Hand drawn

[allie]

Hi I have just joined this community and am new to computer mapping. I usually hand draw things. Can anybody suggest a basic program to help me begin please?

[Galendae]

Welcome! I would recommend Photoshop. Steep learning curve, but the benefits are amazing. GIMP is popular here, plus it is free. Either program should be good.

[allie]

Thankyou that very helpful and I appreciate the feedback

[Cuin]

Hey allie,

Any reason you want to switch from hand drawn to digital?

[allie]

The challenge of somethiing knew I think although I find handdrawn very satisfying

[jbgibson]

Two general kinds of graphics software - raster and vector. Photoshop, Gimp, PhotoPlus all are raster apps: among other things you'll see them pitched for manipulating photos. Vector programs make line work which is scale-independent -- bigger or smaller you won't get resizing artifacts. If you're used to hand drawing that's a separate issue - your input can be via a graphics tablet and pen for either type of app. The leading vector programs include Illustrator ($$) and its approximate equal Inkscape (free), DrawPlus, CorelDraw, and Xara Designer. There's a lot of overlap in what you can accomplish with raster vs. vector. If you read through the work-in-progress threads of some CG maps you like, you'll gain an idea which direction you may want to go first.

Mind you, many of us use both on a given map- I'll use PhotoPlus for most features then add text-on-curve labels with Inkscape.

Another consideration you'll run into is generated elements vs. drawn ones-- there's some really nice tools like FractalTerrains that will generate some nice intricate topology for you, to be elaborated on as-is or edited right in FT to suit your aesthetic desires best. Other helpful tools are Wilbur, which does a killer job of simulating erosion, and TreeThing which helps scatter discrete symbols across areas, without the mind numbing process of drawing a thousand trees :-).

Take a look in the tutorials forum for a stickied thread on basics of fantasy mapping (among a hundred other juicy topics). Can you tell us what sort of maps you want to draw? What led you to the Guild?

[allie]

I found you always had the answer to the questions I was asking myself so I thought join - it just seemed right