New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[Bedwyr]

Photoshop, Illustrator are now the primary tools. CorelDraw and Photopaint were former tools. Both were bought as student editions in penance for illicitly using both before.

Playing with CC suite. Gift of a friend lightening his load of material wealth. It's ok, but I like illustrator/coreldraw better for pure object art. I'll keep it for the symbols if nothing else. It's nice having clipart with a dedicated purpose.

The 3d programs? Bryce 5.5 free edition. duh. Blender I've played with a little but never devoted time to gaining 3d modeling skills. Sketchup would be more productive use of my time. Also have the 3.2 free version of Truespace but never really used it. Used 1.x before boolean logic was implemented. Though more limited, very user friendly in a playful Bryce sort of way.

[Notsonoble]

Well I broke down and downloaded Inkscape to play with today... and wanted to beat myself for not doing it earlier. I haven't finished anything productive with it yet, but just a little piddling and following some youtube tutorials has shown me how handy this will be soon.

Seriously... less than an hour in to it and I had a working shield device and was already messing with lights and shadow on it... and that counts waiting on it to install. I think I can finally start working on faction and realm symbols for my campaign and finish several before tearing hair.

[RobA]

Oh yeah - Inkscape is the boss for symbols!

-Rob A>

[Notsonoble]

Out of curosity... if I save an inkscape work as a .xcf it does realize that's a gimp file and I can open it... but it's flat... Is there a way to export it with layers?

Edit: nevermind... I seem to be able to copy objects in the clipboard from inkscape to gimp... handy.

Edit again: Or not... grrr...

[SandmanNet]

Hello everyone. These are the tools I use for map-making.

Photoshop and Illustrator (CS5) are obviously my two main weapons of choice. Illustrator is perfect for creating coastlines, walkways and paths and even house outlining. And for tapered rivers and other items that are mathematical objects even when drawing them freely.

Painter is an awesome tool with a pretty high threshold to create natural looking paintings and sketches. Photoshop has gotten increasingly better by the years, so I'm not using Painter as much as I used to.

I try not to "cheat" too much. I.e. not using drop shadow on layers, not using layer effects on a too obvious way. I can use pattern overlay to add a gritty looking feel, but the opacity is usually set very low and I'm rarely satisfied with the result. I'm the kind of guy that draws pretty much everything by hand. You can see examples in my threads and in the Myst Book Project in my signature. I do just as much drawing with pen and paper as I do with a Wacom as well, so I am pretty experienced with doing things manually

I live and die by my Wacom tablets. I have the A4 Intuos3 (looking to buy a Intuos 4 wireless now) and two Cintiq 21UX, one at home and one at work. These are amazing tools and I couldn't do anything without them.

So, that's that

[RobA]

I usually go the other way.... bringing the svg into gimp as paths. Or I export as a png and bring that in, as it is more useful than xcf for other purposes.

-Rob A>

[aiRo25]

Does anyone know about mapping in Corel PhotoPaint? I've done a lot of graphic design over the years, and unfortunately, this is the only program I'm thoroughly familiar with and I already have it. So frankly, I'd love to find out if anyone here works in it and has any tips or tutorials.

I've been peeking at all the options on the table and it's so overwhelming trying to pick one and actually write my book at the same time. If I could work in something I know, then it takes most of the stress out of it.

Hope that makes any sense.

BTW, .png is a supported file type.

[jfrazierjr]

Does anyone know about mapping in Corel PhotoPaint? I've done a lot of graphic design over the years, and unfortunately, this is the only program I'm thoroughly familiar with and I already have it. So frankly, I'd love to find out if anyone here works in it and has any tips or tutorials.

I've been peeking at all the options on the table and it's so overwhelming trying to pick one and actually write my book at the same time. If I could work in something I know, then it takes most of the stress out of it.

Hope that makes any sense.

BTW, .png is a supported file type.

I don't know of anyone here that uses PhotoPaint, but there might be. It's just as much a matter of features as anything else. For example, many of the things Photoshop does can also be done in GIMP but there are a few things GIMP can't do or can't do anywhere near as well. Likewise, there are some things GIMP can do that PS can't come anywhere close to doing.

There is also a hugh difference depending on the type of map you trying to make. For example, Torstan usually makes maps far more on the artsy side most of the time which are more like paintings. While I can't say for sure, I believe he mostly does line drawings, followed by color, and then 1 or more 50% grey layers set to overlay mode and burn/dodge to create height. On the other side, many people create bump maps, so if you want that effect, your application of choice needs to have that feature.

[aiRo25]

Well, I actually stumbled across mapping.

I started writing when I was just a kid, and then I hand drew maps all the time. Aweful stuff! Hand me a ruler and a pencil and you still might not get a straight line.

Then I went into writing seriously. Right now, I'm working on a multiple galaxy universe, and I'm trying to create a workable image of my space/time continuum (that's a harder ball of wax and I'll probably figure it out later), and then for regular mapping, I'm looking mostly to do artistic, somewhat realistic overland maps.

I could do maps of ships and buildings and there are a handful of them that I ought to do, but I'm worried it will take too much time. There is one city map I desperately need to do, but I'm not very attracted to the add-on prices of Campaign Cartographer, especially since I know CorelDraw is vector (not sure what PhotoPaint is), but I know nothing at all about CAD.

I looked at Dundjinni for the style I like, but it doesn't do overlands too well, and that's my main requirement. I looked at Fractal Mapper, CC3, Inkscape, Bryce, etc. but all of them have that learning curve. And maybe I'll need to pick one, but I'm kind of hoping...

[jfrazierjr]

Then I went into writing seriously. Right now, I'm working on a multiple galaxy universe, and I'm trying to create a workable image of my space/time continuum (that's a harder ball of wax and I'll probably figure it out later), and then for regular mapping, I'm looking mostly to do artistic, somewhat realistic overland maps.

Take a look at out last challenge (Nov) as there are tons of space maps, most made either in GIMP or Photoshop.

I could do maps of ships and buildings and there are a handful of them that I ought to do, but I'm worried it will take too much time. There is one city map I desperately need to do, but I'm not very attracted to the add-on prices of Campaign Cartographer, especially since I know CorelDraw is vector (not sure what PhotoPaint is), but I know nothing at all about CAD.

I looked at Dundjinni for the style I like, but it doesn't do overlands too well, and that's my main requirement. I looked at Fractal Mapper, CC3, Inkscape, Bryce, etc. but all of them have that learning curve. And maybe I'll need to pick one, but I'm kind of hoping...

PhotoPaint is raster based on what I found last night in the web. As I said, a lot of it is all about features, BUT I have seen someone do a very nice map in MSPaint that comes with Windows, so skill also plays into it. If you decide to go try another software, I would highly encorage you to give GIMP(rastor)/Inkscape(vector) a try since they are both free and there are a large number of mapping tutorials here as well as general tutorials on the web. Since you say you have a City map to do...try the this tutorial. It may be for photoshop, but many(not all) of the techniques are adaptable to GIMP and other applications and those that are not can usually be faked somehow. Create a new Work in Progress thread in the appropriate forum to post up your work and we have plenty of people who will try to help you. And if you have found any reference work post a link to it so we can get an idea of what you are going for if needed.