On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 2:28 AM, Atredie wrote:

I am looking - so far unsuccessfully - for a program that will let me make make and use grid based maps, like in a PnP RPG or old fashioned doodling on quad graph paper. Being able to arrange geometric shapes (squares, rectangles) and icons without overwriting the grid would be a plus.

I have tried gimp, but I can not even figure out how to shrink the paintbrish blob to draw a simple, narrow, line. I was able to put up a grid, however,

tiled http://www.mapeditor.org/ is a dedicated application for editing suce tile grids (for use as levels in games and similar)

/Øyvind

Am 29.08.2014 um 02:28 schrieb Atredie:

I am looking - so far unsuccessfully - for a program that will let me make make and use grid based maps, like in a PnP RPG or old fashioned doodling on quad graph paper. Being able to arrange geometric shapes (squares, rectangles) and icons without overwriting the grid would be a plus.

I have tried gimp, but I can not even figure out how to shrink the paintbrish blob to draw a simple, narrow, line. I was able to put up a grid, however,

When ever you complain about the Gimp habitat, and it's your to be entitled to do complain, but disclose your operating system details.

Thank you

Lao-Tse sagt: Nichtstun ist besser, als mit viel Mhe nichts zu schaffen.
Und er sagt auch: Ich habe drei Schtze, die ich hte und hege. Der eine ist die Liebe, der zweite ist die Gengsamkeit, der dritte ist die Demut. Nur der Liebende ist mutig, nur der Gengsame ist grozgig, nur der Demtige ist fhig zu herrschen.

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On 08/28/2014 10:44 PM, Atredie wrote:

Am 29.08.2014 um 02:28 schrieb Atredie: When ever you complain about the Gimp habitat, and it's your to be entitled to do complain, but disclose your operating system details.

Thank you

Sorry, I wasn't complaining about it, I was complaining about my sheer noobishness and asking for help. Which means I posted this in the wrong forum... oops.

Win 8.1

Hey, you aren't in the wrong place!

For applications where you will be moving geometric shapes around, Inkscape might be a better choice than the GIMP, though.

The GIMP treats images as pixels - a grid of small colored squares like a digital photograph. Although you can make shapes and put them on their own layers to move them around freely, that's not what the GIMP was really made for; it's loaded with photo editing and freehand drawing tools that just aren't relevant to making and connecting blocks of stuff.

Inkscape treats images as collections of geometric shapes, which can easily be duplicated, moved around, rotated, joined into groups, etc. It's much closer to the right tool for the job you described earlier. One of my favorite things about Inkscape is that its help menu includes tutorials that are themselves Inkscape SVG grahic files, that you edit and mess with while you read.

Once you understand the basics in Inkscape, making a grid, making the grid sticky to easily align shapes precisely, and making the grid into visible lines of any color, thickness, etc., above or below your other shapes, should be a snap.

Another advantage with Inkscape is that vector graphics can be enlarged or reduced to any size with no loss of detail. SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. Comparing this with a GIMP image file is like comparing a CAD drawing to a digital photograph.

Since you are going to have to climb up a learning curve either way, I would suggest giving Inkscape a go to see if it seems to be a better fit, before going further into learning how to use the GIMP for this one project.

:o)

Steve

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