Nimblehold
INTRODUCTION
For the past decade, I’ve been creating maps for my D&D games. A few years later, I began illustrating them professionally, and now I’m channeling all that experience into my own mapmaking software: Nimblehold.
The vision behind Nimblehold is simple—make it possible for anyone to create professional-looking maps with minimal effort, while still giving creators the freedom to refine every detail to match their vision. Every tool in Nimblehold is built from years of designing assets and crafting workflows, so the expertise runs quietly in the background while you focus on the fun parts—painting roads, shaping rivers, and bringing worlds to life.
This page will serve as a living journal of Nimblehold’s development, with each chapter dedicated to showcasing the tools we add as the software grows.
OBJECTS
Placing objects is one of the most important parts of bringing a map to life. But in a top-down editor, handling object height can quickly get tricky. A bush, for example, should sit above a rock but below a tree—and making those relationships feel natural without becoming complicated is a core challenge.
In Nimblehold, every object has two simple placement options you can toggle between:
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Grounded – the object sits at its natural height relative to other objects (a rock below a bush, a bush below a tree).
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Floating – the object always sits above everything else, with its shadow cast across the map to show its elevated position.
To make the second option intuitive, Nimblehold introduces a tactile placement system. As you drag an object, the editor detects whether your cursor is hovering over or under the objects beneath it. That means you can easily “sandwich” an object between others—placing it between two trees, for example, or tucking it under an archway.
Because Nimblehold is fully top-down, every object you see is one you can interact with. That directness makes addressing height simple
SHADOW MAPS
A core part of Nimblehold’s design philosophy is making complex systems feel effortless for the user. One of the most important—but often invisible—features powering that experience is the dynamic lighting system.
Every object in Nimblehold comes with built-in normal maps and shadow data, meaning that as soon as you place it on your map, it naturally integrates into its surroundings. Trees cast shadows over rocks, walls block light, and every asset feels like it belongs where you’ve set it.
Using the system is simple. With the lighting tool, all you need to do is pick the direction of your light. Nimblehold handles all the heavy lifting—calculating shadows, adjusting highlights, and making sure your map instantly looks cohesive and professional.
It’s one of those features you don’t have to think about, but it transforms every map you make.
PATHS
Roads and paths are the veins of any map—they guide movement, tell stories, and tie the landscape together. But creating them often means wrestling with multiple tools, especially when your road crosses rivers, climbs hills, or cuts through mountains.
With Nimblehold, that process becomes effortless. In the quick and easy mode, paths automatically adapt to the terrain they cross. Want to draw a mountain trail that winds uphill, or drop in a bridge spanning your river? Just sketch your path and choose the bridge style you want—the tool handles the rest.
For advanced creators, every path tool is also available in manual mode, giving you full control without losing ease of use. Paths cast shadows dynamically, adjusting in real time as you design. And once terrain features are fully implemented, ground textures will react to your paths, blending them seamlessly into the world around them.
Whether you’re sketching out a quick battlemap or crafting a fully detailed world, paths in Nimblehold are built to flow naturally through your landscapes.
HILLS
Our tool for painting hills and mountains on your terrain is still in development, but here is a preview of what we're working on.
RIVERS
Our tool for painting hills and mountains on your terrain is still in development, but here is a preview of what we're working on.
NEW MAP
One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced with other mapmaking tools is the amount of post-production needed to make a map truly shine. Because of that, it was never practical to share a map and let others tweak it—it simply wasn’t possible to hand over a working file that felt ready to use.
With Nimblehold, that changes. Thanks to built-in dynamic lighting, every creation feels polished right from the start. That means user-made maps can be shared, remixed, and reshaped on the fly—whether you just want to make small tweaks or completely reimagine the design. You can even export individual elements, like buildings, and bring them directly into your own maps.
