It should be noted that anyone pondering whether FM8 is the right tool can
work his or her way through this tutorial without buying anything. It will
work with the free trial version of FM8 or with the full purchase version.
All other software required for the tutorial can be downloaded free and
legally in the Internet.

The material all is presented in step-for-step detail with more than 270
color screen shots and illustrations intended to keep things understandable
and easy. It goes from the surface of raster mapping with FM8 into areas
that usually are viewed as being of expert level. However, because FM8
itself is so simple to use, even inexperienced mappers should be able to
master everything in this volume with little trouble.

The first chapter shows the cartographer how to best set up FM8 for raster
mapping, explaining why these settings are made and what their advantages
are. It also explains what other free software products might be desirable
and where to download all of them at no cost.

The second chapter takes the reader step-by-step through the making of the
overland map on the cover of the booklet, producing it with two entirely
different alternative ocean types.

The third chapter offers step-by-step instructions on how to create an FM8
"super zoom" map of a city, town or village. One makes the following map of
the town of Odínsdomov, which is a part of the free and open Jörðgarð (TM)
campaign setting being created by the Vintyri Project.

Chapter 4 deals with the raster mapping of floor plans and dungeons in
multi-layer technique. This chapter devotes special attention to the
mapping of a dungeon or floor plan in such a manner that the game master
easily can show his or her players all things that their PCs can see and
hide all things that they haven't seen yet. The project in this chapter is
an inn with cellar, ground floor and upper story.

In Chapter 5 one begins to see how to get the power of all of FM8's horses
into a map. The RPG world has a thing with raster maps. It's said that if
everything in a raster map is scaled fine, it looks like a mish mash on
strong zoom-outs. On the other hand, one claims, if things are scaled right
for a wide scale raster map, most objects pixilate terribly on close
zoom-ins.

With a number of graphic programs that's quite true. FM8 is one of
relatively few programs used to make RPG maps where this doesn't need to be
the case at all. FM8 has zoom controls that can and should make such
problems superfluous in your map. When you use FM8 well, important objects
in your maps will have different scales at different zoom levels. Chapter 5
shows how that works.

But there's more yet. There are many game masters and cartographers who
would like to have maps so versatile that one could zoom in on any
settlement on the map, and instead of seeing the isometric or cartographic
symbol that had been there, one would see a totally zoomable, detailed map
of the settlement.

Chapter 5 takes a large scale overland map with scale dimensions of 3,900 by
2,800 miles. The region mapped includes the town that was mapped in detail
in Chapter 3. When one zooms in on the town in the overland map, one sees
the town map, completely zoomable down to the individual wood piles and
outhouses. How that works also is a topic of Chapter 5.

Chapter 6 takes on another important theme for raster mappers: The making
of presets is important knowledge for any serious mapper. Presets make it
possible for a raster cartographer to fill large areas quickly with credible
symbols in full quality and with full zoom abilities.

Chapter 7 shows how to use FM8 to make raster symbols, making a raster
symbol of a hunting castle in FM8 without the help of any outside program.

For all of FM8's power, there are some things it can't do. One of them is
to create symbols with transparent elements. However, it's an easy chore
with a free graphic program like Paint.NET. Chapter 8 starts out with a
digital photo of two chickens that supposedly are of a race bred already in
the 1400s and 1500s - two medieval chickens, if you will. This chapter
shows one how to pull the chickens separately out of the photo with
Paint.NET and turn them into two FM8 symbols with transparency.