If you create your own maps digitally, what do you use as map-making software?
Personally, I am fond of Inkscape, as it gives me maximum flexibility and the vector-based approach is great for scaling and rotating things.
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?
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.
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.
Combination of Inkarnate or GIMP depending on what I need
I settled on Campaign Cartographer 3+.
It has a steep learning curve, but seems to be the most powerful tool by far.
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.
Inkarnate works great and has a lot of usable styles and assets.
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.
