New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[dormouse]

Having been tempted to look at a lot of products, I think I will probably end up doing a review.

Haven't completely worked out the methodology yet, but will involve using each prog to do a range of maps of types that I find useful as a DM (ie won't include maps designed primarily beauty or for use in books, games etc; they are surely always best done in PS/GIMP etc anyway). Ease of use and time taken to do each map will be important factors (as they are to me in real life), and the maps will be there at the end to be compared. Not sure of the range of maps yet - island/continent, local area (eg village/woodland), battlemap building (+ area outside or wood), battlemap dungeon, VTT, old-style TSR/DungeonCrafter scale. Will probably use the same images in each, but haven't finally decided that since some progs come with their own and maybe shouldn't be deprived of any advantage that gives them.

Haven't decided all the progs to do yet.
DungeonForge and MapX (of course).
Dundjinni, Fractal Mapper 8, Campaign Cartographer 3 (again of course).
Don't know whether I should include Dungeon Designer 3 and City Designer 3; they do exist but adding them really puts up the price of the Profantasy progs to being much more expensive than the others.
ViewingDale (though I'm not sure it is best described as a mapping program).
MapTool (would that mean I needed to do BRPG and other VTTs too?)
I won't include DungeonCrafter (1 too limited, 2 unfinished and fairly limited by current standards, 3 barely started). Haven't decided about AutoREALM.
I won't include PS (seems like overkill, and massively expensive) but will include PSE; will also include the GIMP and Paint.net.
And maybe others will turn up as I go along.

I'll post a link here once I actually produce something, but it won't be soon. Will take me a while to decide on methodology, design the basic maps, decide on the images/textures. That will probably be 2 or 3 months. And it will take time to make sure I'm properly familiar with each prog, so will probably produce them at approximately monthly intervals.

I like messing about with software, so I'll find it an interesting project to do.

[trevor]

Awesome, looking forward to what you come up with !

[RPMiller]

I will be most interested in how the various VTTs compare to each other. I have wanted to do some mapping comparisons between the most popular ones, but I can't possibly afford to buy all of them.

[dormouse]

I will be most interested in how the various VTTs compare to each other.

I'd be interested in that too. But I'll only look at their performance in making the maps, not in their use within the VTT.

I have wanted to do some mapping comparisons between the most popular ones, but I can't possibly afford to buy all of them.

I don't know how many I'll look at. I'm not totally sure how useful it will be either, since I think that most people will still produce their base maps in something else. But will certainly be interesting to see how much can be done natively, and how quickly and easily, and how much the VTTs differ from each other in this.

[dormouse]

I will be most interested in how the various VTTs compare to each other. I have wanted to do some mapping comparisons between the most popular ones, but I can't possibly afford to buy all of them.

I don't really want to buy any just to do a review, but I've had a quick look around and it seems to me that MapTool and ViewingDale stand out as the VTTs claiming mapping abilities. BRPG has fairly simple drawing tools and limited map size; atm anyway. I have MapTool (free in any case) and BRPG already. I'm hopeful that I can map with the VD demo, though it seems more limited than the map prog demos (understandably). No sign of Klooge or FG claiming much in mapping abilities and their demos seem too limited to test them out anyway. Are there others that you think I ought to look at, mappingwise?

I have pretty much all the relevant pure graphics progs, so no problems in testing those.

DJ & FM have demos mostly limited by no save/print and limited art. Able to use your own art. So I don't see any problem with reviewing those (I'll just use screenshots to show the maps; should be good enough). CC3 has a moneyback period: so as long as I finish within it, I should be able to do that; means I need to be careful about when I start on it though; also means that I'll read as much as possible beforehand, so I'm ready to go pretty quickly when I get it (slightly concerned about the learning curve people describe and having enough time to do it justice).

[trevor]

The tricky part when comparing VTs is that for the most part, if you can drop down an image for the background, and put images down for tokens, you'll pretty much get the same result from every VT.

The key is finding a way to compare the unique features, or perhaps illustrate what makes each map particularly interesting for each VT.

[dormouse]

The tricky part when comparing VTs is that for the most part, if you can drop down an image for the background, and put images down for tokens, you'll pretty much get the same result from every VT.

The key is finding a way to compare the unique features, or perhaps illustrate what makes each map particularly interesting for each VT.

All I'll be looking at is the VT's ability to create maps. I think they do differ on this. Different tools, different ways to access them, different ways of browsing for images etc etc. MapTool has a much wider range of zoom than BRPG, for instance, and can use much bigger maps. This may or may not be an advantage for it as a VT, but is certainly an advantage for it as a map creator. I don't know how many VTs can really be considered for this at all. Seen as a VT, ViewingDale clearly has a great deal more advanced map making abilities than most VTs. I think BRPG is map making abilities are just designed to support play on maps that are predesigned outside the VT. It's a long time since I looked at the others. What I've seen of MT and VD also suggests that they could have a single map that acted as a home for lots of other maps: something that some of the mapping programs can also do and worth looking at more closely.

[trevor]

All I'll be looking at is the VT's ability to create maps. I think they do differ on this.

True, very good point

ViewingDale clearly has a great deal more advanced map making abilities than most VTs.

Interesting discussion point. It definitely has the most capability to cram the most stuff onto a map space and navigate around. But if we're talking about map making, where the end result is a jpg, is it a great map maker ?

iirc (correct me if I'm wrong redrobes), it doesn't have drawing tools, so all of your page content has to be premade images or text. And there isn't a visual way to browse for images to put onto the map, which would make map making a tad tedious (unless you have all your image names memorized).

Although this could just be me not knowing the UI well enough.

Maybe Redrobes can post a screencast of him building a map from scratch, perhaps the "Forest Road" scenario. (Note: I've seen the tutorials on his website, but I didn't see one that constructed a scene from scratch, just one that connected two already created map sections together, let me know if I've missed one)

[Redrobes]

Interesting discussion point. It definitely has the most capability to cram the most stuff onto a map space and navigate around. But if we're talking about map making, where the end result is a jpg, is it a great map maker ?

iirc (correct me if I'm wrong redrobes), it doesn't have drawing tools, so all of your page content has to be premade images or text. And there isn't a visual way to browse for images to put onto the map, which would make map making a tad tedious (unless you have all your image names memorized).

Although this could just be me not knowing the UI well enough.

Maybe Redrobes can post a screencast of him building a map from scratch, perhaps the "Forest Road" scenario. (Note: I've seen the tutorials on his website, but I didn't see one that constructed a scene from scratch, just one that connected two already created map sections together, let me know if I've missed one)

Heh - just looking at Dorponds 1 min forest path. That looks like fun - ill have a bash at that in a mo. I'll get some buildings in and a big red arrow and see if I can do that in a minute. To answer questions...

Your right, it does not have drawing tools you do have to make tokens with a raster package. You can ask for a new token and it brings up the text browser of token file names. For each file you can get a preview by pressing space bar on any token from there you can use up and down arrows to get previews of next and prev tokens. On the latest version there is a create directory contact sheet option too so you can create all of the tokens on one page on one collection which makes finding the right one easier when there is a vast array of them to look at.

The problem here for me is that normally each token is the base of a hierarchy so the visual effect of that token is the tokens image and all its child tokens and all their (grand) children etc so the token is not a static bitmap with a thumbnail to be stored away somewhere for quick browsing.

This is what makes me feel a little daunted by the comparison with all the mapping ability. If you try to force the app to make the maps like the others then it probably wont come off as good. However if you tried to make the kind of maps that VDale likes with the others then I think they would come off worse. The comparisons could be open to a lot of prejudice.

Right, ill get a cuppa, boot up CamStudio and try the 1 minute challenge ! I think here it will shine...

[dormouse]

This is what makes me feel a little daunted by the comparison with all the mapping ability. If you try to force the app to make the maps like the others then it probably wont come off as good. However if you tried to make the kind of maps that VDale likes with the others then I think they would come off worse. The comparisons could be open to a lot of prejudice.

Comparisons and opinion can be open to prejudice, but I'd certainly expect any comparison I make to be pretty fair. What I would say is that I was pointed to ViewingDale as a mapmaker (though I'm certainly not convinced it is one really), and so also MapTool. I'll only be looking at them in terms of making maps.

What I'll do is to start with designing a full range of maps (of the types that I have a use for) and only then to start to reproduce them in the mapmaker. If ViewingDale doesn't like the maps that I have a use for, then I assume it won't come off well; equally if it does like some of the type of maps that I use, then it should do well: I can only wait and see - and it might well be 8 or 9 months before I get around to ViewingDale. And certainly, the end point is expected to be a map that can be printed or used in a range of VTTs rather than ViewingDale specifically. At the end I would certainly hope to have a knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of each program - so far as their mapping capability is concerned anyway.