# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Software Discussion >  Dynamic Map Generator

## Naryt

I found this City Map Generator this morning.  Yes, yes, it's not handcrafting a work of wonder using the latest tools but it does a marvelous job of producing a very usable map in a matter of seconds.  Hats off to Drachenzahn (Dragon-tooth) for creating such a great little tool.

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## ravells

Wow! The cities look really organic and convincing...especially the big ones when viewed at a distance. Great find!

Ravs

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## Naryt

> Wow! The cities look really organic and convincing...especially the big ones when viewed at a distance. Great find!
> 
> Ravs


My only beef with it is that it doesn't appear to export to any image formats.

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## Naryt

Just a quick note on this, the program has been updated and now allows image exporting to BMP.

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## pyrandon

Thanks, Naryt:  great find.

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## Airith

Just a quick question, is there any way to get the 'print colors' to show up when you generate the map? Instead of just lines and boxes?

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## Torq

I dont think you can view the printable output in the program itself, but I installed a pdf printer and it works fine. You print to a pdf file so you can see exactly what the output will be before committing to paper.

Torq

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## Valarian

This looks pretty good and would be a wonderful base generator for CC3 city maps. The problem I always find with trying to draw settlements is getting a convincing layout. A great find.

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## pyrandon

Okay, I finally downloaded this program & played with it--very cool!  

I soon decided to try to recreate the style of my current city maps using the program as Valarian suggested:  a base generator for the layout.  In less than 2 hours I came up with the attached town, PS effects and all.  Not my best work by any means, but not bad for the time spent!  This will be very, very useful and fun program for me.  Great find, Naryt!

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## Naryt

> Okay, I finally downloaded this program & played with it--very cool!  
> 
> I soon decided to try to recreate the style of my current city maps using the program as Valarian suggested:  a base generator for the layout.  In less than 2 hours I came up with the attached town, PS effects and all.  Not my best work by any means, but not bad for the time spent!  This will be very, very useful and fun program for me.  Great find, Naryt!


Glad you like it.

Fun map btw.

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## Keedo

Ya know, first I just did a google search for some premade maps I could edit and play around with. That led me to the RPGhost forums. One of the posts there led me to this website. Intrigued by the impressive maps I saw, I made my "little" post challenging someone to make a map for my main city. That post got me the tip from Ravells I think it was, to d/l Inkscape. Similar in ways to Illustrator which I am fairly familiar with, but do not yet own. Then I saw Pyrandon's post that led me to this thread. So now I have the tools to not only reinvent the main city of my old D&D campaign from WAY back (i.e. before the internet... :Surprised: ), but the entire campaign world including cities I never really mapped. And once I get my scanner, I'll be able to bring out my old dungeon maps (half of which are still intact) and rebuild my vast network of caverns (originally was about 30 sheets of graph paper connected  :Surprised: ). I am in nostalgia heaven!! Thanks everyone for the tips and advice.

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## Naryt

> Ya know, first I just did a google search for some premade maps I could edit and play around with. That led me to the RPGhost forums. One of the posts there led me to this website. Intrigued by the impressive maps I saw, I made my "little" post challenging someone to make a map for my main city. That post got me the tip from Ravells I think it was, to d/l Inkscape. Similar in ways to Illustrator which I am fairly familiar with, but do not yet own. Then I saw Pyrandon's post that led me to this thread. So now I have the tools to not only reinvent the main city of my old D&D campaign from WAY back (i.e. before the internet...), but the entire campaign world including cities I never really mapped. And once I get my scanner, I'll be able to bring out my old dungeon maps (half of which are still intact) and rebuild my vast network of caverns (originally was about 30 sheets of graph paper connected ). I am in nostalgia heaven!! Thanks everyone for the tips and advice.


Wow....thanks so much for sharing your ambition with us.  Now I want an excuse to be mapping again!

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## pyrandon

Awesome, Keedo!  Now you make sure to not only do those things, but POST tem too, so we can share in the fluffer-lovin' goodness!

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## Keedo

Oh you can be sure I'll post them. It might be a while before I get to the caverns and other cities. The work is going slowly as I am still playing around with the Inkscape tools, but I've already started on the main city map. I'm going to start a separate thread to show the progress I am making on it.

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## Airith

Just wanted to reply that the link is dead, trying to find it atm but not having luck...

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## nolgroth

> Just wanted to reply that the link is dead, trying to find it atm but not having luck...


Try this message. Luckily the author posted a free distribution clause in the EULA.

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## Aval Penworth

I noticed that until yesterday no one had explored this thread for a while, but I was intrigued.

Had a go at three different size cities with this random city generator today. Using only colour select and the drop shadow, bevel and add noise filters/ layer styles in photoshop got some pretty good results in just a few minutes. It's pretty cool that you can make a failry big city in the same amout of time as a village. I spent less than an hour to create all three maps.

Clearly, as it's random, some roads and rivers would need to be doctored. And some extra attenion on building distribution wouldn't go astray. But that shouldn't take too long.

This is probably old news to manyof you veterans, but a great discovery for me and others new to the forum.
This little program is a gem in my opinion. If you haven't had a look at it yet, why not give it a try.

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## Elothan

Nice job on these  :Smile: 
I think i like the secon one best, but It does seem to have quite a bit of stray roads (roads that have no apparent function or reason to be there) Perhaps you Could add in some farms or something to give them a reason to be there ?  :Smile:

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