Welcome Aboard!
Be sure to check out the tutorials forum, plenty of great stuff in there to help you get started.
I stumbled upon this wonderful site while I was looking online for a better alternative to using dungeon tiles (my group has no where near the amount or variety we need for the dungeons). I was extremely impressed by the level of detail of the maps on this site and hoped to learn more. It is a pleasure to meet you all!
I just downloaded Gimp and Inkscape and have never used any kind of art program before, so this will be an interesting experience for me
Welcome Aboard!
Be sure to check out the tutorials forum, plenty of great stuff in there to help you get started.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Don't get jaded too quickly about learning new software like I do. Play with it, learn with it, treat it like a new video game. Try the tutorials and you'll at least be comfortable with them. Welcome and have fun.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Welcome to the guild!
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Welcome to the Guild!
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Also, don't feel bad if you can't follow the tutorials too well at the start. I was still learning the software myself and kept going off the tracks but, I learned every time. You might just find a new way to do something if you "screw up" and if nothing else, you will learn what not to do next time
Just have fun with it.
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
Thanks for the warm welcome everyone
And to Ascension and Jaxilon, your advice is really appreciated. I'll take some time to explore the programs and make sure I'm comfortable with them before I settle down for some map making.
While I aggree with the need to tinker with the progs to get comfortable, I don't think you need to be comfortable to start mapping. I think the best way to get comfortable to to try following the tuts and see what you get and then tinker. This way you learn the prog as you go and what the various changed actually do.
For Gimp, I cannot recommend RobA's tut on creating regional maps enough, and you can find it here. There are many others to walk through but this one has soooo much stuff that it teaches you about Gimp. The style may or may not be what you are looking for, but that is where the tweeking comes in.
Have fun, and post your work as soon as you have something to show. It need not be complete either. The WIP threads are a great place to get over any bumps you find along the road to great mapping.
Art Critic = Someone with the Eye of an Artist, Words of a Bard, and the Talent of a Rock.
Please take my critiques as someone who Wishes he had the Talent
Care to share any maps made with your tilesets? What software did you use?
-Rob A>
My tutorials: Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional Map ~ All My Tutorials
My GIMP Scripts: Rotating Brush ~ Gradient from Image ~ Mosaic Tile Helper ~ Random Density Map ~ Subterranean Map Prettier ~ Tapered Stroke Path ~ Random Rotate Floating Layer ~ Batch Image to Pattern ~ Better Seamless Tiles ~ Tile Shuffle ~ Scale Pattern ~ Grid of Guides ~ Fractalize path ~ Label Points
My Maps: Finished Maps ~ Challenge Entries ~ My Portfolio: www.cartocopia.com