Some Help needed

[Cheshire]

Hello everyone,

I have mostly just lurked about on here and I am not half has good as many here, but I create maps for my (P&P) rpg's such as DnD, Star Wars, Gamma World and more.
Most of the time I am quite capable of making fun and good enough maps. This time I need to do something different though, a citymap and a scifi one at that.

What I want is to create maps for it that look and feel like this http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3533/...3084b401_b.jpg But I have no idea how and with what to do this. I have a drawning tablet and several programs, but nothing that allows me to "easily" create this type of maps.

Is there anyone who can help me out with this? point me in the right direction so to speak?

I'd be very thankful for any help, and I will definitly post it here if I manage to create it.

[Midgardsormr]

Something like that is going to be most easily accomplished with a vector application, such as Illustrator, Inkscape or CorelDRAW.

Learn to use the Pen tool, and possibly whatever Boolean tools are available. (In Illustrator, they're called Pathfinder tools.) A Boolean tool allows you to do things like creating a new shape based on the overlap of two existing shapes: Adding them together, keeping only the intersection, keeping everything except the intersection, etc.

Learn how to apply gradients and play with opacity/transparency settings. Very small glows are useful for getting that luminous appearance.

[Ascension]

I'd start this sort of map by getting out a deck of cards and then scatter them on the floor. Do some basic arrangement then draw the shapes on paper with pencil and add connecting tunnels wherever I wanted them. The image background seems to show many levels below this main level so do up a few different drawings of scattered cards then scan them in and put the best one on top. The rest is just layer styles, blend modes, and color tweaks.

[ramseyhong]

Out of curiosity, what programs do you have? Perhaps if you list them people can give you more specific suggestions on how to accomplish this style of map.

[Cheshire]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

I have Inkscape, Photoshop and Gimp. So I suppose Inkscape would be the best to create this in then if I need to use vector graphics?

The card idea sound like a fun one. Yes the map does have several layers portraying the levels of streets and buildings. And that is definitly something I want.