Gaming Geek

[bcholmes]

So, fuelled by Firefox's ability to render SVG, I've been playing with the capabilities of Inkscape, an amazingly powerful open source SVG editor. I love some of the good ideas that they've had with the editor. So what have I been doing with it? I've been drawing RPG maps. Geek, geek.

For inspiration, I recently paid real money for a tool called Campaign Cartographer Pro 2. CC2 is probably the only really successful RPG mapping software. You can, ferinstance, find web pages with CC2 maps that you can download. I'm told that under the covers, CC2 is using CAD, and I've never really used CAD before. Someone on an online forum said, "I will admit that CC2 has more of a learning cliff than a learning curve." And, man, they're right. The tool is fucking unusable.

So what I find myself doing is taking a lot of drawing elements and tracing them Inkscape to give me nice SVG implementations. CC2 uses line drawings, and SVG uses line drawings. Seems simple enough. What I find interesting about this exercise is that it gives me an interesting insight into what makes a line drawing really work. Colour noise. Shadow. Occassional imperfections in the linework. Interesting insight into drawing.

I'll also make a brief mention of another tool (which I don't own, but which impresses me): Dundjinni, which produces some amazingly photo-realistic maps.

Comments

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

That's so funny - I bought the same product, and I'm finding it JUST as hard to get up the learning-curve.

I'm pondering creating the shapes I want in Illustrator, then importing them, but bleah - it looked like a good idea, but their manuals aren't really very well done. Do post if you find a resource that explains how to use it better (CC2 Pro, I mean).

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

I have used both but I still find the best results are either by hand or with good ole' drawing graphics programs. I found the "stamps" approach of CC2 annoying. Dundjinni is nice but I feel it takes to long to get desireable results.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

learning cliff

That's GETS -- Good Enough to Steal.

In return, you may feel free to use "user-codependent" or "user-surly" as you wish. Thank you.

SVG

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I checked out SVG as a graphics format for my Tarot card project, as that involved enlarging small images to gigantic ones. I was a little dissappointed with its implimentation on most browsers. It seems that SVG was quickly overtaken by FLASH, which does many of the same things.

Have you checked out any of the otehr editors, in addition to Inkscape (which had a habit of crashing on my PC)? There's a list at w3org (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/SVG-Implementations) of those.

Re: SVG

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I used a trial download of WebDraw (formerly by Jasc, now bought out by Corel). I didn't like it.

Re: SVG

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough a version of Webdraw was packed with Namo Web Editor 5.5 and later. I found it resembled FIREWORKS, but without a lot of nice effects and extras. I also downloaded Sodipodi but wasn't terribly impressed.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

I have drawn maps using CAD for a profession. I don't know for sure what CC2 does, as I haven't clicked the link, but I'll say this much; you don't want to do this without having survey points or other information that is telling you where the terrain is or where features belong in the space. If you're trying to freehand a map in CAD, it's a Bad Frickin' Idea. Hell, sometimes it can be hard as heck to do when you're not freehanding it.

The Project from Hell at my last job was creating freehand maps of the storm and sanitary sewer and water main networks for one of the Cleveland suburbs. Three drafters, 4 and a half months, and me drawing sewer maps in my sleep well into 2001. I had another project that was for another suburbs and only the water mains. That took about 3 weeks, and wouldn't have been that long if we'd had the water-main plan for a large office park in the town.

CAD, it's not for freehand mapping.