Good Morning All

[Arkon]

Just following the advice after registering and making a post to introduce myself. I have been an avid player of D&D for the past 25 years, but up until now, I have yet to DM/GM my own campaign. A long running campaign I am in is wrapping up and I am nervously contemplating running my own set of adventures. I discovered Cartographers Guild in my search for map building software/tutorials/advice. Sadly my artistic skills are somewhere between nill and none so it is an uphill climb. I can picture everything in my mind, but getting it onto "paper" has been challenging. I am trying to design my campaign by first creating the world/setting and then populating it with plot hooks.

Looking forward to reading through the tutorials on the site.

[Veldehar]

Welcome to the guild!

There are certainly a pile of tools out there these days for the artistically challenged, such as myself, LOL. Much depends on whether you are looking for merely functional or beautiful or a combination thereof. If you have access to Photoshop, as complex as it is, the tutorials here will get you making passable maps pretty quickly. Same goes for GIMP, which is free. Campaign Cartographer is a great resource that doesn't typically get as beautiful as Photoshop-style maps, but it is relatively quick and easy to whip out maps. It has a bit of learning curve, but most things do.

Anyhow, have fun! and beware, cartography can be addictive... just like GMing.

[Arkon]

Thanks for the welcome Veldehar. I unfortunately don't have access to Photoshop, and my goodness GIMP had my head spinning just looking at it. I looked in to Hexographer as a possible easy entry point and also looked at Campaign Cartographer. Will have to watch some tutorials on Photoshop/GIMP and see if I can't get past the learning curve.

[Gidde]

Welcome to the Guild! I found Gimp pretty intimidating at first too. But working through RobA's great beginning tutorial (it's in the quick-start sticky in the tutorial forum) helped a lot in getting over the initial bewilderment. Keep at it and you'll be comfy in no time

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Arkon. Yeah, I'm another GIMP user who was at first intimidated by the program as well. But for me, it was working through "Gidde's" GIMP translation of an Atlas style tutorial (originally written for Photoshop by Ascension) that helped me make it past the learning curve. So don't feel intimidated, you are in good company.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh