Miscellaneous Quick Tutorials

[arsheesh]

Hi all. So this will be old hat to more experienced members, but for those just starting out, below is a quick walk-through of how to make curved labels using Inkscape. Though there is a way to accomplish this in GIMP, there are a few advantage of using Inkscape. First as a vector program you are capable of non-destructive editing. If you later want to go back and change any of the label names you can easily do so while preserving the original paths. Second, I've found that Inkscape produces a cleaner looking result than GIMP, which tends to cause text to become pixalated after any transformations are made to it. Third, you have more control over path placement in Inkscape than GIMP. One thing to note however is that if you intend to export the labels to over to another program (such as GIMP or PS) you must first hide all layers in Inkscape except the one your labels are on and export only that layer.

Also, I'm just starting up a blog about fantasy cartography and game design and I'll be including this and related tutorials in it. So if you like what you've seen so far, come check out what I'm doing over at ars phantasia.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh