An appeal to all my friends out there who do a lot of mapping. I’m looking for something very specific, and was hoping that someone out there might know of a cartography program that can make forest terrain that looks like this:
That’s a scan of one of the old SPI wargames from the 70’s, and I’m pretty sure they used the old Letraset rub-on transfers for their terrain, back in the days before computers, and this was a standard pattern used in cartography and architecture.
Anyone know of a modern program that will create the same sort of effect?
Hexographer, maybe — it'll at least get you close.
Unfortunately no, but I'm commenting to get email follow-ups in case somebody does. Those are great maps.
Might be worth crossposting to any place where modern cartographers congregate.
Also commenting so I can follow this puppy.
I created these graphics for Dunjinni. You should be able to recreate similar maps with it.
Hexographer.
GIMP InkScape, and most paid graphics programs allow region fill with textures.
I'd reach out to Rob Conley. Isn't he the one redoing all the Wilderlands maps? I thimk he uses all those textures in digital form.
The pattern is available from http://www.jrcooper.com/gaming.htm#terrain_tiles
Just to clarify, programs that can replicate patterns aren't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a mapping program that already has this particular pattern that I can use, because I don't have the pattern isolated in a way that lets me import it into other programs. So Hexographer and GIMP are out.
But that link looks promising, Unknown. Might be able to bring that into Hexographer as a custom terrain object.
There's a forum on reddit called /r/mapmaking. I suspect if anyone knows, they might. They tend to take their mapmaking very seriously. Sorry I can't link to it but am on my mobile and find it difficult to link to stuff.
http://www.jrcooper.com/gaming.htm#terrain_tiles
If there are other patterns you need just message me on Google plus.
Letraset used to sell a CD full of this stuff but it is no longer up on their website. You may want to email them to see if they still have any copies.
The CD was called Letraset: Textures and Tones
Buy a good graphics program. Old versions of Corel can be gotten cheap on eBay. Monotasking programs like Hexographer don't cut the mustard if you want good maps.
@KenHR
Actually the free and open source Inkscape does the job for maps as well as Corel or Adobe. The only reason I don't use it is because I know Corel extremely well.