New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[Skaryn]

I am fairly new to cartography in general, so when I initially did some googling, I found dunjdinni and campaign cartographer 3. I am a programmer by trade, this means by law my art skills are horrible I will admit I am intrigued by the realistic maps I have seen done in PS, I will probably give those a whirl here soon.

For my maps to be used in my Persistent Browser Based Game (PBBG) I am developing, I will use Dunjdinni and Bryce, with Photoshop for some touchup for the maps the characters can move around on. I recently sorted out 10 gbs of art to be used in dunjdinni, but the world/continental/goverment maps needs to be completed in CC3 first. If a player wants to see their location in the world, or region, the CC3 maps I am building will work fine.

[Mark Oliva]

This poll is a bit whacky in categorizing Dundjinni, CC3, etc. as vector programs. Dundjinni isn't a vector program at all. CC2 was a pure vector program, but CC3 let's one do raster, vector or a combination of both. The same is true of Fractal Mapper 8.

[ravells]

Sadly there doesn't seem to be a way to edit the poll.

[Quillz]

I use Adobe Illustrator CS4 whenever possible, as I prefer to generate my drawings in a vector format, rather than raster.

[jerriecan]

I use Adobe Photoshop CS - I've tried some others, but PS is what I have the most experience with.

Jerriecan

[Tom_Cardin]

Ok lets see here. I really lean on 3D Studio Max heavily to do everything from vector lines to shapes and shading, you name it, I do it in there. Then I take what I have rendered into Photoshop and do the main compositing of elements, close up pixel work and color overlaying.

I use illustrator as well in the same capacity as Max, though not as much...most often when the art is going to have to get very large or is going to be printed at multiple sizes, honestly I have more control over the vector lines in Max though.

I also use both a mouse and a wacom cintique...mouse everywhere that I just have to move something, navigate, transform etc. But when I have to get down a natural line or push pixels I am using my stylus. Nothing has improved my workflow more than the Cintique.

I am a professional artist anything that improves production and workflow is really desireable.

Cartography is a long time hobby of mine but only recently has it come to the computer. I have drawn maps for Dungeons and Dragons since the early 80's and before that I had a keen interest in geography and cartography in school. At 15 I navigated a family trip across country using a good old Rand Mcnally road atlas...we only got lost once, when my Mom followed the instructions of a truck driver outside of Pittsburgh.

As much as I love creating art on the computer, I am still sketching and drawing all the time as well. Many of the maps I have for D&D are quick sketches so that players had a basic understanding of the layout. It is going to be fun to take some of those and really bring them up to finished quality on the computer.

[Elothan]

Well, since I got a bit more involved in mapmaking since I first answered the poll, I guess I´ll have to list a bit of the software i use.

Nowadays I mostly play around with CC3, tryng to learn it, and unlocking the power inherent in it, but I still rely on Raster software like GIMP for some things in post-CC .
The software I use is more dependent on what type of map I am (attempting) to make, so I change software pretty frequently (always up for new suggestions).
But my most Important tool is my Wacom drawing tablet, giving me a lot more precision than a mouse.

[Redrobes]

Try Dundjinni under Wine for Ubuntu. I was really surprised with how much works with it. Since Dundjinni is all GDI based it really ought to work real well. Cant think of a reason why it wouldnt.

[Flawedspirit]

I currently use Photoshop CS3, sometimes in conjunction with hand-scanned images. But when I make my maps, I usually just keep the ideas in my head and invent on the fly.

[Mercutio]

Started with Paint, then Microsoft PowerPoint (yes, really), and then found AutoRealm, which I only used a couple times and just didn't like. Got turned on to Dundjinni 5 or 6 years ago and used that exclusively for a couple years, then started to do post-Dundjinni work in GIMP (which I initially used just for photo retouching), and now use GIMP almost exclusively.

I used to use a mouse. Then I got a Bamboo Fun for Christmas, which I used for almost a year before my toddler got a hold of the pen and broke it. Desktop's in storage, so I'm relegated to my netbook (temporary housing necessity) and the touchpad, which sucks, or a mouse if I can swipe my wife's from time to time. I will gladly purchase another Bamboo when I can scrape the money together.