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Map Creation


StormWolfe
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Do you have a specific map resource that you use when creating your worlds? Links, discussion, pros and cons!

 

I am shamelessly stealing and reposting one of my replies to a topic in the general forums here.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

 

I discovered Inkarnate and love it for smaller, very detailed maps - like villages or cities.

 

I also found Wonderdraft and it is amazing! There is a one-time purchase price of $29.99 US.  I usually do like 99% of my work in Wonderdraft. I have done layout in Photoshop if I wanted to combine more than one landmass.

 

Pros (so far)

  • Excellent for large scale maps.
  • Has a built-in landmass generator that you can tweak to your liking.
  • Works great with graphic drawing tablets (I have an XP-Pen Artist 12)
  • Several themes and options.
  • Can "zoom" a section to create a detailed map - like a specific town or terrain.
  • Easy to "paint" and blend biomes, etc.
  • Hundreds of symbols and icons.
  • Labels, grids, overlays, etc.
  • Can import and trace landmasses, etc. (I use Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator for pure landmasses).
  • Several tutorials on YouTube.
  • Can import and export maps.
  • I think you can import your own symbols (castles, houses, critters).

Cons (so far)

  • Low grade user interface (at least on the Mac).
  • Not quite as intuitive as Inkarnate. However, the tutorials are excellent.
  • I am sure there are more cons, but those are the 2 biggies.

Here is the landmass I'm working on currently. I used Photoshop to layout and combine several landmasses into the layout I wanted, then imported it to Wonderdraft and traced the images. Doing it this way is time consuming. However, that was the only way to get the western landmass layout that I wanted. Right now it is a bare landmass. I've not started adding mountains, rivers, other terrain, etc. Since I'm about half-blind, I'm building my maps in segments - Western Hemisphere (the one below), Eastern Hemisphere (Laid out but not imported yet), and then any additional major islands we might need.

 

This map was done on the 4K Ultra theme in Wonderdraft (3940X2160) and uses the "pastel" setting for the ocean color. 

 

catria-template.png

Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

sagas-button1.png.467e9214ee1a2d2a24c0030301948c27.png 

 

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You've got most of the ones that I've used in the past. World Anvil can be useful as well, because it lets some more interactive features come into play with the maps. 

Aure entuluva! Day shall come again! - The Children of Hurin

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I joined World Anvil for a bit because I thought I could use it for my site's massive amount of lore. However, it was so "busy" and my learning curve wasn't up to the challenge...sad to say. We'll have to just go with our standard map gallery when I get everything done.

 

Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

sagas-button1.png.467e9214ee1a2d2a24c0030301948c27.png 

 

RPG-Initiative

*your one-stop RPG resource site!

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