# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Building/Structure Mapping >  Three-story mansion

## Ceraus

My first floor plan, it's the mansion my mid-level D&D players recently bought. As owning a building makes encounters inside it unavoidable, I decided to make floor plans for it.

However, I am way too square and have little imagination, so I chickened out and stole plans from the internet. I redrew them (using Microsoft Word as my sole drawing tool) and labeled them (in French, mind you) and got this result.

That was about one year ago, when I got a high-def TV and started using, again, Word, but as a dedicate game table too. I'd have the floor plans (and other maps) in Word and moved letters representing creatures, essentially having rogue-like graphics.

But then I found Gametable and got ambitious. I used MapX to make actual color maps (with basic texturing!) and started experimenting with shadows.

----------


## Ceraus

(oops, seems I attached floor 2 first)

Recently, though, I dicovered the almighty Maptool and made ship deck plans for it (settling for drop shadows for rotation consistency, among other reasons) and working on ground tiles and buildings.

I also need floor plans, so why not practice by taking the old mansion for a spin?

The following maps are a direct conversion of the floor plans of my first post in 64-pixel tiles. I used free textures found on the internet and drew everything in Photoshop Elements. Each floor is in PNG and take about 1 MB. They're WIP but quite useable.

The mansion contains no furniture, but I'm working on it. Good drop-shadow furniture is really hard to find, so I might have to make everything myself.

----------


## Steel General

Check the Dundjinni user creation forums for furniture, tons of good stuff there.  :Smile:

----------


## Ceraus

Thanks for the tip! That's a lot of things I won't have to draw myself.

It's a shame most of the objects have directional shadows or weird perspective... yet a fraction of them are fine. A fraction of a huge number, luckily!

----------


## Redstar

> Thanks for the tip! That's a lot of things I won't have to draw myself.
> 
> It's a shame most of the objects have directional shadows or weird perspective... yet a fraction of them are fine. A fraction of a huge number, luckily!


Yeah it takes sometime to go through them, but there are some real choice guys on the boards with great talent.  I always head back there for stuff.  

Also, these guys are really good.

----------


## Ceraus

> Also, these guys are really good.


... they _are_. Wow.

----------


## ravells

That's great work with Microsoft Word, Ceraus - if you want more options though, try downloading inkscape (free) and using that as your vector drawing tool.

----------


## Ceraus

I've long stopped using Word, ravells. But as I'm starting to realize the mapping shortcomings of Photoshop Elements, I just might try playing with vectors. I'll keep Inkscape in mind.

----------


## mserrahn

I just ran across this looking for maps for my modern campaign and am wondering if there's an updated version since 2009?  It's a really solid start!

----------

