Astrosynthesis vs Cosmographer

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by shadowdragon:
you can get an essentially 2d map in astrosynthesis just by setting the z axis to 1 parsec. or edit all the coordinates for each system to place the z axis at identical #.

But why would you want to do that? There are definitely better and cheaper ways to generate a 2D Traveller map, complete with UWP. It takes lots of work to get AS to generate a 2D Traveller Map. You are forcing a Square peg into a round hole doing things that way.

If I am going to generate a 2D Traveller map then I am either going to use H&E or Galatic+CC2.

 

[sgbrown]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by shadowdragon:
you can get an essentially 2d map in astrosynthesis just by setting the z axis to 1 parsec. or edit all the coordinates for each system to place the z axis at identical #.

But why would you want to do that? There are definitely better and cheaper ways to generate a 2D Traveller map, complete with UWP. It takes lots of work to get AS to generate a 2D Traveller Map. You are forcing a Square peg into a round hole doing things that way.

If I am going to generate a 2D Traveller map then I am either going to use H&E or Galatic+CC2. </font>[/QUOTE]The why would be because you already have a copy of AS and/or want to use it's world generation system. The program is quite nice in a number of ways. UWP generation is NOT one of them however.

 

[Colin]

Originally posted by Icosahedron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Valarian:
you can get the complete cartography suite manual.
<snip>
It can't be stressed enough with this tool - you must do the tutorials.

I got the manual, even went to the trouble of printing it out for ease of reference. I also tried the tutorials. I just didn't have the TIME that this program demands. I have a few short hours a week for gaming, only a fraction of which is available for design. I spent most of each session trying to remember what I'd learnt last time.

I'm not anti-profantasy, BTW, I LOVE Fractal Terrains, it's very intuitive. If only their other products would allow me to zoom in and put details on the worlds with equal ease!
If Cosmographer is CC2/3 based, I'd have to go with Astrosynthesis myself.


What I need for deckplans/vehicles is something with the simplicity of MS Paint, but with just a few more features:
the ability to measure lines without counting pixels,
the ability to blend shapes,
the ability to snap to grid, to lines, to curves,
the ability to shade with gradients, and ideally,
the ability to use an isometric (triangular) grid.
And that's it, really, anything else is just a waste of money and learning time to me.

If you find anything along these lines, MtD, let me know.

Thanks for the Galactic link, Valarian, is B needed as well as C, or does C incorporate B? </font>[/QUOTE]Check out Dundjinni It does most of what you want, and it's extremely easy to use. It is even Mac-compatible.

The user forums contain a number of SF-themed objects and textures, and it is designed to produce battle-maps at 1"=5" scale. 200 pixels = 1 inch = 5 feet

 

[Icosahedron]

Originally posted by Colin:
Check out Dundjinni It does most of what you want, and it's extremely easy to use. It is even Mac-compatible.

The user forums contain a number of SF-themed objects and textures, and it is designed to produce battle-maps at 1"=5" scale. 200 pixels = 1 inch = 5 feet

Thanks Colin,
I heard of DJ but I thought it was just a tile-based system, allowing you to place pre-generated tiles to create a map or plan, but requiring considerable skill (and an external drawing program?) to create tiles from scratch. Like the simple and FREE Dungeonforge system I use for some stuff now. Have I got it wrong?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Icosahedron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Colin:
Check out Dundjinni It does most of what you want, and it's extremely easy to use. It is even Mac-compatible.

The user forums contain a number of SF-themed objects and textures, and it is designed to produce battle-maps at 1"=5" scale. 200 pixels = 1 inch = 5 feet

Thanks Colin,
I heard of DJ but I thought it was just a tile-based system, allowing you to place pre-generated tiles to create a map or plan, but requiring considerable skill (and an external drawing program?) to create tiles from scratch. Like the simple and FREE Dungeonforge system I use for some stuff now. Have I got it wrong? </font>[/QUOTE]It is tile based. (Just like the mapping system in GRiP.) I suppose it wouldn't be difficult using GIMP to make tiles for a Sector Map, but Galactic or H&E is easier and less time consuming.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by SGB - Steve B:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by shadowdragon:
you can get an essentially 2d map in astrosynthesis just by setting the z axis to 1 parsec. or edit all the coordinates for each system to place the z axis at identical #.

But why would you want to do that? There are definitely better and cheaper ways to generate a 2D Traveller map, complete with UWP. It takes lots of work to get AS to generate a 2D Traveller Map. You are forcing a Square peg into a round hole doing things that way.

If I am going to generate a 2D Traveller map then I am either going to use H&E or Galatic+CC2. </font>[/QUOTE]The why would be because you already have a copy of AS and/or want to use it's world generation system. The program is quite nice in a number of ways. UWP generation is NOT one of them however. </font>[/QUOTE]H&E also does the World generation. Complete with planetary maps, UWP for both the main system and the secondary worlds, the only way you get Planetary maps that are really usable out of AS is to also have Fractal Terrains. (And you can feed Fractal terrains the data generated by H&E and it will generate your Planetary maps from the data.)

 

[Redcap]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
(And you can feed Fractal terrains the data generated by H&E and it will generate your Planetary maps from the data.)

Agreed. I plugged (manually entered, actually!) H&E data into Fractal Terrains, in order to generate 'gaia' maps of my land-grab entry, Strouden (link in sig strip).

I then, once those were done, used FTs other mapping output for the other maps you'll see on the Maps page.

As I just could not get to grips with CC2 (intuitive is not a word I'd use for it, hell, Imsi's Floorplan 3D Plus, an old Win3.11 program, was more bleedin' intuitive! (quote he, showing-eth his age-eth )).

Once the maps were output in bmp format, I also output the hex map template from CC2 in a jpeg, plugged all the imagery into Macromedia Fireworks, layered them out, and presto, excellent mapping, if I says it what shouldn't

Lacking Fireworks, you can always use PhotoShop, or even Paint Shop Pro, of course

Hope the above helps