Greetings and salutations! I'm Janet from
World Anvil and today I am gonna take you through my five favorite pieces of
region and world mapping software! I'm gonna show you a little bit about what
kind of maps they can make, I'm gonna give you a little bit of information
about how much they cost, and I'm gonna give you my opinion in like a little
micro review! Are you ready? It's time to LIGHT UP THE FORGE! it is of course a truth universally
acknowledged that worldbuilders love MAPS! We do we can't help it we love
ourselves a little bit of mappiness and map making software is a really great
way to create your own Maps! Of course if you are a talented artist
(I'm not) or if you have loads of time to learn (I don't) then you can hand draw
your maps and they will be amazing - I believe in you! But if you're like me and
you're a big old art dolt, map making software offers you a great opportunity
to have creative and worldbuilding input, make sure you have a map that looks like
your world looks, and looks as you want it to, but also looks good - it doesn't look
like a big old pile of poop! That's what my drawings look like... So let's kick off
with map making software number one Project Deios! (Coming soon!) So the reason that I have listed Project Deios as number one even though it has not yet come out - and
I'll tell you more about that in a minute - is because it is designed to be
the last word in map-making software for worldbuilders. The art style is
beautiful it's created by Caeora, the artist who has drawn maps for Critical
Role, the UI I- 've already seen the mock-ups - it would be really
straightforward and easy to use, you'll be able to link all your maps together,
you'll understand the scope as you wor work and more importantly of course for
me, it will integrate directly into World Anvil. That's gonna be huge
cuz that's gonna make a lot of stuff easier with the interactive mapping
features and the map creation features! Project Deios will be a browser-based
software but if you are a die-hard downloadables fan you'll be happy to hear
that there is also a desktop application which will work offline so you can
choose whether you want to work in a browser-based system or in a
downloadable desktop version. So what kind of maps will Project Deios help you
make? Project Deios will help you make star maps, globe view maps, world maps, region
maps... but I'm not done! It will also help you with city maps, which is what I'm
looking forward to the most, and if you want to make scene maps and building
maps you'll be able to do that as well in the battle map editor.
It really has all the bases covered, again, this is why it's first even though
it's not quite out yet. In addition to creating your maps by hand and drawing
them with paid tools you'll also be able to procedurally generate them if you
want to now I love that because it means you'll have on the one hand complete
control over the map down to the tiniest little iota and on
the other hand if you're in a hurry you can procedurally generate
something with a few clicks on a specs menu. But here is the hitch - if you guys
have been following world anvil you'll know that Project Deios went to Kickstarter
it went nuts it exploded it's currently being built but it's not ready yet. So
the reason that I mentioned this is because the pre-order store is opening
in two weeks you'll be able to learn more there'll be
more information circling about what Deios is going to look like and once it's
finally launched, which I cannot wait for, it's gonna have a freemium model as well -
so you're gonna be able to try it before you buy it and see if you like it.
But since it's not yet ready make sure you check out the rest of this map making
software video! See what I did there? oh yeah! The second map making software
that I have for you is Inkarnate! Inkarnate is a browser-based map making
software which means that it works wherever you have internet access - now I
freaking love that! There is a limited free version with about 100 map
assets which means you can go and try it like right now if you want to - but stay
with us, learn more! And the full version offers
you way more stuff as well. For me I'm not totally in love with the art style
of Inkarnate although it does have some flexibility, and my biggest bug bear is
the way that the lettering looks. But of course if you are importing your maps
into World Anvil you have a little bit of leeway with that - you can use the
interactive labels on the World Anvil side to make you map interactive and
then you can dodge that lettering all together and get a slightly sleeker
result for your map. So what kind of maps can you make with Inkarnate? Inkarnate
allows you to make world maps, region maps and also distant view city maps - not
really close up ones but you can get like a good overall view of a city. It
promises a variety of different styles of assets - so elvish assets
and Dwarvish assets and Orcish assets and that's gonna be amazing for all the TT
RPG GMs out there who are making maps for Dungeons & Dragons style games, but
also anyone who's writing fantasy - Tolkeinian fantasy, lit RPG, any of those genres -
this is gonna be potentially a good solution for you. In addition a lot of
the assets would be suitable for medieval fantasy settings so fantasy
authors who are writing medieval fantasy or Renaissance fantasy will actually find
this just fine to use. I will add that they don't seem to have any futuristic
or sci-fi assets so this might not be the best resource for Starfinder
campaigns, Star Trek campaigns or anybody who's writing sci-fi. Let's talk quickly
about how much Inkarnate costs! So Inkarnate is a SaaS - that's a system as a
service - oh yeah I knows the lingo... So it's purchased by subscription
which makes sense for a browser-based software like this it has persistent
cost to cover - and the best thing about subscription models is that they also
help the software to constantly improve, so that means that your product that
you've invested in gets better and better over time. The free version of
Inkarnate map making software will get you smaller Maps -
so that's 1024 by 768 and about a hundred assets to start with. In addition
and this is super important for any of you who are hoping to self publish your
work or have it published in the traditional sense - the maps from the free
version of Inkarnate are only for personal use, you can't use them for any
published or commercial products. If you spring for the paid version of Inkarnate
you get bigger maps so they become 2048 by 1536, over a hundred assets and you
can use your maps on commercial projects without a hitch a subscription will set
you back about five dollars a month but if you try it for a month and you like
it make sure you spring for the yeah a fee of $25 - that's a saving of $35 a year!
The TLDR is that Inkarnate is cheap and cheerful map making software - you can
make some really good looking maps on this with a little bit of know-how,
especially if you're happy with medieval style fantasy assets or if you're
sticking to geography only for sci-fi maps, that would be another way around
that sci-fi asset problem. If you're curious the beauty is
that you can go and make an account and play with it right now for free!
God I love that! And if you want to learn more about it before you go check it out
yourself I can recommend the full Inkarnate review by WASD20 - that is Nate
Vanderzee - he's awesome, we love him, I've linked his review at
the top and the bottom of this video. That review is way more in detail than
anything I could do in the scope of this kind of video, so it shows in platform
footage and the map making process and Nate's really awesome so if you liked it!
be sure to subscribe to his channel! The third mapmaking software that I have
for you is Wonderdraft! so Wonderdraft is a downloadable map making software
with a one-time purchase and it's compatible with Windows 10 Linux and Mac. Like all the map making softwares in this list you can use it to quickly
create maps which look pretty damn good You also have a lot of color and visual
customisation options in Wonderdraft and you can also generate some of your
land masses, which makes things a little bit quicker if you're not too fussy
about how they look. The benefit of the downloadable software
is that if you have dodgy internet or if you make maps when you travel this works
offline so if that is you this might be a good solution. The drawback of course
is that because it's downloadable you can't try this one out before you buy it
like you can with some of the other browser based software's and because
it's not browser-based you can't just pick up working on your maps from any
computer - that means if you find yourself working on different machines, say at
home or at work or at your parents house or at your house - you can't pick up your
maps in the same way it's not as convenient . The art style of Wonderdraft
is - it's pretty fine it reminds me of those sketchy Tolkenien hand-drawn
maps, and the running requirements are not crazy - my gaming laptop runs it just
fine. So what kind of maps can you make with Wonderdraft? You can make world
maps and you can make region maps and that's... that's it, that's the space, that's
fine - at a pinch you can create city maps but it's definitely not designed for
this. So since I recorded the last part of this Chica Mirada got in touch with
me on Twitter and showed me this - this is a city map
obviously that was made on Wonderdraft Wonderdraft so clearly it is possible, what
I'd read from other spaces was not correct. So I just wanted to give you that
little update! If you want more and you like Wonderdraft, Megasploot, the guy who
created it has just released Dungeondraft Dungeondragt, which is a dungeon mapping software - if you've seen Dungeon Fog it looks - it's similar, but it's not part of the
Wonderdraft program so you don't get everything in one package. That said if
all you want is regions and world maps then Wonderdraft is for you! in terms of
genre this one's a lot like Inkarnate - it's really good for fantasy it's not
got a huge amount of sci-fi stuff and the artist aesthetic really reinforces that -
that's sort of sketchy fantasy dreamlike quality to it great for fantasy, but if
you're doing military sci-fi this might not be the one of you. So how much does
Wonderdraft a cost? As a downloadable software Wonderdraft has a one-time
fee of twenty nine and ninety nine dollars USD, that's a really reasonable
price for a software that can make you like UNLIMITED MAPPINESS - I think I think
that's pretty good Wonderdraft also has additional art
packs that you could buy for five or ten dollars but the beauty of this is that
you could also use your own assets if you want to - there's a thread that
explains how to do this I'll put that in the link below. The TLDR on this one is
that if downloadable is the only way for you - if you have dodgy internet if you
just like downloadable products more - then Wonderdraft might be for you - if
you want to learn more about this map making software again I have a video for
you from Nate from WASD20 he has gone through the map creating process in much
more detail so if you're curious to look and explore before you buy - which again I
would recommend you can't try this one out in advance - then go check that video
out again - top bottom uh-huh! It's there! Map making software number four - is FlowScape! Now hang on, hang on a little bit because because FlowScape kind of is
and kind of isn't a map making software - let me explain! FlowScape is a
downloadable 3d modeling program that allows you to make 3d animated scenes
you can also resize the assets - now this is super crucial:
if you use little teeny-tiny assets you can create a large region or a continent
on your canvas, and if you use really big assets then you can create a city or a
single house or scene - it's all a matter of perspective!
Now I have to say that worldbuilders especially World Anvil users are going
to find this program to be gold especially if they're eager for imagery:
because it's a 3d modeling program you can use different perspectives for your
images, moving the camera around to get the angle that you want so you can take
a bird's-eye view as a screen shot and then turn it into a map or an interactive
map (oh yeah!) or you can record a video like this one that I'm showing you right now
to show your players and readers and embed into your World Anvil article
and if you include some epic music in that that's gonna give a really great sort of
overall impression of an element or a space to your world. But it's also a
great way for novelists and tabletop gamers and all you gorgeous worldbuilders out there to get different impressions of the same scene from
street level - now that is epic, it's gonna help your players and your readers
really understand what you're describing and it's gonna be a great way to
generate a lot of different kinds of images and assets for World Anvil worldbuilding articles - it's going to be great to make anything from a region or a
small continent down to a city or even a single house or a scene. So how much does FlowScape cost? FlowScape costs ten dollars and with all of these
flexibilities that I've described that's a really freaking reasonable price in my
opinion. It's an offline downloadable program which runs on Windows, Mac and
Linux so you shouldn't have compatibility issues and again it's not
super heavy - my gaming laptop runs it just fine. You can also buy it on Steam
if you want to, but for some reason it's a little bit more expensive there - it's
11 pounds 39 in your finest sterling or that's like about 14.15 dollars. The last
map making software that I have for you today is number 5 Campaign Cartographer!
Campaign Cartographer is a downloadable map making software made by ProFantasy
Software it runs on any PC but not on Mac or
Linux - now it's pretty old-school and the UI is quite dated - when I was looking at
the tutorials it made me feel really nostalgic like old-school Microsoft
Paint- that's that's not to say the program is simplistic as paint, but I was
definitely getting some retro vibes in the way it looks on the editing and
again like Wonderdraft, Campaign Cartographer allows you to make world
maps and region maps and and that that's it that that's what you can do. The same
company it has other map making software that you could buy there's one called City
Designer there's one called Dungeon Designer and that covers, obviously,
citys and dungeons or scenes, but they're not part of Campaign Cartographer. What
you can do in this which is quite cool is there's a lot of different preset
styles in the program and that gives you a very diverse choice of aesthetics just
by choosing through the different styles So how much does Campaign Cartographer cost? Campaign Cartographer retails at - okay so hear me out 29 pounds 95 which
is about 38.15$ in the UK, but weirdly if you change your website settings to the
USA it is more expensive it costs $44.95 I don't know why that is, that might be
a quirk of conversion that might be something to do with additional fees if
you pay from the USA, I couldn't tell you that's what I saw on the website when I
checked it out today. In addition to that price they have additional upgrades
which you can purchase which are kind of like DLCs, but either way it's it's
definitely the most expensive software mentioned here so far. You can use your
own assets like in Wonderdraft and that gives you more stylistic options and
this software definitely has some diehard fans - they have a really big
following, they've been around for a long time a lot of people love it... that said
it's not my favorite, it's a little bit retro, wouldn't be my personal choice -
that's not to say the maps look bad, it does a great job at what it sets out to
do - you can make maps pretty quickly without any art skills, it is a
absolutely legit map making software... but it's not the one for me.
So those are the five pieces of map making software that I found on the
market that make regions and world maps Of course once you have the map that's
when the fun really begins you put it in World Anvil, you can drop in your pins to
create interactive maps that your players and readers can explore, you
could track the journeys of your characters and you can even link maps to
other maps which gives a full scope of your worldbuilding, and yeah it really
throws everything into perspective interactive maps are a great way for
your players and readers to understand your world and it's a really good way to
get them hooked, like they want to know more, they want to click through,
they want to explore the pins, they want to learn and that is awesome, that's
where you want them to be! So whichever software you use I wish you the happiest
of mapping, if you have seen a useful one that you didn't know about before then
let me know, if you have a favorite one that I have not talked about - PLEASE let
me know, I am always looking for more mapping software, for more cool things to
show you guys, so throw all that in comments below! Make sure you subscribe
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our videos coming out! All that remains we said is grab your hammer AND GO WORLDBUILD!
