I use inkscape for overland maps. I use Watabou Medieval City generator for city maps. I use Dungeon Alchemist for dungeon/indoor battlemaps.
rpg
This community is for meaningful discussions of tabletop/pen & paper RPGs
Rules (wip):
- Do not distribute pirate content
- Do not incite arguments/flamewars/gatekeeping.
- Do not submit video game content unless the game is based on a tabletop RPG property and is newsworthy.
- Image and video links MUST be TTRPG related and should be shared as self posts/text with context or discussion unless they fall under our specific case rules.
- Do not submit posts looking for players, groups or games.
- Do not advertise for livestreams
- Limit Self-promotions. Active members may promote their own content once per week. Crowdfunding posts are limited to one announcement and one reminder across all users.
- Comment respectfully. Refrain from personal attacks and discriminatory (racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.) comments. Comments deemed abusive may be removed by moderators.
- No Zak S content.
- Off-Topic: Book trade, Boardgames, wargames, video games are generally off-topic.
Honorable mention for small village photos and maps: Tiny Glade.
Pencil and paper.
I used worldographer for my world map for my current campaign.
I've used inkarnate in the past for battle maps, but I was not happy with performance when you have a lot of assets.
I recently got Canvas of Kings which seems awesome and perfect for what I want but I have been pretty busy and haven't had a chance to make any completed maps in it yet.
Inkscape enjoyer here. The vector based tech makes it not that limited to my skill at drawing but rather how I can manipulate the vectors and points. Make things thinner or wider, change a curvature etc. And nothing is set in stone. I'm using it for everything. World maps, region maps, settlements, dungeons. You name it. For dungeons (and inside locations) I gathered all my most used assets to save time.
Yeah, it has something of a learning curve, but it is flexible in a way that few other tools can match.
I use Gimp and just hand-draw everything. I've learned that players don't really care too much about maps, so going above and beyond with high quality, ultra detailed stuff is wasted effort unless you derive joy from the creation process.
I settled on Campaign Cartographer 3+.
It has a steep learning curve, but seems to be the most powerful tool by far.
Inkarnate works great and has a lot of usable styles and assets.
Depends on the Map I want to make and how much time I have.
Worldographer for hexmaps, I've tried other programs like Hex Kit but honestly I like Hexographer the most because it is the easiest to read and fastest to get something put together in.
Dungeondraft for Dungeons/Battlemaps, there's some issues I have with it with how it handles several assets but overall it's solid and just your assets straight out of the gate are solid.
Wonderdraft for 'Useless Maps', this one is for world maps but for the most part I use it to make a map that players might find on a goblin that details their plans to attack a village or a city map in an old style so it is used more to convey an atmosphere.
Honorable mention to dungeonscrawl which I use to just sketch out a dungeon real quick has enough functionality for me.
For large-scale maps, a combination of Inkscape, Gimp, and Wilbur for me! The general process is:
- Rough out landmasses in Inkscape
- Rough out a heightmap on those landmasses in Gimp
- Simulate erosion on Wilbur
- Bring it back to Gimp for colouring and manual details
- Back to Inkscape for labelling
I made this as a fancied-up version of a Quiet Year game I played with some friends https://i.imgur.com/gB3sIEs.jpeg
For smaller-scale ones like D&D battle maps, just plain old Gimp (or sometimes some layout with Inkscape beforehand, and also sometimes some textures made in Inkscape). I made this version of Biete Mariam, a church in Ethiopia https://i.imgur.com/nz1ysvY.jpeg
I've been eyeing krita for fancy brushwork - GIMP is primarily photomanipulation software, and doesn't really hold a candle when it comes to brushes. Have you tried it out?
Technically yes, I have, but it was so long ago now that my experience is probably too outdated to be useful. I remember it being fine, but I was already familiar with Gimp and wasn't doing enough to justify learning a new program. I am drawing everything with a mouse as well, which probably affects the way that I interact with features quite a bit.
Like I said, though, I expect that my experience is not very reflective of the current state of the program, so I might need to try it again
Combination of Inkarnate or GIMP depending on what I need
I really like Inkarnate. Very reasonable yearly subscription and a great tool. Obvious caveat that if you want something completely custom built, rather than using their textures and artwork, something else will probably work better. For my needs it works though.
A couple years back I got illwinter floorplan [Link[(http://www.illwinter.com/floorplan/) on steam sales. Which for "indoor map" fits my need.
I don't play D&D, in general do not use "battle map" but still sometimes like to take time to visualise/describe a situation (and because it can be fun to do)
I've been using Wonderdraft. It's resource heavy for my little laptop, but it's easy to use.