Opinions and Help on "Traced" Art Style

[joshsziegler]

I ran into this tracing tool http://vectormagic.com/home which processes PNG/JPG to SVG (though you can also convert back to PNG/JPG). Ignoring what it does under the hood for a moment, I really like the resulting style:

Chasm Overlook:

• Original: http://zglr.org/rpg/mapping/img/maps/ChasmOverlook.jpg
• Vectorized: https://s3.amazonaws.com/zglr.org/rpg/mapping/img/maps/ChasmOverlook_vectorized.png

Office Waiting Room:

• Original: http://zglr.org/rpg/mapping/img/maps/OfficeWaitingRoom.jpg
• Vectorized: http://zglr.org/rpg/mapping/img/maps/office_waiting_room_1_vectorized.png

So what do you think? I'm not good at map making, but I think applying what amounts to a filter could give my maps a more consistent, light feel. Obviously this look won't be good for a police procedural or horror game, but for something like a gun-fu FUDGE game it might work.

Also, the program I linked to costs a fair amount ($300) for the full desktop version. Is anyone aware of a cheaper way to accomplish this same effect?

[Bone White]

Also, the program I linked to costs a fair amount ($300) for the full desktop version. Is anyone aware of a cheaper way to accomplish this same effect?

The right sequence and settings of tools in photoshop/gimp/most graphics programs.

[Bhoritz]

I would say Gimp. Photoshop won't be cheaper (on the contrary). Maybe just applying a watercolor style and playing a little with the controls should be enough (in Photoshop, but GIMP has the same kind of controls I think).

[Bone White]

http://imgur.com/O1eOkTg

10 minutes of playing around with the Oilify filter in GIMP.

I believe what you're after is a type of stain glass effect (to preserve the line detail) combined with oilify, but I'm too busy to experiment much more sorry.

[username]

I suggest playing with color reduction and cartoon style filters in gimp. I also used inkscape's vectorizor for such effects.

[Full Bleed]

I also used inkscape's vectorizor for such effects.

I was going to suggest Illustrator... but I bet Inkscape will allow you to do this, too (for free).

A quick search found this:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7184564_convert ... scape.html

And once you have the SVG (vectorized) file go ahead and try saving it as a JPG or PNG file again to get the look you want.