What's the best program to make an arena map?

[Stoob]

I'm interested in making an arena map for CW2.5, with squares, walls, buildings, etc and all. I'm sure there are some software or web tools out there that work for making grid maps for dungeons as well as streets. I thought I would ask the experts. Any good ideas? What's your favorite?

[ak_aramis]

I've used Appleworks for Car Wars maps in the past. It does a nice enough job with just enough tools.

Any drawing program with snap-to-grid which prints 1:1 should work.

CC2/CC3 is a bit of overkill, IMO, but it will do it... It's the hard way, but it's quite doable, and will make some nice maps.

[Parody]

I use MultiAd Creator to make maps for SPARK. Creator is a layout program, much like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. In general, I'd recommend a layout or vector drawing program (like Illustrator) over a painting program (like Photoshop).

I've found Campaign Cartographer 2 difficult and counter-intuitive, enough that I never got anything useful out of it. I'm sure some of it is due to differences between the CAD and desktop publishing worlds, but not all. At least it runs, which is more than I've been able to do with Dundjinni.

As always, these are my experiences and opinions; YMMV.

You might find these threads useful: Who here make their own maps? - Map software question

Hope this helps.

[Stoob]

Thanks both. I use Photoshop a lot so probably will use that. I want to create basic street/pavement stuff.

I found this:
http://www.cwspark.org/downloads/are...k_sheet-1x.pdf (thanks SPARK)

Does anyone have any premade tiles of asphalt or pavement (any format: .png, .eps, .ai, etc) or other art that will work, that you'd want to share with me, so I can cobble together an arena map?

Would appreciate any art samples you'd want to share w/ me. Send me a PM or post links here.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by Stoob

Does anyone have any premade tiles of asphalt or pavement (any format: .png, .eps, .ai, etc) or other art that will work, that you'd want to share with me, so I can cobble together an arena map?

I just use a dark gray fill, though I like to leave the arena floor white unless there's a reason to do otherwise (like multiple heights). The oversize printers I've been using are prone to ghosting; less ink means problems are less likely and less severe.

[ak_aramis]

I use a 50% dither of 50% gray and white.

[Roadwarless]

I use Fractal Mapper on NBOS software. Fractal Mapper does geographical maps, outside and forest, etc., building outside and walled maps, and does world maps and others. Is interchangeable with photoshop, and jpegs, etc. Fractal Mapper does roadways too. Is around 35ish dollars.
I also use blank maps and battlemaps (both paper) but have multiple pages. There are even specific Car Wars hex maps that ive gleaned from Ebay for pennies on dollar, and either a hex grid or square grid for adventures, rpgnet.com and i buy the vinyl that is erasable w/erasable markers (reusable). Rpgnet also has regular paper maps and double sided ones.
There are still the baggy road section maps etc., on Ebay ya gotta look for em.
I re use the road sections by purchasing either tacks which destroy eventually the paper, and tacky grip stuff. I use this for placing the cardboard chits, so it peels right off and i can reuse the road sections. The grids for arenas, and housing cities etc., etc. i find baggy expansion sets on Yebay too, for the layouts.