacon]

Excel. What can I say, all I require is the basics. I'm not mapping a continent, just a dungeon:

 

[innerdude]

I use the GIMP for my hobbies and professionally. Saying it is a casual toy is BS.

It was mentioned before. If you go to Cartographer's Guild you will get some real advice on map making.

List of Mapping Software LINK

Just to clarify my position --- GIMP is not a toy. It is a highly capable tool and in the right hands can produce very good maps.

But in my opinion, pretty much any raster image editor you can purchase between $80-$100 on the market today is a vastly preferable option. From a usability, speed, and overall value proposition, the approximately $80 I'd spend on say, Serif PhotoPlus, is a value investment that gets paid back multiple, multiple times versus having to deal with the UI/UX of GIMP. In my experience (and believe me, I've tried nearly every commercial and a number of free image manipulation programs out there), out of any tool in its class, GIMP's user experience is the least enjoyable. The fact that Serif PhotoPlus supports live layer effects and GIMP doesn't is worth the price of admission alone --- to say nothing of the more intuitive interface and UX. And if you can find a copy of Photoshop 7, Photoshop CS, or Photoshop CS2 inexpensively, it's hands-down a no-brainer. Photoshop 7 is a better tool than GIMP is now --- and Photoshop 7 is over 15 years old.

For someone just getting into digital mapmaking, and they really don't want to spend money on a raster image editor, GIMP is a fine choice. I just know for me, the value of spending $80 vastly exceeds the value of "free" I get from GIMP.

 

[Whirlingdervish]

I use a combination of things when i design a map. I start with a peice of square or hex graph paper then i take the drawing and sketch it into CC3 then i export the image into gimp and finally pull the cleaned up image into fractal mapper making use of its native scenario builder for dm notes, encounter text which i can then export and convert into PDF format for use on on my tablet.

 

[Miladoon]

I use a combination of things when i design a map. I start with a peice of square or hex graph paper then i take the drawing and sketch it into CC3 then i export the image into gimp and finally pull the cleaned up image into fractal mapper making use of its native scenario builder for dm notes, encounter text which i can then export and convert into PDF format for use on on my tablet.

I might try and play around with fractal mapper. Tks for the idea.
[MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION], Mea Culpa. It was not my intention to strawman your position. I have been using the GIMP for over ten years and photoshop cs5 for about three years. GIMP is not created to replace photoshop but it has always been the best free alternative, IMHO. The GIMP has not had a major interface change in almost ten years. New things come online as new versions are released. So the interface only becomes clunky when you change between applications, like going from GIMP to Photoshop. But as the versions update you have less of a learning curve because you don't have to relearn the interface...that much. And the updates and plug-ins are free. Not sure about the newer versions of photoshop, but I can use .abr files in GIMP as well as .psd files. As far as I now, Photoshop CS5 won't handle .xcf, .gih and .gbr files. I like that flexibility.

I like Photoshop too and live layers are nice. But I don't need them to create my maps.
[MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] again, How long have you been paying for updates/new versions for SerifPhotoplus and Photoshop?

 

[innerdude]

How long have you been paying for updates/new versions for SerifPhotoplus and Photoshop?

For a long while, my wife had a photography business, and for most of the time she ran the business she and I both used good 'ole Photoshop 7. There were a few things she wanted with the newer versions later on, so we upgraded to the 9.99 a month for the Photoshop Creative Cloud. But then she decided she no longer wanted to actively pursue the business, and we just left her web site up, without actively trying to market it. At that point we deactivated our Creative Cloud account.

In the interim, I picked up a copy of Serif PhotoPlus X6. If you play Serif's pricing game a little bit, you can get the previous versions for cheaper than the current versions. They have all kinds of online discounts floating around as well.

At the time (this was around a year ago) I picked up PhotoPlus X6 for $50. They're now on version X8 for both PhotoPlus and DrawPlus. For DrawPlus, I picked up version X4 maybe three years ago, and only spent $30 on it---talk about a FANTASTIC investment.

PhotoPlus will do as a competent Photoshop replacement in a pinch, and has live layer effects (which for me is a huge deal). However, there's a few shortcuts it doesn't have that were just head scratching. The big one is PhotoPlus (at least version X6) doesn't have a draw or erase on a straight line action (which in Photoshop is as simple as holding down the SHIFT key while moving the mouse). It also doesn't have some of the basic pattern stamp functionality that Photoshop does (which I use all the time for doing terrain texturing). That said, there's nothing that's a real deal-breaker, and for the $50 I spent it was overall a good purchase. The interface for PhotoPlus is a near facsimile of Photoshop's as well, so the transition to the new software was minor. I've used GIMP in the past, and it's certainly powerful enough in most cases to work well, but I was just fighting the UI so badly, having to relearn shortcut keys, etc.

But when it came right down to it, I ended up just wanting actual Photoshop, so maybe 3 months ago I went out and bought a used copy of Photoshop CS2 for around $40. It's hardly "modern tech" these days, but it's more than competent.

Serif plays the "upgrade" game, trying to get people to upgrade every 18 months when they release their new versions. But really their product offerings are like Windows, or Microsoft Office, where you can easily skip 2-3 versions and not really miss anything.

When DrawPlus and PhotoPlus versions X9 come out late in 2016 / early 2017, I'll give them a serious look. DrawPlus has been absolutely fantastic, and if they'd fix the few minor niggles in PhotoPlus and make the rendering engine a bit faster, I'd have no qualms switching over entirely and never looking back at Adobe again.

Also, I'm sure the "hardcore" photographers and graphic designers might beg to differ, but for digital mapmaking the differences between Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop CS6/Creative Cloud are mostly inconsequential. Yeah, the UI is cleaner, and there's some "advanced" features and a few new layer effects tools and options in the newer versions, but overall CS2 is just as effective.

 

[Miladoon]

...Serif plays the "upgrade" game, trying to get people to upgrade every 18 months when they release their new versions. But really their product offerings are like Windows, or Microsoft Office, where you can easily skip 2-3 versions and not really miss anything.

I think that is pretty standard operating procedure, I suppose. GIMP just released 2.9 LINK

Another thing that might be worth mentioning when I compare Photoshop and GIMP, I have to reboot Photoshop very very often so I have to keep remembering to save my work. Still a good habit, but I have a good copy of GIMP 2.8 right now and it may of bottomed out once. The GIMP guardian is unhappy at my lack of faith every time I hit save.

Today, using GIMP, I created this map from adobe brushes that I found on deviantART(StarRaven,redheadstock). It was about 3.5 hours of time.



Cartography Brushes LINK
Arcane Brushes LINK

 

[Li Shenron]

Today, using GIMP, I created this map from adobe brushes that I found on deviantART(StarRaven,redheadstock). It was about 3.5 hours of time.

I must say this is an utterly awesome map, I've hardly ever seen a mapping style better than this

Do I understand right that you basically only used free sources? Or did you also have some libraries (pictures, fonts) from commercial programs?

I don't do digital mapping, normally when I want a map I either draw it or google for something close enough to what I want (and then maybe overwrite the names) and print it out. I wouldn't normally even consider something that takes more than 1 hour of work, but your sample map here is seriously tempting... although I guess it took 3.5 hours to you because you already know how to use the program

 

[Miladoon]

I must say this is an utterly awesome map, I've hardly ever seen a mapping style better than this

Do I understand right that you basically only used free sources? Or did you also have some libraries (pictures, fonts) from commercial programs?

I don't do digital mapping, normally when I want a map I either draw it or google for something close enough to what I want (and then maybe overwrite the names) and print it out. I wouldn't normally even consider something that takes more than 1 hour of work, but your sample map here is seriously tempting... although I guess it took 3.5 hours to you because you already know how to use the program

Tks. The style really belongs to the brush maker. All the resources I used for the map are free and quickly download, save my 2008 Mac. Time is what you pay when you go digital, regardless if you go for premium products or open source. But you should at least give it a try, since you won't be stressing the financials. You are also welcome to take the image above overwrite names if it suits you.

 

[Beleriphon]

I'm going to throw down in the GIMP camp. As well as suggesting that you check out the Cartographer's Guild. Some of the folks on that website have produces maps using dozens of different types of software, and a number of them have produced tutorials to create different looks (including one that does random maps using layers, filters and all kind of cool stuff) in most major digital image software. GIMP is extremely popular by virtue of it being free. I've used Photoshop and Illustrator CS3 and will confirm as far as power and utility they beat GIMP for most applications, there is a good reason they are the digital art world gold standard, but GIMP is more than serviceable for casual use.

Cartographer's Guild: http://www.cartographersguild.com

 

[Cristian Andreu]

I use Photoshop for mapping, along with a digital tablet (nothing too fancy, as mapping is essentially the only thing I know how to kinda use it for!).

Though not the best mapper, I admit I love drawing these damned things; it's sort of zen, I suppose. Very relaxing.

The map that's currently taking me the longest to finish is this one, for one of my homebrew settings (full size here):



Dungeon-wise, I did this one following Immolate's tutorial for drawing isometrics in Photoshop, from the Cartographers' Guild. It depicts a formerly abandoned hotel in Sigil that serves as the party's HQ in our current Planescape campaign (full size here):