Help Choosing a Program

[jqavins]

I know you get this sort of question all the time, and I've tried looking at old posts but I am still at sea. So I'll try to ask it differently.

I've just registered in order to ask about a good choice of a program for me. I've read the sticky threads on the subject ("New to Digital Csrtography..." and "List of Mapping Software") but they haven't really helped me. I appreciate the descriptions of different programs, their strengths and weeknesses, yet I'm still not finding the advice I'd like.

I'll start by tellig you about myself and what I want. I want a program that will help me make maps for an RPG campaign world, but it's not the mapping that really interests me; the map making is a necessary part of the world building. I want to do it well, I'm willing to put in the work to do it well, but I'd rather not have to become a real expert.

My dream program is described here, though I know I'm not likely to find it; I will settle for as close as I can get. Do any programs have this combination of manual entry where one wants it and guided random generation elsewhere, even to some extent?

Realistic shorelines, rivers, mountains, etc. are really important to me, so one of the fractal programs is probably best. (I tried AutoRealm a few years ago but found the fractl feature great and the rest difficult and tedious.) Hand drawaing is out of the question, as my hand drawings are no better than the average kindergardener's. I am decently good at drawing highly geometric figures witn MS Visio; if I could get fractle borders in Visio I might just go with that, at least for a trial run. Obviously, this points to a vector type, and maybe a CAD type; if CAD is going to be best for me then CC is the only choice. Should I stop right there and get CC? Does CC do the fractal stuff?

Another important feature is the ability to handle world/continent level stuff then zoom in to city level and in to dungeon level seamlessly. Again, I know CC has this; do any of the others?

If I can answer anything else about my desires and abilities, please go ahead and ask. Knowing my needs and desires, which program(s) would you recommend, or recommend that I give a try?

Update: OK, I've looked again at the ProFantasy website, and I see that yes, they do have "the fractal stuff," but it's a separate product from the basic CC, as are City Designer and Dungeon Designer. (Which you all knew, of course.) While CC itself is $44.95, which is quite affordable, CC + Fractal Terrain + City Designer + Dungeon Designer is $130. Ouch! I could spend that, but not without being pretty darn sure it will suit my needs.

[Revock]

I personally don't think you're going to get that level without putting out cash, here's my 2 cents for a height map generator, with which you'll likely save steps in some tuts on the site http://www.bundysoft.com/docs/doku.php?id=l3dt:gallery It's mainly for 3-d but if memory serves it also can export the height map. Don't be afraid of trying the tutorials, the guys who are good at this always answered my questions here, and gave encouragement and advice, plus remember as far as autorealm goes, you can export that shape you liked, do an Ascension or Eriond style map of it and then import that map into Autorealm, I've done it, it just gets alittle irritating with how autorealm does it's map-view exports but, once you do then it zooms etc. ok, at least to my satisfaction.

I always liked Autorealm because the fractal land shapes scaled nicely at various zoom levels, while the paid program i happened to buy,,,Fractal Mapper8 didn't do that as well, can't speak to Profantasy software on that aspect.

[johnvanvliet]

for right now , i would stick with the opensource GPL'ed software or the CLOSED source but FREE programs

"The Gimp "
it is a free opensource photo editor
and
"Wilbur "
a fractal terrain program

then spend cash
but at $30 to $500+ a pop the price adds up

[Deadshade]

What you describe looks to 90% like a combination of Wilbur+Fractal Terrain.

Fractal Terrain is great at generating easily planet sized random maps with specified % and size of continents. You can easily edit climates (temperatures and precipitations) and apply reasonable textures that show biomes corresponding to climates.
The Add on terraformer is great for textures.
The weakness of FT is that you can't really prescribe mountains and editing height fields is a chore if it gives satisfatory results at all. It has an easy river creating function but not really editable either.

Now these weaknesses are strengths of Wilbur. Wilbur is not great at wholesale world creations but has so many editing and eroding options and fractal field parametrisations that you'll need weeks to only get an overview.
Wilbur also easily imports and exports al possible file formats.
The weakness is texturing which is non existing for all practical purposes.

So a work flow that allows to do practically everything you describe is to generate a world in FT, then import it to Wilbur for eroding, mountain editing and finalising the height field.
Then you reimport in FT for editing climates (if necessary) and texturing.

Last you must use something like GIMP or Inkscape for labelling, cartouches, compasses aand such and eventually fine tuning of the textures.

[Lewellyn]

Ah great, that was exactly what I was looking for.
It's not my thread, I know, but thanks for the advise anyway, Deadshade & johnvanvliet..