Over the last several years, a number of readers have approached me to ask about the maps I create.
The answer to Question 1 is always “Adobe Photoshop”.
The answer to question 2 is always, “No, there are is no library of pre-set, ‘off the shelf’ objects available from Adobe, so practice, practice, practice.” Over a number of years, I have built up my own little library of houses, trees, bridges and whatnot to help speed up the production process as the deadline approaches, though I’m thinking of re-working some of these in the near future.
Having overcome their disappointment at not being able to become an expert cartographer overnight, the next question is often along the lines of “Would it be possible for you to put larger versions of the maps online?” Eventually, this prompted me to run a little poll on the Battlegames Facebook page, which was so overwhelmingly positive that I have decided to comply with your wishes.
Therefore, take yourself to the Shop on this blog, and select The Fridge on the drop-down menu, where you will now see a link to “Free scenario maps“. Here, you can view online or download if you wish to your heart’s content, as explained on the page itself. Please read the full blurb at the top of the page describing my terms for their re-use.
When I get time, I hope to create a video tutorial showing just how the maps are created. Such a video requires quite a lot of work to do properly, so it may have a modest price tag attached, but I’ll keep you posted on that.
Have fun!
I’ve had a lot of luck with Hexographer by Inkwell Designs. It is cross-platform and a very affordable option to make hex maps of various sizes. Easier to use than I ever could have imagined too. Check out http://wargamingforums.com/hexographer and if you like them, please tell Joe Wertzel (the creator) I sent you.
It won’t hold a candle to Henry’s maps but it may help you get by until you’re as good as he is.
Actually, Jonathan, the buildings in Hexographer look very good, one of the aspects of my own maps that I want to re-visit. They remind me of games of Squad Leader I used to play years ago!
Thanks for the post, Henry.
I have had some success with Ortelius which is a map tool for MacOS – http://www.mapdiva.com/ortelius/
Tile Mill, an open source map making tool also looks promising – http://mapbox.com/tilemill/
Thanks for those terrific links, Jamie. I’ll certainly look into what they offer.
When I was a PC user, I found that ‘Campaign Cartographer’ could be made to make very nice maps: . As a piece of (adapted) CAD software, the learning curve was pretty steep (though not, in my experience, as steep as the one you have to climb to master Photoshop!), but the tutorials were good, and once you’d worked through them, map-making was a fairly quick process. Now that I have an Intel Mac I ought to get myself set up to use it again – it was useful (as well as fun!).
I’ve heard of people using Campaign Cartographer, Phil, another package I’ve yet to try myself. I’ve been using Photoshop for so many years that it was just the natural choice for me. I use the full ‘Creative Suite’ version, but I bet that Photoshop Elements, the home version, would be worth trying too.