Curious about something...

[Jarvin]

I really love the style of the maps on pgs. 199 and 206 of the new D&D 4th Edition Dungeon Masters Guide. What I'm very curious about is; a) how, specifically, they were created and b) what kind of tools would I need to create similar maps?

Thanks in advance!

[NeonKnight]

I'll see what I can do to create a similar look in CC3 and post up my results. (Probably in a day or two).

[Jarvin]

Thanks, NeonKnight, really looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

[ravells]

I don't have the GM's guide but had a quick look at one in the bookshop today. The map styles don't look that difficult to recreate. I would guess they were probably done in Photoshop or Gimp. You could probably also use a reasonable vector drawing program to create them as well, such as inkscape, Xara or Drawplus.

The key would be to find similar textures, and there are a lot of stone like textures out there on the web which are near enough.

Cheers

Ravs

[torstan]

My guess would be that these were done in photoshop with a graphics tablet. Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/) is free and will do most of the things that photoshop can do. Graphics tablet (best to stick to the Wacom ranges) are best picked up 2nd hand on eBay.

It seems that the main shapes were possibly drawn out in Illustrator, or with paths in photoshop to give the layout and the houses were dropped in as premade shapes. Then the terrain lines - cliffs, hills and so on - drawn in by hand. Finally the colours would be applied with some overall highlighting and shading work. The whole image is then laid on top of a photo of a piece of rock, that provides the border.

Well, that's my guess, and that's the process I have followed when doing my own maps which are definitely influenced by this style of map.

[ravells]

Ah, I was looking at the dungeon maps at about page 200. My bad!

[NeonKnight]

Ahhh, ok I looked at the DMG, and the map on 199 is the town of Fallcrest, and the map on 206 is the overland area.

I could make something similar to these in CC3, but it would be a lot harder to do. Might even require some after work in GIMP or photoshop.

I too was thinking of the dungeon map itself.

Sorry.