Hello Guild Members

[Paul76]

Hello,

I have zero knowledge or skills in regards to building maps. I understand I am here for different reasons, so I will cut to the chase. I am a map freak and love the past hour that I have spent on this site, but I am here to find or create an empty world and place my D&D campaign in it.

I don't know if that is even an acceptable thing to say and if the very idea of this is offensive to the community I will leave immediately.

I understand that people might be here to make a living or maybe people are here because they like to build maps. I would be interested in either learning how to build my own maps or using what the community has built. If the later is not an acceptable proposition then can someone please point me in the right direction?

[Chick]

Hello Paul, Welcome to the Guild!

None us were born knowing how to draw nice maps, so if you want to give it a try yourself, there is a great tutorial in the sticky section of Tutorials, called Quickstart Guide to Fantasy Mapping: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4276

From there, go to Hand Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=10655

Once you have completed those two tutorials, you'll be well on your way!!

[Chashio]

Hello Paul, it's nice to have you on board--and I hope that you do decide to take up mapping at some point, as it's a lot of fun--but to your other question... There are some people on here who will allow such use of their work, you just have to look around or ask people directly if it's not clearly stated in the info. Many people have also created ready-made blank maps for just such occasions and make them available for a small fee on sites like DriveThruRPG, etc. You might find some links to some in the News threads (link). If that fails though, there is also a great sub-forum on here where you can request maps (link). If you tell people what you're looking for (and there is a sticky thread at the top of the linked page for good info to provide in your post) you may get lucky with a pre-made map, but there are always people looking to build their portfolios and if you define the type of world and terrain you're after then someone might design a new map with those parameters and let you use it.

[Paul76]

Thanks Chick for the help. Last night I started using the tutorial and ran into a problem at the beginning of the section called "Roughing in Terrain". It says "Grab the paintbrush tool ( ) and change to the fuzzy circle 19 brush, and then scale it all the way up to 10 so we have a nice, big round brush. Use a color that says “mountain” to you (it won't be in our final, so it can be fuschia if it makes you happy, but don't use black, white or gray)."

So to this point the tutorial helps idiots like me, but Gimp does not have a "fuzzy circle 19 brush" it is not listen anywhere in the tools. I just picked one and adjusted the are of impact to be small. The part that killed me was that doesn't tell you how to select a color. I tried using common sense but no matter what I clicked on to give my brush color it just brushed in black. The tutorial says "but don't use black, white or gray". So I got frustrated and gave up... without saving I might add.

To this point I was having a blast. If you don't mind maybe continuing this conversation or perhaps tagging some of your pals so that they can see it.

[Paul76]

Thanks Chashio for the warm welcome. I am determined to learn this skill, and I will be needing help. Its good to see that on day one I have people offering their input and advice.

[Chick]

Unfortunately, I'm not a GIMP user, I use Photoshop, so I'm not sure of the details, but I can tell you this....

1. Fuzzy circle 19 brush means to choose a circular brush which you then adjust the size to what you want in pixels and the fuzziness to soft. I just don't know precisely where to do that in GIMP, but I am sure it's not too hard to find as it is a very common action.

2. Same with selecting a color, I'm sure there's a color palate somewhere nearby, so maybe a quick Help or web search will tell you.

Also, there a tons of people on here using GIMP, so try posting your map and question in the WIP thread, I guarantee you'll get help (Edit: Oops, I see you already did that, good )

And don't get frustrated ... no one here was born knowing how to do this

[Paul76]

Thanks again Chick, I will get back to later tonight. It wasn't a difficult thing to ask me to do. That's probably why I was so frustrated when I could not do it.