Mapping Software???

[trancejeremy]

Unfortunately, pretty much every piece of software fails the "easy to use" test and I always end up going back to hand drawing maps.

 

[gamerprinter]

Unfortunately, pretty much every piece of software fails the "easy to use" test and I always end up going back to hand drawing maps.

I do both, at the same time. I hand-draw all my linework in pen, scan it, import to Xara my drawing applet, apply color palatte, beveled shapes, drop shadows - creating detailed maps from drawing to final format in under an hour for most maps. I created the City of Kasai map for Paizo's Jade Regent AP, a canal-cut imperial capital with over 8,500 buildings in 16 hours, being the most complex map I've been commissioned for.

The hand-drawn takes the longest, finishing it up digitally as described above and with labels and grid takes only 20% of the time. The software part is the quickest and easiest part of my map creation process.

 

[Daztur]

I like hexographer for general areas maps (they have town mapping programs and dungeon matting ones as well) especially since it's free. What sets it apart from other ones that I've tried is that the interface is very simple and pretty damn idiot-proof.

 

[Deano Calver]

I prefer to use a good vector editor, you can make tiles (square, hex, etc.) as vectors and move and lock to nodes to get perfect tiling. They can also use bitmaps from GIMP/Photoshop etc. as well, giving the best of both worlds imho.
A good free one is InkScape but if you want to spend a bit of cash CorelDraw is very good.
Its a bit more work than specialized map/tile editors but the flexibility is useful imho

 

[Snoddie]

It's not really a map software, but I've had a lot of luck designing maps in roll20.net tabletop setup. It's easy to update new POI as your players discover them.