New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[Juggernaut1981]

As I mentioned in my September Challenge entry, when I do my maps I use a combination of AutoREALM (probably Vector?) and GIMP with a tablet laptop (Fujitsu Lifebook T Series)

Generally the process is:

#1 Stick in all the big features (land, rivers, etc)
#2 Export into JPGs the icons available in AutoREALM (because I don't know how to export the individual icons in AutoREALM so I could use them as brushes in GIMP)
#3 Build a number of layers in GIMP to deal with the different sections of the map (oceans, landscape, roads, structures, map-notes/labels)
#4 Tweak around by inserting layers and fidgeting with their interplay to get the effects I want. Fidget with colouring,etc.

[mearrin69]

Hi all,
I'm pretty new to making maps - been doing some of the tutorials here over the past week or so - but I'm not totally new to graphics software.

Specific to mapping, I have purchased (but barely used) Dundjinni, Fractal Mapper, and Astrosynthesis (I guess that sort of counts). I use Fireworks for web work but like the way it functions so I've used that quite a bit as a GM for making and editing images to use in-game...and I've also made a couple of maps with it. I also have Photoshop and Illustrator (not current versions) but I've never used them for mapping until recently (using PS for tutorials found here). I have a very old version of Painter but haven't used it for mapping either...not sure if it even *would* be useful.

Beyond 2D, I've used a number of modeling and rendering apps - ranging from Sketchup and Silo all of the way to Maya and Max. I'm tangentially involved in the 3D content creation world (as a business analyst) and have had the opportunity to use review units of a lot of this stuff and have bought quite a bit more just because it interested me. I'm considering trying out 3D to render objects for maps (buildings, trees, etc.) to see if I like the look. trueSpace 7 (now free, I think), and maybe some others, allow you to render to PSD layers and I think that'd be useful for this.

Since coming here (one week maybe) I've bumped into some new apps like Wilbur. Hoping to try these out when I get time. I downloaded and took a brief look at Wilbur but have to admit I didn't get a chance to check it out fully - looks cool though!
M