Mapping, a new world

[Vaniel]

Myself and a friend have decided to create our own world, and mapping has become a problem we haven't found a solution to yet. We just can't figure how to create a good map. I have fiddled around photoshop, but to no avail...

Any tips?

/Vaniel

P.S: Any help is appreciate, thank you

[Cybren]

Autorealm is a good program for mapping. Here's a map I made using it, for example:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1171222495

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

another good option is to just go buy a pad of graph paper and make the maps yourself. That's always worked fine for me.

[Cybren]

another good option is to just go buy a pad of graph paper and make the maps yourself. That's always worked fine for me.

Certainly viable. In my case, I have no artistic talent and like having a computer make fractals for the coastlines

[Deepblue706]

Certainly viable. In my case, I have no artistic talent and like having a computer make fractals for the coastlines

The ability to draw a mass of land doesn't exactly require artistic talent. You're just a tool.

-----------------------------------------------

Buy a pad and scribble things. Lots of things. Do it quickly if you're pressed for time. You'll eventually be satisfied. When I say eventually, I mean like five minutes if you're doing it fast enough. And when I say fast enough, I mean your hand should be moving so fast that the pencil might fly out of your hands if you don't keep a good enough grip. Draw like a madman.

Maybe take a glance at a world map once or twice if you lack any knowledge of geography, whatsoever. Just try not to copy any real continents (I once accidentally made an exact drawing of Australia).

[Vaniel]

As I have no artistic talents, actually drawing them is out of the question.

Thanks Cybren for the AutoRealm program. I'll be fiddling with.

/Vaniel

[Cybren]

Also:
The Giant has some tips on world design here.

Any advice I can give you on geology/geography is either already there or a bit too complicated for me to try to make understandable.

[Igan]

I have an awesome one for you...

http://www.bin.sh/gaming/tools/world.cgi


That kicks butt. And I'll even get you started on a favorite map of mine...

Set Random Seed to 1592.
Set Iterations to 9975.
Set Water % to 81.

Note that each time you change to another a field, the preview will update itself.

Next, you set Map Height to 1000 or 2000, and THEN you favorites list this, and then you hit CREATE and wait for it to load.

That will give a large, ocean-heavy map with a *lot* of little islands as well as several serviceable continents.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I use Wilderness Mapper to make maps for my campaigns. It's easy. Just a hex-based map that you paint on various different land types. It even has the ability to put in rivers however you like, and another palette for cities and everything with roads.

Here is a map I made using it.

[darkelf]

That will give a large, ocean-heavy map with a *lot* of little islands as well as several serviceable continents.

ooh, very nice.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

actually, I have virtually no artistic talent either, but I've always had successful maps with graph paper. If you think about it, really the only maps I've ever drawn where you don't need straight lines is an overland/world map. Personally, I don't think you need any artistic talent to draw shapes and call them continents/countries. Other than that, just about everything I draw I can use a ruler and a pencil for. Although I did check out the Auotrealm thing, and will probably mess around with that for a bit.

Cybren, I've got a question for you about Autorealm. How do you fill the ocean part in. I was having a little trouble figuring that out and the help isn't being very helpful.

[Cybren]

actually, I have virtually no artistic talent either, but I've always had successful maps with graph paper. If you think about it, really the only maps I've ever drawn where you don't need straight lines is an overland/world map. Personally, I don't think you need any artistic talent to draw shapes and call them continents/countries. Other than that, just about everything I draw I can use a ruler and a pencil for. Although I did check out the Auotrealm thing, and will probably mess around with that for a bit.

Cybren, I've got a question for you about Autorealm. How do you fill the ocean part in. I was having a little trouble figuring that out and the help isn't being very helpful.

There's two things you can do
1) Change the backround color. This is done from the color bar which is on the top. You'll see a black box, a white box, an empty space, a box with an X in it, a white box, and a light blue box. The second to last box, the white one is the backround color. The next one is grid color which you may want to change if you're changing the backround color.

2) Put a layer down and set it to appear belew anything else you draw. this is somewhat more complicated. Draw a blue (Or what have you) square or anything under the Waterbodies overlay. Then draw your land under hte geographic/whatever overlay.

3) I went with #1.

[Ravens_Wing]

Here is another thought take pics of different parts of earth and invert the land for water and vise versa.. while not giveing you an entire world you can get some really cool areas. I did this for a campain and used Central America as my map and just inverted the blue for green and green for blue. I have a pic of it but i cant seem to paste it here. but you get the idea.

So try that and see if you can get some interesting areas.