Anybody know of a good (free) map generator?

[Rel]

I need to generate a map of an island archipelago. I could draw it out by hand but I thought I'd see if anybody had another option first.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Haven't used these in a while, but they're still in my bookmarks list:

iG-Tools

 

[fba827]

Haven't used these in a while, but they're still in my bookmarks list:

iG-Tools

That website (irony.com) has been defunct for a while. A few months ago the main page (www.irony.com) would come up with something -entirely_ different from what irony.com used to have. And now the main page has been changed yet again with a 'domain for sale' note. and if you go to any specific linked/bookmarked pages (like the one you referenced), the initial/original page comes up but it won't actually process anything.

sad because irony had some good tools on it.

 

[Pinotage]

There were the various MapMage products at one point - I seem to remember one of them being able to do outdoorsy type stuff.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'd try Hexmapper. It's free and pretty powerful (to wit, with his custom tiles, hong used it to create the Britannia 3e maps here). The Hexmapper Yahoo Group here has the most current (and stable) version of the software available, as well as several custom tile sets. If you can't wait, I've attached the version of Hexmapper that I use (0.90 B) and some 'old school' tiles as ZIP files for you.

 

[Joshua Randall]

That website (irony.com) has been defunct for a while.

Bummer, man.

I should really update my links more than once every three years, I guess.

 

[Storminator]

Have you tried the satellite view of Google maps?

You can get some pretty cool archipelagos if you look around British Columbia or the coast of southern Chile.

PS

 

[Aeolius]

You could try the free version of Bryce ( Mac | Windows )

 

[Darrin Drader]

If you don't have Photoshop, get GIMP (GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program)

Then join the Cartographer's Guild - Cartographers Guild :: Homepage

There's one method I found that just uses the render clouds function. Once you've created a bunch of randomly formed blobs, you can choose which blobs to use, combine, delete, and otherwise work with these things. Once you've done that, then you just need to start deciding what goes where on the map. A sample multi-continent project that I started using this method is attached.

 

[Rel]

If you don't have Photoshop, get GIMP (GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program)

Then join the Cartographer's Guild - Cartographers Guild :: Homepage

There's one method I found that just uses the render clouds function. Once you've created a bunch of randomly formed blobs, you can choose which blobs to use, combine, delete, and otherwise work with these things. Once you've done that, then you just need to start deciding what goes where on the map. A sample multi-continent project that I started using this method is attached.

This combination of suggestions is excellent! As it happens, I'd already stumbled upon The Cartographer's Guild in my map hunt and I've gotten some amazing help from the people there.

I downloaded GIMP on your suggestion and it is an excellent tool. I'm going to try your idea and play around with what I come up with. Although I'm sure it won't be nearly as nice as the map that somebody at TCG has been fashioning for me.