Good mornig to everyone: as a newcomer in this community, i would like to briefly introduce myself.
I'm a 35 years old university researcher from Italy (specifically born in Sanremo, western Ligury, but i've worked for University of Genoa and Siena); i've been involved in do-it-yourself cartography since my first role playing game (maybe 20 years ago?), when i earned myself the nickname "mad mapper"... no need to give further explanations, i think
Because of my primary work, concerning medieval manuscripts and old print books from late XV to XVIII century, i'm often in direct contact with ancient cartography both hand drawn or printed from copper engravings, and also with representation of cities, battlefields and so on (i'm involved also in military and weapon history).
As a dungeon master, dnd and LARP player i still make use of cartography for entertainment, but i find it really useful also to include sometimes maps or 3d landscapes in my articles or books, or simply when projeting slides during conferences (do you need to speak to a lot of people and don't want they asleep in 10 minutes? Use a lot of images!).
As a 2d program i use Photoshop, having learned the bases from myself and from tutorials, and now becoming slowly better and better assisting a dear friend of mine who works as comic artist and illustrator.
I'm also a little bit used to vectors, and i appreciate a lot Autorealm.
I'm working also in 3d, although i've not established a well defined pipeline form my productions: now i start with Geocontrol 2 (but recently i have discovered world machine) and then import the landscape in Vue 9 xStream; 3d buildings and object are made in Sketchup (to say the truth, i want to apprehend thue use of maya and mudbox, but i am short of time).
Ok, i think that's all. I'll post my future works as soon as possible.