Map software

[mealar]

heya,

about to start a new campaign and looking for something i can put on my tablet that will let me draw and store maps so i can put them on the screen for my players to see, will be using chromecast so just needs to be full screen and it'll show. does't need to be massively interactive for combat, though would be a bonus, mainly looking for something where i can draw out the rooms in a dungeon and move between them as the party moves. previously had issues when describing rooms and different players getting different ideas of how it looks so sometimes missing out of things they may want to do and drawing the rooms on paper or drywipe sheet can take alot of room on the table. If anyone has any suggestions that would great, thanks all.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

There are a couple of special options out there useful for anything with a grid. But if it's just for sketching the shape of the rooms, maybe move some characters around on it, you might like The GIMP (or GIMPshop I believe they call it now). It's a bit of a photoshop light (without extensions), but it has layers. So you've got a goblin image as a separate layer, you copy paste it four times, each as a new layer, and now you've got five goblins you can move around the map. One of them starts digging himself into a hole? Take a brown pen to the background layer, or better yet a transparent layer above it. The wizard casts a spell which will affect an area for the next five turns? Same thing. When the effect is done, select that area of the transparent layer and cut it all out again. For "quick and dirty" it's pretty good, and with some preparation it can even look decent.

Also, it's free. Not sure how well it does with tablets though. A laptop with a beamer would be ideal.

[TheFamilarRaven]

Not too familiar with chromecast but why not Roll20, or Pyromancers? Roll20 you can draw simple lines in real time and place/move tokens, and it's free. Pyromancer you can create maps ahead of time and save them as a pdf, then pull up whatever software you need to view them. This is also free. Both are web based.

[Lord Torath]

InkScape (free) is an option, with layers like GIMP. Campaign Cartographer is another (not sure on cost).

[Mendicant]

Not really a fan of campaign cartographer. It's more expensive and less intuitive than just drawing out maps in GIMP or a similar program.

[mealar]

thanks guys i'll have a look at these and see how they feel,


Not too familiar with chromecast but why not Roll20, or Pyromancers? Roll20 you can draw simple lines in real time and place/move tokens, and it's free. Pyromancer you can create maps ahead of time and save them as a pdf, then pull up whatever software you need to view them. This is also free. Both are web based.

chromecast will just show whatever is on the screen of the tablet so i don't need anything special to get it on the tv that's all. did have a look at roll20 but had some issues setting up maps beforehand, was probably just me, not heard of pyromancer so will give it a go

[Lord Torath]

Inkscape has an optional grid, either rectangular or hex/triangular, and either lines or dots.