deckplans..or. what is the best system

[dm_dracos]

What is the best program to use for drawing out deckplans??
Im not a true gearhead..but im wanting to draw out some of the designs i have made up for my own useage, but to be honest, i have never drawn up anything besides building layouts before.

Thanks for all opinions and suggestions
Dracos

 

[flykiller]

for just plain ol' deckplans, mspaint works ok. if you want to do 3d stuff, you'll need something more powerful - others will be along shortly to tell you what, what's free and what isn't, etc.

 

[ravells]

The only bespoke one I know is Profantasy Cosmographer - pros: lots of symbols & not too expensive. Cons: unintuitive inteface.

Any of the vector drawing packages: Illustrator, Freehand etc. I use Serif Drawplus which is much cheaper and has all the functionality I need to do deckplans with.

At a pinch you could use the drawing tools in Microsoft word...not to be sniffed at!

Ravs

 

[Berg]

I drew this in Dungeon Forge ...



It's Free
Depends on the look you are going for...

 

[Valarian]

Excel - there's a spreadsheet around here somewhere. This is really the best way to plan the layout.

Then your favourite mapping tool for drawing the actual deskplans. Personally, I use CC2 (now CC3) and can heartily recommend it. But this tool can be difficult to get in to. Very rewarding once you do, but quite difficult to start with.

 

[Golan2072]

I use Paint Shop Pro 7.

 

[Scarecrow]

What did you use to draw up the building layouts?

That'd probably work.

There are purpose built mapping programs for use with roleplaying games that are excellent for diagramatic floorplans of a fairly simple design.
the aforementioned Dungeon Forge or Campaign Cartographer to name but two.

You can use paint programs like MSPaint, PSP and Photoshop but you have to draw your plans from scratch - which requires a certain level of knowledge of the package before you start.

Crow

 

[KenHR]

I use CorelDraw 10 or 12 (depending on which machine I'm using at the time) to do my mapping. No particular reason I use that software beyond my being familiar with how it all works.

 

[dm_dracos]

Originally posted by Scarecrow:
What did you use to draw up the building layouts?

That'd probably work.

There are purpose built mapping programs for use with roleplaying games that are excellent for diagramatic floorplans of a fairly simple design.
the aforementioned Dungeon Forge or Campaign Cartographer to name but two.

You can use paint programs like MSPaint, PSP and Photoshop but you have to draw your plans from scratch - which requires a certain level of knowledge of the package before you start.

Crow

Well to be honest, this is my first step into using computer aided drawing, i always drew using old graph paper and pencils, so im trying to get a feeling for what would work the best, and as for the spreadsheets, my only problem so far is that im used to doing it all by hand, figure out what you need, how many ect, then planing it in my mind. sorry if this doesnt help alot, but im wokring on expanding myself and hopefully my games.
Dracos

 

[GypsyComet]

Lots of good suggestions above for Windows.

For the Mac, AppleWorks is a worthy starting point if you have it pre-installed (as on iMacs, Mac Minis, and many of the laptops). I've been playing with Freeverse LineForm and EazyDraw recently as well, and both appear up to the task of good looking deckplans.

 

[Renard Ruche]

GypsyComet:

I am someone with a limited budget and technical know-how that would also like to learn to 'do' deckplans. I have a copy of AppleWorks around here. If you are interested/able to give some pointers to a newbie at this, it would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to PM me if you would prefer.

Renard Ruche

 

[GypsyComet]

Appleworks has a decent combination of line weight (and texture and color) control, reasonably good grid controls, and page scaling.

I will generally start in the drawing tool with bringing up the visible rulers with a half-inch visible grid and a 1/8th inch snap-to setting. I set the deckplan grid, being 1.5m or 2m (Traveller edition dependent) on the half-inch visibles using a width-1 line set to a light blue dashed pattern.

From there I lay out the hull form of each deck to get the volume I want (I go lo-tech and count grid squares, typically), lay out the easy stuff like engines and the big constraining objects like cargo bays, then fill in the rest. I typically go in with an idea about where the bridge is going to be.

External hull lines and bulkheads are width-3, while internal non-bulkheads are width-1 or -2. Aside from the blue (or sometimes reddish) floor grid and things like fuel spaces, I don't go in for a lot of color, as I'm a fan of the old CT look for deckplans.

Hit the

icon at the top of this post and follow the starships link for examples.

Some Appleworks caveats:
-Put a big outline box around the whole drawing once you know what size it is. AW's GIF export will only go out to the outermost *defined* pixel of your drawing, which, if not boxed, will be the skin of the ship...
-Gradient fills don't export very well from AW to GIF or JPEG. You might have better luck "printing" directly to PDF.

My style isn't the only way possible, of course. I've seen some very nice work done in AW, but that sort of thing will take longer and may yield a less playable result. I'm aiming for "slap it on the table and start the shoot-out", not framed artwork.

 

[Pickles]

Naval Architects do it with AutoCAD.

 

[Enoff]

A Vector Drawing program of some sort. I think it would be hard with a straight paint program but many now also include vector tools.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I like CC2 and Cosmographer, myself. Besides since they have an Approved for Traveller, they also have the standard Traveller symbols.

On the other side of the coin, though I have done a couple 3D ones in Hex 2.

 

[Renard Ruche]

Thanks Gypsy! Have to take time and really go through it, but appreciate it!

 

[vutpakdi]

I personally like Canvas from ACD Systems (which bought Deneba, the original publishers of Canvas). Canvas is sort of a jack of all trades graphics program. At the heart, a vector based technical illustration program. Throw in bitmap graphics editing (similar to Photoshop), light page layout capabilities, and an extensive set of import and export filters. Much easier to learn than Campaign Cartographer 2.

Unfortunately, Canvas is too expensive for hobbyist use at $400.

Ron (who doesn't really do deckplans anymore except for the occasional commission)

 

[Mickazoid]

I'm a huge fan of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Sketchup.

With these two programs you can export bitmaps, high-quality pdf's and everything in between. Even better, Illustrator opens pdfs natively - so I used Illustrator in conjunction with my sector generation script to fine-tune all the art, with great results.

Here's an interior plan of the 'Batwing', a custom luxury yacht.

And here's a 'Sketchupped' version of the 'Conquest'-class ground support platform:

All the deckplans and line art on my photobucket are created with Illustrator, Photoshop and Sketchup (check em out!):

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/Zole/?start=all

 

[Enoff]

Very nice!

 

[Kenposan]

I use PS elements 2.0 but started out using MSPaint.

Pretty good for non-vectoring.

my web page

And here:

SWDA