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PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2002 7:16 pm 
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Over the next couple of months I'll be rewriting the Tutorial for making maps. I'll be creating it as a series of posts here in the forums. Once complete, I'll combine everything in a complete document. I also welcome comments, additional insight and ideas, and techniques that others use. Anything that you think would be a good addition to the tutorial, I will add. Credit will be given to those that contribute. For ease of keeping track, reply to the relevant chapter.
Here's the first part:


Creating a map: Concepts of Initial Design

Creating a map is something not to take lightly. The difference between a good map and an outstanding map can make or break a shard. Sometime a picture of the map on the shard website is the first impression a player has of your world. All the custom scripts, races, and whatever else you have on your map can go to waste if a player takes one look at the map and says "Why should I download this map? There's nothing special about that!" If the point for you shard *is* the custom scripts, races and all the other stuff you have, then the map isn't a big deal, and maybe the OSI map is good enough. After all, many players don't play because of the map. But if having a custom map is the point, then shouldn't it be its best? This is what I'm going to attempt to show you how to do.

While I can't do the map for you, this tutorial should tell you just about everything you need to make an excellent map.

The first thing you should think about when designing the map isn't even the map itself. The first thing should be the back story. Your world's history can help with determining how the map will be created. Do you have two (or more) empires that are constantly at war with each other? Did you have a "catastrophic, land altering" event happen in the past? These are just a couple of examples that you should be thinking about as they can play an important role in the geography of the map.

Along with your shard's history you should also think about real world geography. Much can be learned just by looking at a world atlas. Plate tectonics have a major effect over the long term shape of the lands. Look at Earth and how, by not even looking that hard, you can see how the continents form puzzle pieces and they roughly "go together." Take a closer look, and you can see how rivers flow over large landmasses from mountains the coast. Looking at coastlines, you can see that they generally aren't very smooth and form lots of little peninsulas and bays. Taking all this into consideration can give you a good head start into how a "realistic" map can get.

Of course, in a fantasy world, you can technically do anything you like. Rivers that go from one side of a continent, through a perfectly square mountain, to the coast on the other side. But there is a certain point where too much of the "impossible" can have a negative effect on a map.

Let's say you've looked at an atlas and still have no clue where to start. You are sitting there thinking of how to draw out this grand world you've envisioned, but you are stuck. The answer is back in that atlas. Look through it and find a particular page that catches your eye. Now try to draw an outline of the area (preferably coast) on a piece of paper. Don't try to copy it, just draw it. Chances are you'll come up with something similar, but not quite exact. Now, looking at what you've drawn, figure out what you can improve. At this point you don't need the atlas. Let you imagination take you to this place. Where is a "main city" on the map? Or maybe a couple. Is there a mountain or a line of mountains on the map? Going back to the example of two empires at war, is there a mountain pass where they fight over for control? Or maybe it's a forest or a river that they fight over. Or maybe it's just because they hate each other. Then maybe there's a common battleground between their lands.

Are there natural boundaries of the lands between the empires? A river here, or a swamp there. Where are other towns and villages? Where are the roads that go between them? There are many questions you can ask about the world that can be applied to the map. It doesn't matter if everything makes it to the paper. You can always go back and change it later.

Are there any other lands? Where? Are there burning deserts or artic tundra? Maybe an unexplored jungle with savages hidden deep within.

All these things I've described are pretty typical, but then why are they typical? Mainly because they work. It's up to you to find enough of a variant to make it original. One of the easiest ways to get it original is through the map. And isn't this the whole point?

Another technique you can use with creating a map is what I call "aging." Basically you start with a continent. Then break it. That river just became a huge bay. Move that area of the land out away from the rest. That long peninsula? Opps, now it's an island sticking out from the land. The broken part of the continent just drifted away from the other. Now you have two continents. Rivers erode the land. Volcanoes create mountains. Continents drift. All these happen over great periods of time.

Yet another way is to find something else and convert it to a map of some type. The dragon's head that came in the original Dragon program distribution seems very popular as I've seen it on more than a few maps. Some other things that might work are outlines of other animals, variations of tattoos, a coffee stain on a piece of paper, a puddle on the sidewalk, or just about anything you can think of. I've even taken inspiration from a flooded cornfield where the effect was of islands of half grown corn covered over with water. Some areas were completely covered, but other areas were above water. You get the idea. Just about anything can be used as a source of a map. I've found the more natural, the better, as the end product of a map will look more natural too.

The last technique I'll cover is simple. Close your eyes and start doodling on a piece of paper. You just might get something that way.

As you can see, the first steps in creating a map can be the most important. Having something down before you even sit down in front of the computer to start drawing can make quite a difference.

In the next post I'll cover what programs you'll need, where to get them, and getting started with Photoshop.


Last edited by Ryandor on Tue Dec 03, 2002 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 25, 2002 7:48 pm 
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As an example of taking anything and making it into something usable for a map, I present this:

Image

I did a search for "bees" at Google.
Google Image search for "bees"
Here's the corny picture I used:
Corny Picture

Like I said, just about anything can be used as inpiration for a map.

-Ryandor


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