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| Kale the Quick |
 Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: The Silent Cartographer. |
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Joined: 11 Apr 2009
Posts: 7
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Does anyone know of a good program to make maps?
I remember when I first Played DND, I was 8 and had a vibrant imagination (the most important tool for such a game,) The DM was a seasoned veteran, of both military service and Game Mastering. He had the entire planet mapped out, not as detailed as the actual world, but an amazing feat nonetheless. Throughout his 40 years of the game he had kept the same world, and it has developed into a wonderful place. There are nations, tribes, and the dragons of old who knew the first players in the realm, great beasts who would speak of the Elf Class.
Something Ii noticed about his great skill was the way he would act out his characters, only voice acting still, but he could throw you into his world without a thought.
In addition to his potent imagination he had another skill, something from the military. He knew how patrols were conducted, so every random encounter felt a little less random.
He was also a cartographer in the Airforce, and that just sucked you into his world.
Playing a good DND game means having a developed world wherin to move. Does anyone know of a good program to make maps? |
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| jonroberts |
| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:27 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Posts: 174
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There are lots of good programs to make maps. The question of which program to use depends on the way you want to draw your maps. I prefer to draw mine from scratch on the computer. For this I use a graphics tablet and Gimp. Photoshop does the same job, as do paint.net and many others.
If you would prefer to construct your map from predrawn elements, then Campaign Cartographer or Dunjinni are probably your best bet. In this case you use the art elements of others to build up your own map. Campaign cartographer also has layer styles that allow you to tailor the look of the map in different ways and can produce some truly astounding results.
Finally, if you want to generate a realistic world map then you can generate the coastline and height map of your world autmatically. You can use something like fractal terrains to create the basic landmasses and then use Wilbur to run erosion on the map to give you realistic patterns of river flow, lakes and so on.
All of these have their benefits and their drawbacks. The best place to go to get a full breakdown of all of the options, and to find loads of useful tutorials, is the cartographer's guikld:
www.cartographersguild.com |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:45 am Post subject: |
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Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 587
Location: Bensalem, PA
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I've used Dunjinni and had some success.
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John Ling
Freelance Writer
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| Kale the Quick |
| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 11 Apr 2009
Posts: 7
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Thanks for the great information!
I have definitely used GIMP to make maps, but i have always wanted an interface spesificaly designed to keep track of such things, like my own google earth that i can modify, or something that can randomly generate maps from a town to a city. I know i have high expectations, but if i never push the market it will never go!
Thanks for the help, ill look into those programs! ^_^ |
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| jonroberts |
| Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 12 Jan 2009
Posts: 174
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I know that two guys on the cartographer's guild have created a couple of scripts that together create random dungeons and make them pretty. I also know that there are similar programs to do random rpg citymap generation which can then be prettied up in gimp. Again, a forum search on CG will turn up a couple of things.
As for google maps, there's a great little app here:
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/software/g...magecutter.asp
It takes a large image and cuts it up so it fits in with the google maps API. It's pretty impressive actually. There's a discussion of it here:
http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4947
Finally, a forum member called Redrobes over on the CG has his own map viewer called viewingdale that does a lot of this sort of stuff. Hope that helps! |
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