Map Making Software

[Weasel]

hmm.. oatmeal you say?

[jezer]

Haha, seems 12345 sensed my frustration.

Yes there are 1000 ways to do it... and the oatmeal idea really does rock. I bet Yasik is probably trying it out now!

But when it came down to it I figured Romano/Undead and Corum must be hard core and dedicated to spend time lining up there nice little maps without some special program beyond the realms of stock standard default graphics editors.

I'd still love to hear from Romano/Undead and Corum but after hours of trying mapping programs, I ended up using this program...

Lior's Map Creator

Why I started on this map making thing was because I was wanting to design an area, and wanted to draw it. Lior's does not allow for text room labelling and numbering, but it did allow me to use "Coloured Tiles" to represent the rooms of the map. This was helpful as like a "legend" for my area idea. So I ended up designing the area using the coloured tiles, copying an export of that to Paint placing a number over top and then entering the rooms into an old SMAUG/ROM area editor. Wish Lior's could just assign a room an ID

Obviously you can't use a program like this to map existing sloth areas. But I'll be looking into those Powerpoint and other ideas Weasel and co thought up.

[Nascosto]

as to your zmapper question, I tried it several times in its different incarnations and on different pcs and found it to be an extremely buggy piece of crap.

the automapper that comes along with zmud is more stable, but as you can see by the MH map doesn't make maps that are nice to look at.

[Ditheca]

I do all my maps in powerpoint. I use a previous map as a template, and can map an area very quickly.

Mm, now if only I could figure out how to make them look good after being resized by our darn cartography page! It'd be nice if we could just set a standard size for maps and then stop resizing them to fit the window.

[Mystery]

I'm not advocating the use of pirated software and downloading Corel Paint Shop Pro X from bearshare at www.bearshare.com is just wrong. However, this program which retails around $300.00 US dollars is totally kickass,,,,or so I hear

[jezer]

Found a pretty decent program for those who don't have access to visio for drawing maps... I found it googling "freeware visio alternatives" heh

Its called Dia... and its a Linux2Win port from sourceforge.... AND ITS FREE!

http://dia-installer.sourceforge.net/download.php

Its great! Make sure you install the library first as instructed.

So I loaded it up, and it was easy to use. Grids were nicely sized, and snap to grid is a menu option. Boxes you just draw on no problems. Text you create seperately and then lock it inside a box. You can curve the edges of the boxes. You can add images, like your fancy pants compass. You can snap lock the boxes together using lines. Text can be aligned nicely, both vertically and horizontally. Line types can be selected. Circle rooms can be added just like the boxes. So its all there... except for the oats...

I'll be using this for future maping needs for sure!

[*juggleblood*]

Jezer, why don't you put some of your talent, energy, and spare time into making an area?

Mudl allows you do just about anything you can think of and I'm guessing you would design a lot of interesting stuff.

Just food for thought.

[12345]

I think he's way ahead of you...

[quote="jezer":27s7y0o5]Why I started on this map making thing was because I was wanting to design an area, and wanted to draw it.[/quote:27s7y0o5]

[tincts]

12345, champion and defender of Jezer

Lovin ya work, both of ya hehe

[*juggleblood*]

doh...dunno how I missed that