Once I get my deckplan posted somewhere, I might put up some notes about my process with autorealm.
Yeah, I'd be interested to see both the plan and the notes. However, I thought CC2 plans always looked simplistic somehow (in contrast to their production) I can't really explain what I mean - sort of pencil-and-paperish? and my brief look at Autorealm suggested a similar style.
Where I'm going at the moment is I've got hundreds of 20x20 pixel Jpeg tiles from Dungeonforge that I'm hoping to be able to strip and manipulate in an obsolete free version of Paint Shop Pro (once I've figured out what transparency and masking is all about so I can select irregular sections of a Jpeg and delete the rest - gimme a year or two), then I can produce detailed DF interiors using chopped and rearranged tiles.
Then I'm drawing curved outlines in MS Word Draw, since it's the only program I'm aware of that can do curves, patterns and gradients AND is comprehensible. (Pity you have to guesstimate the size of shapes against the rulers instead of being able to specify sizes - it's a real Achilles heel in the program).
Then I'll assemble the two parts together in MS Paint. ie the curved grey background layer and the detailed, full-colour DF interiors.
It's a bit of a PITA, but I don't know of any single program that will do all of that AND remain comprehensible and affordable.
It's just deleting irregular areas of a jpeg that's holding me back right now.
Even the help menu in PSP is incomprehensible jargon to me - I have absolutely zero knowledge of art software and techniques.
