Adventures in Fantasy Cartography

[ProfGremlin]

Hey, folks, just thought I'd share a bit of a project that I've been playing around with off and on for the last several months. I've been working with several tutorials over at the Cartographers Guild (Using GIMP to Create an Artistic Regional RPG Map, Simple Mountains in Gimp, Tapered Rivers in GIMP, and Making Photo-realistic Trees in GIMP: A Mini-Tut). I'd run into a stumbling block trying to get the forests looking something other than a green Christmas cookie stamped onto the background. I took a fair amount of time experimenting but I finally have something almost respectable.

Here's the overall map:


and here's a detail view of the island I've been focusing on:


The working canvas is 2400x3200 pixels at a resolution of 300dpi. The overall image linked above is 25% of that. The island detail is actually full size. The problem I'd run into was one of scale. It took time, but I finally found a way to get pretty decent forests using the tutorial though I had to go 'off book' to make it work with my map. No surprise there, I can't cook without modifying the recipe either. From here, I have three more forests to place on the main land mass, then I'll be moving on to village and city placement and then roads.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my first foray into digital fantasy cartography

[mahrundl]

That looks really good, Prof! Looking forward to seeing how it develops.

[ProfGremlin]

Thanks, Mahrundl. In posting this up last night I neglected to mention that I've received some great feedback and assistance from RobA on his Regional Map tutorial and Arsheesh on his Photo-Realistic Trees tutorial. They both really helped out when I was stumped on a step or process and, to my mind, went out of their way in the assistance they provided.

[ragnorakk]

Way cool! I tried to follow some tutorials there a few years back, but my GIMP skills were puny, and they've not much improved yet. Those are lovely maps you are making!

[ProfGremlin]

Thanks, Ragnorakk. Improving my Gimp skills was part of the attraction of working with these tutorials. I understand the program a lot better now. Incidentally, that island is close to what I envisioned for Arboradell.

[ProfGremlin]

For them as who're interested, here's tonight's update:

I've added the Northern Forest -




Here's the full size detail -



Two more forests to go - one on the east side of the central plain, east of the river, and then a smaller one in the south, north of the branched river between the two mountains there.


Edit - fix image code

[ProfGremlin]

Ok, folks, I got the bug to work on this again tonight. I've added the last two forested areas.

Overall -



Southern Forest Detail -



The detail is full size, the overall image is showing at 25%. I didn't want to overload anyone's connection

From here I think I'll start laying in village/town/city locations. I also need to figure out how to lay in some farmland areas for crops and such. Then there's roads to connect the civilized areas. Beyond that, who knows?

[mahrundl]

Sweet! This is definitely coming along nicely!

[quoghmyre]

ProfGremlin your work has inspired me to post my current map.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

Every time I see the title of this thread, I get excited. I keep thinking it has to do with the old "Adventures in Fantasy" RPG by Dave Arneson.

Don't get me wrong -- this is a neat thread. I like maps. I also have a short memory and keep forgetting that it's not an AIF thread.

[ProfGremlin]

Cool work, Quoghmyer. I'd love to be able to provide a perspective map like that. It has an illustrated feel to it, did you draw this by hand or illustrate it in a program?

[ProfGremlin]

Sorry, Vin, don't mean to confuse you. I wasn't aware of the AIF by Arneson. It must have been a fun game if you're still excited about it.

[ragnorakk]

Man quog! That's beautiful! You guys are both making some mean maps!

[quoghmyre]

Thanks, a little advice, make your maps first, even if they are just rough. I had Players who had been playing this part of my world for 3 years and they had started asking for a map. I had to build it to match their adventures. 3 years, at times with 2 groups, all running around here made for far more work to get all the valleys just right.

It was a buzz when they got it, over an hour of them going over it and recounting what they had done and where things had happened. A couple of times they thought distances were further because the trip had taken a couple of game weeks. And the surprise at things they had missed, "I knew we should have gone North, look theres the lake." So while its good for you as GM to have a map with growing detail, you don't want to just pass it over, wait until they can't keep things straight and seek out a Map Maker before you do the reveal.

I used Vue > Cinema 4D > ArtRage > Pixelmator. I hit RAM limits with the older 32bit software. When I pieced it together in C4D it contains over 1 million polygons.
So I can now give the characters a view from where-ever they are standing.
Once I had the geometry and renders I hand painted it in ArtRage, to give the Characters a nice overview type Map, it was also a good opportunity to take their Gold too.

Wow, I just counted up, there are well over 50 different Adventures spanning 200 gaming sessions on this Map.

[cram]

These are really cool maps...I would love to try my hand at it but I just don't get enough computer time at home right now.