I'm using
two programs to make the maps. The first is Hex Mapper, a freeware application. I, too, am a former CC user but its non-intuitive GUI and lack of a proper instruction manual made learning to use it a nightmare (and I have experience with commercial CAD applications). In actual use, Hex Mapper simply blows it away in terms of user friendliness and prctical functionality.
You can find version Hex Mapper 1.0b for free download
here. I used this version of Hex Mapper (plus a custom tile set snagged from hong's old Ultima site) to create the two maps at the top of the thread. After this, I joined the
Hex Mapper Haven Yahoo Group in search of more tile sets, which is where I found the monochrome 'old school' tiles that I used to create the last two maps above (as well as several other tile sets).
The one thing to watch out for is that customizing your tile pallette in Hex Mapper requires some simple (though possibly time consuming) text editing. There are some tutorials at the Yahoo Group that help with this, though (I learned the process in a little under five minutes last night and customized my pallete in a little under twenty minutes).
The second application that I'm using is Adobe Photoshop 7.0, which I used to apply the text, textures, and non-tiled rivers in the maps above. That said, the standard output of Hex Mapper is a 24-bit BMP, so you could easily use MS Paint for these features, as well. I chose to use Photoshop simply because I already own it and it lets me do some things that Paint won't (like fade image background behind text).
The four maps above are the first four maps that I have ever created using Hex Mapper and Photoshop, which gives a good idea of the learning curve (it's effectively non-existant). Butch Curry also has a (I'm told) an excellent series of articles on using Photoshop to create maps, which I plan to read in pursuit of my newly discovered mapping skills. His site is
here.
