Upgraded Mac, Software Issues - GIMP, KRITA & CC3+

[damonjynx]

Hi,

I finally retired my 13 year old Mac and bought a new flashy one to use Roll20, Discord and whatever. Unfortunately, I had Adobe CS4 on the old computer and really liked it but that is 32-bit and the new OS is 64-bit and therefore it doesn't work. I certainly can't afford and have no intention of buying an Adobe subscription.

I downloaded GIMP and the performance is terrible, I have no idea why. There is just an insane amount of lag between my input and the actions on the screen and it is really a poor imitation of Ps. I can forgive somethings as it's free but it drives me insane. Is there a solution?

I've also downloaded Krita which has 0 performance issues in comparison to GIMP. Yet to play with that properly but it looks Ok so far.

Humble Bundle have a great deal on CC3+ $51AUD for CC3+ lifetime license, City Designer, Dungeon Designer and a heap of other content. From what I''ve seen of some sample maps, they look similar, more polished without question, to those created in Dundjinni. But alas, that s Windows only, which means I have to create a Boot Camp partition and load Windows to run it.

I'm at a loss. I want to start creating content, mainly scenarios/modules/adventures, call them what you will, specifically for Roll20 but have no idea of which would be best? Any suggestions?

[Falconius]

Kirta is a very good program. I've been using Paint Studio Paint Ex which you can usually find on sale, and which is not a subscription, it's very pleasant to use and has lots of resources available. They offer a three month trail and a cheaper version as well. That said, I think you should just use Krita a bit more and get deeper into it, to see whether or not you like it. For map specific programs I think you may just have to break down and use a windows partition, that Humble Bumble deal sounds like it might be worth while.

[garyg]

CC3+ will also run on wine, which I believe works on Macs. There's no need for a separate partition or Windows license. And the ProFantasy support is great!

[Tiana]

I would not get the CC3 bundle, having purchased it myself. It is much too convoluted for the limited quality of maps you can make and with the double whammy of being on Mac, not even worth it to you at all when there are similar cost mapping specific programs that you CAN use. If you want to do stamp maps, get Other World Mapper for Mac and don't fuss with the partition. The Mac version is almost identical to the Windows version and a very usable mapping program, while it does not have all the raster editing I want to do with a map for what you describe wanting to do you'll probably find it perfect. Krita fans tend to be very enthusiastic without having a proper realization of its limits, including when I used it, one excruciating limitation which made it unusable for me for anything other than its spectacular paint simulation brushes which I use to make some textures: no "alt/clover becomes the color picker, picks a color, and then goes away" function. It's free. It's limited. You would have to use other programs to get a good map result. Without that eyedropper in and out, digital painting becomes a slog. Maybe they've added it since I used it but that's why I only used it a couple of days and then was like "yeah... I got what I paid for... this is great for a 14 year old but not for a pro"... so now, I use Clip Studio Paint which is good for both Mac and Windows and last I looked, 50% off right now. It is also imperfect. You can only really do comic book text bubbles with it and no other text work.

No program does it all for me... the closest to "does it all" is Adobe, which of course is a subscription package and a hefty learning curve. CC3 has a learning curve and does not do it all. It does 1 specific limited style per pack of assets you get. If you love CC3 maps, then get it and learn it. I don't love CC3 maps. I have found only one tool that impresses me in that package, which is the city block dropper tool, which lets you click a beginning and end point and automatically populates it with any houses in your stream of houses. Um YES PLEASE but can I have that in OWM, where I have confidence the creators are actually listening to my pleas for more and better tools, and not in this nightmare program seemingly from 20 years ago.

Oh yeah if you like free, Photopea is in browser, so it's good for all systems, and it's a Photoshop clone with of course much less functionality, but perfectly good for those basic needs like "I made a drawing of a map in Krita but now I want to put text on it with a stroke around that text and a glow around that text". I've recommended it many times, for what it does it's an excellent tool for beginning artists in many fields. Plus if you get used to it, you'll transition well to Photoshop, the industry standard beloved by many map artists (but not me, because I don't like subscription fees. I just acknowledge it is quite a good map making program for many!)

[Mark Oliva]

Tiana's is a pretty good analysis that cuts through advertising and fan-user fog to put things into a good perspective. For what it's worth, I have CC3+ with most of the add-ons, FM8 and FM9 Beta, OWM and the GIMP. The one place where I would take exception to your conclusions is with OWM ... a program that I rate highly ... but one that is vector-oriented and somewhat weak with raster cartography, which appears to be what the majority of users here prefer.

Servus,

[waldronate]

Believe me, the CC3+ developers are listening. Change is slow when you're trying not to break many years of backwards compatibility.

[Tiana]

I agree OWM is weak with raster cartography, and I have been in contact with them several times to request more raster features. I want to hand draw mountains, so I end up just exporting my landmass, drawing over top of it, and then exporting my lineart as a png into the features folder, then repositioning the pieces in OWM which is definitely convoluted. (Or if the land/water is approved I just save it in Clip). I want to do the quintessential texture sandwich, which has to be done in Clip. Some of my requests have made it into the program which is why I hold them in high esteem and recommend the program. I expect that given a decade of work everything they feel is possible that I've asked for will eventually be there, as long as it suits their vision. Of course, I also expect that it'll take ages. Their team is only one or two people as far as I've noticed. I expect the same is true of ProFantasy and similarly have no expectations of speedy changes, but slow evolution over the course of years as they implement what they have the ability to within their framework. But yes, while I recommend it as a basic mapper program, there are many things I like to do that are simply impossible in that program, and likely any mapping specific time saving program. I will be honest: to get a result I'm happy with, I have to use 2+ programs and it's definitely convoluted. However, if one of my clients asks me to change the shape of the landmass 6 steps into the design on a raster program, I have to rip apart the whole thing. I have saved hours since I included OWM in my workflow, and it's always come up when someone says "sorry but can you make the north just a bit taller and remove that island off the western coast and add a little bit of a cove there instead?"

CC3 is vector mapping only, as far as I can tell. Now I'm sure they are indeed listening, and yes, change is slow in all programs because programming is hard, and old fans want things that new artists turn up their noses at because they're used to Illustrator CC and nothing else will do... I'm not judging them for any speed of implementation. They were cutting edge once and if you don't have an Adobe sized budget things don't change at an Adobe rate, and even their programs are slow to evolve for the better and full of complicated clunk making several of them notoriously hard to learn. And they're an improvement from what came before for desktop publishing...

Now, for someone who doesn't draw or do digital art already, I think CC3 is a highly promising choice, the most amount of assets available for it... far more and better assets than OWM comes with by default... but with no way to integrate my large base of raster resources and constant confusion, it just frustrates me very quickly. Except for the city block tool. Damn... that's a brilliant tool... I honestly think that tool alone IS worth the whole humble bundle fee I paid. If you have no preconceptions of workflow, it's probably a good choice. You can, with nothing more than that humble bundle, just make a good looking map. Wonderdraft is also spoken well of but I can't say I've tried it yet. Same with Dungeon Fog. I hear a lot about it these days, and I think it's browser-based? Subscription based with World Anvil. The results are real pretty. I haven't tried it but I am impressed by its output. I mean, World Anvil is powerful all on its own, not enough to sway me to subscribe but I do respect what they've done and it seems like their dungeon mapper has some really unique features, it isn't fair to mention mapping specific programs and not give them a nod. Multi-level dungeons is some mad props DM organizational idea... which of course can be mimicked with layer folders in any raster image editing program. It's preloaded with many things... but you're stuck with those things. I really should give Wonderdraft a whirl. It is often well spoken of for a cheap mapper. But every Wonderdraft map looks like a Wonderdraft map so I suspect it has the same preloaded problem, where what you see is what you get. Great for speed but you better like the resultant style because that's what it looks like every time.

If they wanted to exclusively create raster maps, really any program will do! Gimp, Paint.net, Krita, Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, Photo Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Painter, Photopea, Affinity... if it has layers, and the ability to do a stroke around a shape, and the ability to put down text and the ability to customize your brushes, you're good to go. For me, layer blend modes are critical. And being able to outline your selection in some way automatically, a huge timesaver. Since most raster programs do that, people can make maps in any of them, with some strange leaps in logic every now and again compared to just drawing on paper with pencil and pen.

If they just wanted to slap down some maps for their campaign and are okay with a learning curve that's about as steep as Illustrator... not as bad as Blender... I mean, why not, CC3 is on sale for less than $50, that's peanuts for a one time program purchase, and it does have a high variety of built in stamps. I'm not mad they get some of my money, it's for a good cause and they've done a lot for the development of mapping programs over the years, we likely wouldn't see programs like OWM without the inspiration of CC3.

The program does seem to be quite featured in many places. In places it does have that slick workflow I want. Populating your world with features is so fast. It removes any of the struggle someone might have had with a village map. But then it also takes 4 clicks to get to a custom color of my choosing...

I'm probably going to give Campaign Cartographer another chance. I want to like it. I know that buried under its quirks is a reasonably powerful map program. I want to be able to use what it does well, but then, that's yet another program added into my stack... I can really see using it for quicker city assembly in the future though.

Honestly, don't let me sway you, if you want to try it... I'm not angry that the program exists, they've done a lot for the digital mapping community over the years and it wouldn't be what it is today without ProFantasy. I might feel completely differently if it were my first mapping program experience and I wasn't accustomed to how one program does it, and if I weren't primed with now almost two decades of expectations of how a digital art program experience should feel when drawing. I grew up on Paint Shop Pro. You could probably make a map with it, if you wanted. I got so used to the convoluted logic used in making maps in a raster program... I like this newfangled addition of mapping specific programs... I feel like they're great for the unskilled to just dive right in, without needing to know how to draw or master a vector program with its own convoluted logic. But, I feel like the best is still yet to come. World Creator is the first program that's truly excited me for world creation (what an apt name) but I can't in good faith recommend it to the average mapper because of how expensive it is compared to all of the other programs. I feel like its intuitive erosion is an excellent step in the direction I'd like to see more of. It simply doesn't behave as needed to make a 2D map, though, but ah, to have some of those 3d dynamic modelling procedural tools in a way that also captured the aestetic of the fantasy map and managed its assets in a reasonably organized fashion... now there's a program for someone who isn't me to make in the future. Procedural erosion, man, that's what I really love.

Since I'm rambling, I forgot, there's a fun new freebie I ran into. DungeonScrawl. It does one style of dungeon only but what a cool toy. Exports SVGs, copyright is CC0 for your results. Give that a whirl to make a basic black and white traditional hatched dungeon shape. Maybe eventually they'll add furniture and it'll actually be useful but it's a fun toy now, to make a base to customize. Have fun with that!

[Mark Oliva]

CC3 is vector mapping only, as far as I can tell.

Quite a reply! Let's start with the sentence above, because it's incorrect. CC2 and CC2 Pro were vector mapping only programs, CC2 Pro with an exception for raster backgrounds. CC3 and CC3+ can make vector and raster maps and they also do a rather respectable job with mixing vector and raster, if that's what one wants.

Part of your message is a bit problematical, because it goes back and forth between saying CC3 and CC3+, when it appears that you're using the two names to describe one and the same thing. That confuses because CC3 still has a lot of users, although it no longer is a current product. CC3+ is the successor to CC3 and the current product. Mixing the names leads to confusion for the following reason. When one says that CC3 can do this or that, but one really means CC3+, a CC3 user may say, I didn't know I can do that! How?" And afterward, he or she may indeed try to find out how, only to learn that it's one of the many new things that CC3+ can do and CC3 can't. Moral of this story: If one wants to communicate well, it's best to call things by their real names.

Before I continue, someone may wonder if I know what I'm talking about. Everyone will have to decide that for themselves, but I do have and know how to use all of the following:

Campaign Cartographer 3+ with most of the add-ons, Fractal Mapper 8, Fractal Mapper 9 Beta, Other World Mapper, Dundjinni, Map Forge, The GIMP, Paint.net and probably some other things I haven't used for a while that don't come to mind immediately. Our Vintyri™ Project has made and offers 3rd party add-ons for CC3+, FM8, Other World Mapper and Dundjinni.

Tiana's post deals very much with the type of cartography that involves making one's own mapping objects. Cartographers who work on that basis make up a substantial part of the guild's membership. Another substantial part of the membership is the group of cartographers who do not want to do their own artwork but rather are seeking a program that allows one to fill a map easily with pre-made objects from the program's maker and/or 3rd party vendors. Products like CC3+, Fractal Mapper 8, Other World Mapper, MapForge and Dundjinni do that. Products like the GIMP, Paint.net, Krita, Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, Photo Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Painter, Photopea, Affinity etc. do not. That seems to be the case here:

2. I am no digital artist. I struggle with many aspects, apart from the actual drawing, colouring and shading are my bane.

Hernan has added another interesting aside to this discussion:

I think Dundjinni-made maps tend to look better than CC3 maps, even after all these years. There are occasional exceptions, but comparing output from a typical user of each app, I think DJ maps tend to look better.

I agree with this. Most CC3/CC3+ maps ... with a few very impressive exceptions ... tend to look like CC3/CC3+ maps, which can be pretty but usually are rather unimaginative. The maps that Dundjinni users put out were ... for me ... far more impressive than most of the CC3/CC3+ output that I've seen over the years. And that opinion is, of course, by it's nature absolutely subjective. But to continue with it, I would add that the same quality assessment applies to the unofficial successor to Dundjinni, Map Forge, which can do much more than Dundjinni. Here one also should add that Hernan (user name Heruca, is the author of MapForge.

I seldom recommend for or against a specific program or group of programs because the needs and desires of individual cartographers vary greatly, and there is no program or even group of programs that I think will answer everyone's needs. I also think in discussing such things, one need look separately at cartographic programs and at graphical programs.

I would put the following into the category of cartographic programs, which I'll examine in more detail:

Campaign Cartographer 3, Fractal Mapper 8, Other World Mapper, Dundjinni and Map Forge.

I would put the following into the category of graphical programs. I don't intend to look at them in more detail because they're somewhat aside from the goal of the original poster's query:

The GIMP, Paint.net, Krita, Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, Photo Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Painter, Photopea, Affinity and many more similar applications.

It also is important for Windows users to give some thought to the question of 64- vs. 32-bit applications. Most Windows users today have 64-bit versions of Windows with two- and four-core processors, high ability graphic cards and between 8 and 64 GB of memory. Most of the cartographic programs I listed above are pitifully obsolete 32-bit versions that allow you to use only one processor core and only 4 GB of your memory. At least one of them even ignores your expensive graphic card. This obsolescence makes a growing number of problems these days for cartographers making large and complex maps who find their work crashing and/or their ability to export large scale maps inhibited by the software's inability to use the their computers' resources. Anyone looking to buy a cartographic program for more than relatively simple maps would do well to ponder how this obsolescence might affect their work.


Let's start with Other World Mapper from Three Minds Software:

I agree OWM is weak with raster cartography

That's true, but it's not what I consider to be the main weak point in OWM. For starters, OWM is the only one of the cartographic programs I listed above that is not an obsolete 32-bit application. OWM for Windows is a snappy, fast-running and relatively bug-free program that really sings most of the time and has unlimited potential. It also is available in Mac and LINUX versions. That notwithstanding, OWM has what we consider a very serious design problem in the current version 1.02 that makes it useless for mapping the Jörðgarð™ campaign setting of our Vintyri Project. OWM uses a large layering system for the various objects in a map. The program assigns various abilities and effects to some but not all layers. It also uses a default system to decide upon which layer an object will be placed. As a result, certain abilities and effects cannot be placed upon certain objects because OWM places the objects on the "wrong" layer, bringing the cartographer to a dead end. Until Three Minds Software finds its way to giving the cartographer the ability to reassign objects to a layer of his or her choice, that dead end will remain, and the program will be useless to us despite all of its great qualities. Unfortunately.


Fractal Mapper 8/Fractal Mapper 9 from NBOS Software:

Fractal Mapper is available only in a Windows version. Like almost everything else, FM8 has the problems of all 32-bit software. FM9, in comparison, is a 64-bit program that currently is in beta status. No release date for the full version has been announced yet. We have been running tests with the beta version of FM9, and it already is a clean program that runs smoothly and takes full advantage of our 64-bit computers. The 64-bit beta produces maps that FM8 is unable to read. As a result, we can use FM9 at present only for testing and not for production. However, FM9 can process FM8 maps without trouble, so an upgrade should be no problem. Both FM8 and FM9 are solid, workaday cartographic programs without the bells, whistles and steam pops that are offered with CC3+ or OWM. Like CC3+ and OWM, FM8 and FM9 can do both vector and raster mapping as well as a mix of the two. In terms of making maps, FM8 can do most but not all things that CC3+ without add-ons can do and some things that CC3+ cannot do. What FM8 can do, it can do much faster than CC3+. I have no other application on my main working PC that runs as stably as FM8. We have been using FM8 as our main mapping program at the Vintyri Project since 1996. The last time that FM8 crashed on me was several years ago with Version 8.10d. I've never had a crash with Version 8.10e or the current version 8.10f. However, for many users, FM8 and perhaps FM9 will have a serious shortcoming for some users. The sets of fill patterns and symbols - both raster and vector - that are delivered with FM8 are woefully small, and the vector graphics are antiques from a long vanished computer era. That's balanced somewhat by the fact that there are more than 10,000 high quality raster symbols and fills available in freeware packages, and if one is careful to comply with ProFantasy's restrictions on object embedding, one also can use all of the many CC3+ symbol sets in FM8 and FM9.


Dundjinni from Dundjinni Enterprises

Dundjinni long was the great legend among RPG cartographic programs, available for Windows and Macs. It no longer is a current program. It still does have a large body of users. But its obsolescence goes far beyond its being a 32-bit application. It is very difficult to get it to run under Windows 10. In its day, it was THE program for mapping dungeons and battlemaps. Dundjinni users, as Hernan remarked above, regularly produce dungeon and battlemaps far superior to most of those made by CC3+ users, and that applies just as well to users of OWM and FM8. The last update of Dundjinni was released 14 years ago. The program is an antique. MapForge generally is seen as the up-to-date successor to Dundjinni.


Map Forge from Battleground Games

When it comes to making dungeon and battlemaps, no other cartographic program comes within a country mile of MapForge. It does everything Dundjinni did and much more. One hardly could imagine a dungeon designer's tool that isn't included in MapForge. The graphics delivered with CC3+, FM8 and OWM look like refugees from 1930s Disney cartoons in comparison to those delivered with MapForge. However, there are downsides for some cartographers. There is no 64-bit version. The wonders of MapForge dwindle quickly when one tries to make larger villages, cities or overland maps. The MapForge domain, like that of Dundjinni before it, reaches its borders when it tries to go beyond dungeon and battlemap cartography. And MapForge needs to be outfitted with art packs. Map-making is limited if one uses only the art packs delivered with MapForge. Art packs come at a price, making MapForge a potentially expensive program in the long-run. One can import one's third-party PNG graphics collections into MapForge, but one loses with them the advantages that art packs offer.

Campaign Cartographer 3+ from ProFantasy Software

In a sense, I've saved the best and the worst for the last. Let us see if that's the case, before CC3+ users start the weeping, moaning and gnashing of teeth. Let's begin with the best part. CC3+ alone is an excellent program for making overland maps. With add-ons it becomes an excellent program for dungeon, village and city maps as well as for battlemaps. It has an incredible amount of tools available for every purpose that do glorious and wondrous things. In these respects, only MapForge can outshine it, and then only on dungeon and battlemap level. No one has better support services than ProFantasy. In most respects, CC3+ is an excellent program. But what about the worst? CC3+ has all of the disadvantages of 32-Bit software, and it ignores the graphic card. For some time, ProFantasy has mentioned vaguely a future 64-bit CC4, but to date it's been only vaporware. CC3+ has been around for several years, but a relatively clean-running version, like those of MapForge, FM8 and OWM, continues to elude ProFantasy, although the program already is on it 25th patch. To be fair, some of those patches were released to improve or expand the program rather than fix it. A lot of users have a lot of problems with CC3+ and its add-ons. I'm not going to make my own arguments or contentions here to support that appraisal. Instead, I'll recommend that anyone who doubts these conclusions go to the ProFantasy Community Forum at http://forum.profantasy.com/ to read the last year's worth of postings. There users will tell the story for themselves. You'll find nothing to compare with this plethora of problem postings on the ProFantasy forum at the OWM, NBOS or MapForge forums. But that brings us back to the "best" again. You'll find little anywhere that compares with ProFantasy's excellent support services for customers who have such problems.

So ... at the start of all of this, damonjynx wanted suggestions. They're difficult to make. But the above might help a bit.

Happy weekend. Servus,

[heruca]

MapForge does everything Dundjinni did and much more.

This will hopefully be true soon, once MapForge has drawing tools (in v1.2). Not long, now! That should add a lot of flexibility that's currently missing.

[Tiana]

Moral of this story: If one wants to communicate well, it's best to call things by their real names.

Yes, Mark, I am inept. -_- I do enough of a job reminding myself of that without your help, so because of this specific comment, I am done with this thread and providing my thoughts on workflow on Mac. If someone else wants to hear from me on the topic you can PM me.