Nola RPG (Big Easy Table Top RPGs - New Orleans Roleplaying D&D D20 GURPS)

Nola RPG (Big Easy Table Top RPGs - New Orleans Roleplaying D&D D20 GURPS)
http://nolarpg.com/cgi-bin/NolaRPG/YaBB.pl New Orleans Roleplaying Connection >> General Board >> Makin' Maps http://nolarpg.com/cgi-bin/NolaRPG/YaBB.pl?num=1273689669 Message started by beyonder on May 12^th, 2010 at 7:41pm

Title: Makin' Maps
Post by beyonder on May 12^th, 2010 at 7:41pm

I need to make some maps for a game I'm starting. I found AutoREALM which looks useful, but the maps themselves are kind of ugly. I also found Campaign Cartographer, but I don't feel like paying the money.

Wat do? Suggestions?

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by hewhorocks on May 12^th, 2010 at 11:03pm

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!! You need to

Not as pretty as some but functional and free. The paid version is a little better but even the free one works

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by Red Priest on May 16^th, 2010 at 5:09am

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!! You need to

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by hewhorocks on May 16^th, 2010 at 6:19pm

Priest, I had you pegged for a hex paper guy...learn something new everyday. ;)

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by Red Priest on May 17^th, 2010 at 2:17am

LOL.. you were actually spot on, but I couldn't find a good image of a hex paper.

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by Red Priest on May 17^th, 2010 at 2:22am

My suggestion, however, was only half tongue-in-cheek. After using CC for awhile, I went back to hand drawn maps, and discovered I actually get more enjoyment that way. Sometimes I use color pencils, but mostly, I stick with simple line drawings.

I'm not knocking CG maps, some of them look pretty good, but there's just more visceral appeal to using pencil and paper for me these days.

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by hewhorocks on May 17^th, 2010 at 2:38pm

Hand drawn maps are good fun but have historically suffered from soda spills, cat attacks, and various other calamities. I like CC because it allows for easy replication, easy rescaling (to add more detail or zoom out) and i can email my self a copy so I always have access..even in the even of a 20ft high wall of water and debris crashing into my house...

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by beyonder on May 17^th, 2010 at 3:11pm

Priest: I ended up just busting out the graph paper. I took a look at Campaign Cartographer and found the art to be too slick-looking. I tried another app, AutoREALM, which was free but was a tremendous pain in the ass to use and the art was terrible. It was also just generally clunky. Interesting note: Apparently AutoREALM was written in Delphi using TurboPascal. Weird, right? I mean, who are these people?

All I want is something that allows me to quickly throw something together without it looking terrible. It'd also be nice to have click-able annotations. I'd write one myself if I wasn't so lazy.

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by Red Priest on May 20^th, 2010 at 5:21am

hewhorocks wrote on May 17^th, 2010 at 2:38pm:

Hand drawn maps are good fun but have historically suffered from soda spills, cat attacks, and various other calamities.

Ahhhh .. that's called character. 8-)

Title: Re: Makin' Maps
Post by hewhorocks on May 20^th, 2010 at 11:18pm

Well the nice thing about software created maps is no degrading of the source material due to character and personalized reproductions/ modifications are quick to do.