Map Making Software

[jezer]

What programs are people using to make the sloth maps?

Some look really neat...

Please list the complete program names and URL's to download if you have any.

[Yasik]

Most ppl i know drawing maps using brain, hands and pen&paper.
Zmud's Built-In Mapper can replace one of those above

[Weasel]

Photoshop CS

[jezer]

Photoshop CS? does that have some kind of snap to grid function so all the rooms line up?

Romano and Corum seem to make beautiful maps, love to know what kind of software they use.

A Romano Map...
http://www.slothmud.org/eqlist/maproom.php?rnum=165

A Corum Map...
http://www.slothmud.org/eqlist/maproom.php?rnum=19

[Yasik]

You can draw those beauties even with M$ Paint.

[jezer]

*Sigh* Stop trivialising my post Yasik...

It is unlikey Paint was used to design maps, as until recent it only outputted BMP files. I doubt shiv would have appreciated 5Mb Bitmaps in his mail box. Also some of the maps have the rooms nicely lined up suggesting they have been snapped to a grid. Drawing anything in Paint, although possible, is like drawing with a stick in the sand. Fancy fonts, and images on the map... do you really think they converted them to a BMP so they can bring them in on Paint?

I speak about Map Creation Software... Anyone use zMapper?

It seems the russian's have done most of the mapping. I noticed Undead also makes very nice maps... once again with just circles to symbolise boring rooms. Is their some tool the Russian's have got I don't know about?

[K'eth]

[quote:3ve61qhm]It is unlikey Paint was used to design maps, as until recent it only outputted BMP files. I doubt shiv would have appreciated 5Mb Bitmaps in his mail box.[/quote:3ve61qhm]
I think BMP files can be zipped... or saved from M$ Paint in other better format.
*blush*

[jezer]

Troublemaker!

Until XP or possibly 2000 BMP was only option for paint. I figure the maps were made before this time... And yes winzip is a wonderful program...

Now back to my question...

[Yasik]

Crap Jezer
You making me mad You have teh talent to create problems and obstacles from nowhere
You can convert BMPs to anything you want with ACD See for example, as i do
Photoshop can convert image formats also
Paint shop Pro not so heavy weight as PhotoShop but can do teh job
zMapper is nice, tho a little bugged (in zmud 7.21) and slow - cant run as fast as i do ingame

[Yasik]

Btw, create GMail account and you can email whatever you want

[jezer]

[quote="Yasik":2ov5joh9]You have teh talent to create problems and obstacles from nowhere[/quote:2ov5joh9]

LOL! That is too funny. How do you win a logical argument with unlogical people?

Yasik, do me a favour, next time I post a question... don't answer.

[Avatar]

For myself, if I'm making a new map I usually start with Microsoft Visio. It's convenient because it can all snap to a grid, and has different shapes, etc. Instead of Visio I used Excel for the Moria map. I set the size of the rows and columns to the same value so that it gives a grid like graph paper, then you can orient the objects to that grid.

In either case, once the room layout is done I export the layout to MS Paint. The MS function to save as an image didn't seem to work well, so I normally did a print preview, then lined everything up so I can see it on one screen. Then a printscreen and a paste into Paint. Paint is nice for the details, since you can zoom in and select individual pixels then zoom back out. I also tend to use Paint for the text.

When I'm done in Paint, then I would normally use PSP - paint shop pro - to open the BMP, tweak settings, and save to JPG. I have a really old version of Paint Shop Pro, but luckily things like JPG and BMP formats don't change a whole lot over the years.

Still, I don't think my maps are the greatest. The temple of fiends - ss is probably the ugliest. I'm surprised noone has replaced the Prison map on the island. It's kind of quirky, but I always liked the results. Aaost could have used some improvements, but that's just a big big area. I'm pretty happy with the Moria map. I also did some cleanup / room fixes for a few like the Canaa maps and ET on Lyme.

[blackmore]

I built a good number of the simpler maps. I'm not good enough to be fancy, but I am capable of being accurate, which was more than could be said about some of the older maps. I did all mine with PSP. A few years ago at least, it had a 30 day free trial, and though it's gotten bloated to where I don't understand a lot of it, I've always had an easier time using it than other programs.

[Weasel]

[quote="jezer":lpy34dog]Photoshop CS? [/quote:lpy34dog]

Yes, you can make grids on PS.. and activate a snap command.. at least on Photoshop CS you can, not sure about PS 6.0 or earlier..

There's several font files you can download and use in PS to make maps pretty easily too. One 'font' is called 'Maze Maker' or another 'Maze Maker Dungeon Level 1F' ..there's quite a few, depending if you want square rooms, circular, whatever.. very easy to line them up if you create a bunch of separate layers for each font character.

Just google maze maker fonts and you'll find plenty, like these:
http://fonts.goldenweb.it/pan_file/l/en ... fault.html
http://fonts.goldenweb.it/pan_file/l/en ... fault.html
http://unclebear.com/fonts/comments.php?id=848_0_3_0_C
http://unclebear.com/fonts/comments.php?id=846_0_3_0_C
http://www.dingbatpages.com/games/games.shtml

hmm.. found some other groovy things while I was looking..

Maze Maker:
http://hereandabove.com/maze/mazeorig.form.html

also ran across this knot maker tutorial which would've made some stunning maps, but the knot maker utility link is dead now..
http://www.thomascreek.com/tg/maze/maze.htm

[12345]

I think you all took Jezer too seriously. If he's using terms like snap to grid and such, he already knows an image editting program. He probably uses Powerpoint or some other program and wants to know if anyone used it.

Any image editting program will work as long as you can make it look like what you want. If you can't save to .jpg or .gif directly, there's other ways to do it anyway... copy/paste, printscreens... whatever. MS Paint will work if you really want it to, it just doesn't matter.

My personal preferred method is to go to draw the map on my living room carpet using oatmeal. I then take Polaroid pictures, tape them together and reduce them with my copy machine. Then I use my copier to email them to myself in .pdf format. Then I open them in Adobe Acrobat, copy them into MS Powerpoint and display them in slideshow mode so I can do a screenprint and paste it into MS Paint at full size. After that I save them as .jpgs, print them out and throw them in the trash and just download whatever's posted in the maproom.

That's probably the best way...