Lost and Confused - An Introduction of Me

[BTass]

First off, hello everyone!

I've been playing a few campaigns in a friends world for the past year. So far all we have are a few hand drawn maps, and they are not the best as none of are very artistic, (all of us are master's students in Chemistry or Env. Science.) However, we do have an odd attention for detail that I would love to capture in some maps. Just to give you an idea: one of these campaigns is a political power struggle for the city and thus it should have extreme detail with hundreds of building blueprints and NPCs.

My questions include:

As a beginner with 0 experience:

1. What program(s) should I look into?
I've looked into Campaign Cartographer 3, Dungeon Designer, and City Designer suite (looks promising... maybe?)
GIS is used heavily in my major, however my experience with it looks to show this would be very poor in what I have in mind.

2. Where can I find those tutorials?
CD3 looks to be difficult to find tutorials for.

3. What kind of time frame am I looking at investing in a general vs a detailed map of a large city/dungeon?
I'm perfectly fine with say 6-8 hrs on something general and up to 30-40 hrs on something I want to show a ton of detail, (main city the campaign takes place)

I also have 0 experience with PS and any other programs, however my girlfriend is a graphic designer and may be able to decipher some of your instructions.

Thank you for your time and helping out someone looking to learn the craft,

BTass

[Chick]

Hi BTass, welcome to the Guild!