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  #76  
Old May 1st, 2013, 12:44 PM
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Here is another on-line mapper. I've not messed with it much, but it looks rather nice. It has some pre-made maps you can load as well.

http://www.rpgobjects.com/tiamat/
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Old May 12th, 2013, 01:29 AM
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RollD20

I may have missed anyone mentioning it, but there's a website called rolld20 which is amazing for designing maps and lets users play on them, i'm not sure if they can connect to the server when you're not hosting, but if no it would still be helpful for anyone looking to design maps.
  #78  
Old May 12th, 2013, 01:56 AM
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Originally Posted by Switcha View Post
I may have missed anyone mentioning it, but there's a website called rolld20 which is amazing for designing maps and lets users play on them, i'm not sure if they can connect to the server when you're not hosting, but if no it would still be helpful for anyone looking to design maps.
You mean Roll20?
  #79  
Old Jun 28th, 2014, 04:36 PM
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The other day I hand drew a dungeon on isometric graph paper and was struck by how fast and easy it was to make and how nice the quality was. You can get free graph paper to print from, (where else), PrintFreeGraphPaper.com. The one I used for a large dungeon map was here.

After drawing it, I scanned it into my computer (could have just taken a picture of it too) and cleaned it up in Photoshop. Mucking around with it in Photoshop took four times as long as drawing it did, and I'm still not sure I like it any better than the original.

 
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Last edited by Still_Pond; Jun 28th, 2014 at 04:38 PM.
  #80  
Old Jun 28th, 2014, 07:34 PM
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Very nice!
  #81  
Old Jun 28th, 2014, 09:54 PM
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That's pretty snazzy. I use the free graph paper but end up drawing on it with Paint...
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  #82  
Old Jun 29th, 2014, 12:56 AM
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I like Roll20; find a premade map, hide the parts you don't want your players to see. Include crazy light: boom.
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  #83  
Old Mar 13th, 2017, 11:14 AM
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So much THIS! Kickstarter at 437%

MapForge
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  #84  
Old Mar 14th, 2017, 04:13 PM
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So much THIS! Kickstarter at 437%

MapForge
Do you have confidence that these guys will produce working software? I've heard a bunch of stories recently about vaporware from kickstarters.
  #85  
Old Apr 2nd, 2017, 12:45 PM
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Do you have confidence that these guys will produce working software? I've heard a bunch of stories recently about vaporware from kickstarters.
I absolutely do and I put my $$ to it as well.

Here is a true storySome of you know that I have used Dunjinni for my maps but the DEV team (owner) walked away in 2008 or 2009. The program was so good - bugs and all - that the users took over support and STILL runs the site forums. Several of us (myself included) made several attempts to get the owner to sell us the code rights; she never responded to any of us. I personally wrote and called.

Last year there was some talk of a Dunjinni 2 project but it never got off the ground. Fast forward to now. Three of the people I have known from Dunjinni since 2007 are ON the MapForge team and are contributing members:
Bogie, Kepli and Cecil, the creator of CSUAC* for Dunjinni and Fractal Mapper, Campaign Cartographer, and now MapForge.
* Cecil Solomon’s Ultimate Art Collection.


I fully back this!

DiG
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  #86  
Old Aug 3rd, 2017, 11:05 PM
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Alright, question and statement time.

I'm an idiot, and crafting maps is just too frustrating for me. What would be the best way for me go get maps, get a grid on it, and get some character icons on it.
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  #87  
Old Aug 3rd, 2017, 11:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakkon View Post
Alright, question and statement time.

I'm an idiot, and crafting maps is just too frustrating for me. What would be the best way for me go get maps, get a grid on it, and get some character icons on it.
Are you looking for 1 or 2 maps? Or making them (many) yourself? For the former, see my sig for map requests. For the later, MapQuest (my post above) is my suggestion. There are others.
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  #88  
Old Aug 4th, 2017, 02:26 AM
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Most mappers require you to draw your own, at least a little bit. Like, they may provide the tiles but you still have to place them. Some use random generation, like Dave's mapper.

I mean, I guess for fast and easy, you steal borrow a map image you find online, and use a simple free drawing program like paint.net to add a grid (if it didn't have one) and add tokens. Tokens can be letters or just colored paint dabs, like circles. Most mapping software can import an image and from there you can plop a grid and tokens down.

I've been lazy lately. What I've been doing is either painting very quick maps, like Window's Paint quick, and then using photoshop to put in a grid and tokens. (Paint.net works too. Anything with layers).

Sometimes another quick method is to hand draw a map with pencil and paper (remember those) and scan or take a picture of it and upload that image. One could even do this with physical tokens and just use a phone to take a picture of the 'real life' battle map and upload that. Hand drawing is often faster than mucking about in a graphics program - but graphics programs are great for overlaying a grid and tokens. You can draw on graph paper too, and you can print free graph paper here. (there are lots of such sites out there).
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  #89  
Old Aug 7th, 2017, 12:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakkon View Post
Alright, question and statement time.

I'm an idiot, and crafting maps is just too frustrating for me. What would be the best way for me go get maps, get a grid on it, and get some character icons on it.
Google docs is my favorite way. Get an image of the map to drop into a google drawing. Then drop a table on top of the image with numbered rows and lettered columns as an overlay. Here is my map template (feel free to copy). Group those two layers together before adding icons for the players and monsters. Then you can move the icons around as needed to illustrate the game. You can also give the players permission to move stuff around as well, if desired.

If you want to page through the history, to see what has happened and who changed things there is a great revision history tool (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+H).

To get the actual maps, I'd recommend a couple of different ways - 1 hire someone like Digorig to draw the map for you. 2 - Use a map tool like Dunjinni, Campaign Cartographer or a drawing tool like Inkscape, Illustrator, Gimp, Xara or Photoshop. 3 - find a scan or photo of a map online.

I've been running some of the pathfinder adventure paths and take the maps from those. In my case, since it's a face to face game, we project the map onto a table and use minis. For remote games, I use the google doc method above.
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  #90  
Old Aug 7th, 2017, 01:30 PM
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That's actually a brilliant idea, and solves a problem i've run into. Thanks!
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