Mapping Tools - CC3 and others

[JoeyD473]

I'm loking to get a decent mapping tool but I'm not sure what to get.

I have used AutoRealm and I really didn't like
I've used Campaing Cartographer 2 and I like it but it was on a friends computer so I didn't get to use many of the features and learn any of the real ins and outs.

I am looking at Campaign Cartographer 3 but I can't find too many reviews on it and wondered what others thought of it and if they may be able to suggest some other programs I should check out

 

[Hand of Evil]

I recomend downloading the demos to find the best for you. cc3 is fantastic but there are some others that may fill the need, like NBOS.

links:

http://www.nbos.com/products/mapper/mapper-features.htm

http://www.profantasy.com/

 

[heruca]

Have you looked at Dundjinni ?

It excels at battlemap-scale mapping, but can also do area maps and campaign-scale maps.

DungeonForge/MapX and Dungeon Crafter 2 or 3 are also worth checking out.

 

[jaerdaph]

I've been using Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer products for almost ten years now and currently use CC3. I love it. It is much easier to use "out of the box" than any other previous version of CC. There was a time when CC2 had a steep learning curve, but Profantasy went out of their way to reduce that by adding such features as drawing tools (in CC2 Pro). The addition of sheet effects and the ability to use rastor/bitmap images in CC3 have only made it that much better.

You might want to check out The Cartographer's Guild message boards to get opinions of different mapping software:

http://www.cartographersguild.com

Here's some maps I did in CC3 recently (using their cartographers' annual subscription add-ons) with no post work:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=197450

But check out Profantasy's Web site and The Cartographer's Guild for many more examples of what kinds of maps you can get out of CC3.

 

[Redrobes]

Your welcome to try ViewingDale - there is also a free trial.

http://www.viewing.ltd.uk/cgi-bin/viewingdale.pl?category=free_trial

The trial has limited artwork to keep the download to a half reasonable size. You can look at the screen shots / movies etc to get more idea of the style of maps it produces.

You should also check out www.rpgmapshare.com and see what kinds of maps you like on there and look at the software used to create them. There are CC3, Dundjinni and ViewingDale maps in the RPG sections.