Map Techniques/Ideas

[DM Sirine]

Please use this thread for posting all links to map making solutions.

[Kelly Morgan]

I love Dundjinni. You gotta buy it, but it's very user friendly and there is a ton of user created art out there.
Here's a couple links to examples I've made with it.

http://www.dundjinni.com/forums/forum_p ... shaman5695
http://www.dundjinni.com/forums/forum_p ... shaman5695

www.dundjinni.com


check it out

[Obi-Wan Jacobi]

What I use for maps in Shroud of Shadows requires Excel, Paint, and a Photobucket account!

-First, I made a blank map excel document. I made the height and width the same so that it looks like boxes. I use this as my template and never save over it.

-Second, I create a map for combat or whatever it is I want to display for my players. I use borders to make walls and change the borders for doors or whatever I want.

If it is a combat map, using a coordinate system is quite helpful. If you use coordinates, I would suggest using both letters and numbers. If not, it can be easy to mix up the X and Y axis and that is not fun especially in a PbP setting (it could be days to figure out what happend).

-Third, after I finish building my map I highlight the map in excel and "copy" it (I usually use 'ctrl' + C).

-Fourth, I open up a blank Paint file and "paste" it. Your map should be up and running. Save it somewhere you won't forget about it (I have a file in my documents that is devoted to my RPGs... it can get kind of crazy).

-Fifth, I upload it onto photobucket.

From that point all you have to do is set the link for your post and the map is there... just like magic .

[Obi-Wan Jacobi]

This was a nifty little map generator I stumbled across one day...

http://www.gozzys.com/article.php?cm_id=8

[shroudeye]

AutoREALM: AutoREALM is a free role-playing game mapping program

[PMiller]

I have used several methods, but like MapTools the best.

MapTools: http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=downloads

Download the Map Tools and Token Tool for free and then install. You will need to make sure your Java is up to date. Then take a look at the on-line video tutorials on their site and to help you get a quick course on their software. After a bit of practice you can have decent and quickly made maps. Nothing flashy in the beginning but definitely functional. The Token Tool is easy to use and you can make anything with a picture or screenshot capture.

Making maps is the first part, the second is picture manipulation afterwards. I usually take the exported picture (a .PNG file) and use Microsoft Office Picture Manager to crop and resize the map's screenshot. This is important since you can adjust the zoom level in MapTools ahead of time, but the actual pixel size of the picture exported is too big and needs to be reduced to about 800 pixels wide.

Then you need to covert it to JPEG format. PNG format can be rather big for some maps resulting in a picture over 1MB. Conversion reduces that by 80% and makes things much better to load.

Once you have a picture for your post, then I would get a Photobucket account and use that to upload it. Afterwards you jsut copy the image BBCode link into your post. There are other sites that do that as well, but Photobucket is free and easy to use.

Without MS Office Picture Manager, you can try this: http://irfanview.com/

Here are some downloads for resources that provides tons of objects, terrain, and tiles.
http://www.4shared.com/file/24-A53B1/Objects.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/6NbL4nov/Terrain.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/RdxmSkiI/Tiles.html

They are big, but worth it.

Examples of good maps for encounters:

spoiler: show

spoiler: show

[PMiller]

After making a map, here is a free on-line resource to display maps and let your players move their own tokens;

http://beta.ditzie.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=44955

Example Links:
http://beta.ditzie.com/66850/53eb793a9ac23
http://beta.ditzie.com/44966/52ecf0c0bd798