Photorealistic maps

[Gamerprinter]

I have Dundjinni and I do dabble with it, its just that lots of things it can do, I can do with Xara, and lots of things with Xara, I can't do with Dundjinni.

That said, I know the cartographers (shared a booth at Gencon with them) at Gamemaster Syndicate, Dundjinni is the primary mapping program they use and doing phenominal work - I know, I've printed them in large format.

Often using 3D tools to create "roof tops" and such as map objects to bring into Dundjinni. So I know its a great tool.

One issue, when creating a transition between terrains layers of transparent filled areas were used to create a blend (not sure if this work was done in Dundjinni or not) - but this is lots of work.

With Xara, I create a polyline object and fill with the different terrain image fill than the background grass or whatever. Although a vector drawing program Xara allows me to apply a feathered edge onto the vector object and instantly create the transition between terrain fills.

Plus I've been using Xara for almost 3 years now, and Dundjinni for about 3 months.

And the upright statues used in the "temple transformation" monastery entry, were Athena statues I downloaded from the Dundjinni user forum - so I'm already familiar.

When I say, I haven't seen many photorealistic maps, I should clarify and say, I did not even know the existence or concept of battlemaps until March of this year. Although internet savvy for many years, I never explored the RPG community online ever until this year.

My gaming group play round the table, toss the dice. We don't even use maps. We have a sheet of acrylic, with 1 inch grid paper, I printed placed under and a grease pencil to draw the map in black in white, live while playing. There isn't even a PC (personal computer, not player character)in the same room where we play. The idea of looking for something different let alone getting involved in the industry directly, never occured to me, until very recently. So I never heard of Dundjinni until April (?) 2007.