I'm currently planning a story that is to take place on an Earth-like planet, and I need a tool that can create maps so I can get to know my imagined planet better.I think there was a thread in here earlier with some links to such tools, but I can't find the link.Any recommendations?
Looking for a Map Creator
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The "Mapping a Village" thread has some references which might help:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40780
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40780
Also the "Useful Apps for World Building" thread:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46974
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46974
I have Campaign Cartographer. It has a bit of a steep learning curve, and boy, is it a time sink. But the end results are cool. That said, I use pencil and graph paper to plot things out, then when I want to waste the time, translate it over into Campaign Cartographer.
You could always buy a copy of Civilization3.
It's a world conquest game. But it comes with a seperate program that will generate maps automatically for you (and you get a checklist menu of various overall configurations you want it to use) and then let you manually edit them after. Change these mountains to ocean, this spot of desert to grassland, and so on. It also comes with a number of preloaded maps, including one that fairly nicely approximates modern day Earth. It is really, really easy to use,in my opinion.
It generates a grid map, so it isn't something you'd put on the inside cover of the book, but if you just want to see it in front of you, it works.
As an added bonus, you can play the game and try to conquer the world.
It's a world conquest game. But it comes with a seperate program that will generate maps automatically for you (and you get a checklist menu of various overall configurations you want it to use) and then let you manually edit them after. Change these mountains to ocean, this spot of desert to grassland, and so on. It also comes with a number of preloaded maps, including one that fairly nicely approximates modern day Earth. It is really, really easy to use,in my opinion.
It generates a grid map, so it isn't something you'd put on the inside cover of the book, but if you just want to see it in front of you, it works.
As an added bonus, you can play the game and try to conquer the world.
Here's a plan:
Get a cheap world atlas. Rip out the pages. Find a map that has interesting terrain (helps to have an atlas that shows topography). Turn the map 90 degrees, clockwise or counterclockwise. Look at it in a mirror. Rename the place to your liking.
Now it's not the earth anymore, it's your new world. Park your butt back in the chair and write your story.
ETA: It occurs to me that I offer this suggestion right after reading Sokal's Kert Rats idea. I have to get a life.
Get a cheap world atlas. Rip out the pages. Find a map that has interesting terrain (helps to have an atlas that shows topography). Turn the map 90 degrees, clockwise or counterclockwise. Look at it in a mirror. Rename the place to your liking.
Now it's not the earth anymore, it's your new world. Park your butt back in the chair and write your story.
ETA: It occurs to me that I offer this suggestion right after reading Sokal's Kert Rats idea. I have to get a life.
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Higgins
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Kert Rats Kartography
I'm thinking about wrting a very expensive pseudosoftware program: virtual vaporware that would work like this.
But wait...it would be called KiRK for Kert iRats Kartography. The i in iRats is like the i in ipod or iphone or idiotproofprogram. It means indefinable goodness ( igoodness or myeyegoodness or myigoodness)...
Anyway, what the "program" does (in true Kert Rats style) is nothing. You send me your request for a world map and for just 444.99, I draw you a tectonically structured world complete with winds, tides currents and climate zones.
But more seriously, after a little study of climate, geology, ethnology and early sea-faring, you ought to be able to come up with nice worlds on your own.
Pthom said:
I'm thinking about wrting a very expensive pseudosoftware program: virtual vaporware that would work like this.
But wait...it would be called KiRK for Kert iRats Kartography. The i in iRats is like the i in ipod or iphone or idiotproofprogram. It means indefinable goodness ( igoodness or myeyegoodness or myigoodness)...
Anyway, what the "program" does (in true Kert Rats style) is nothing. You send me your request for a world map and for just 444.99, I draw you a tectonically structured world complete with winds, tides currents and climate zones.
But more seriously, after a little study of climate, geology, ethnology and early sea-faring, you ought to be able to come up with nice worlds on your own.
Pthom said:
Butt parking already initiated.
I made a rough outline today. I have tried this turning maps upside down before; made Denmark look less macho that way; like a poor man's Italy. Yet, I like to be more creative than that.
I exaggerated my reaction to the prize of Campaign Cartographer. Really, I can afford it.
It looks interesting, but as Efrddyl insinuated, it might be more of a tool to make your less impressive maps very impressive.
Thanks for your many suggestions, guys.
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Piers Anthony's Xanth fantasy world is just Flordia with a prettier map.
Barring that, Greg's suggestion of getting Civ3 is a good one, and I recommend it as well. There are lots of video games with map builders of all size and scope out there, and they're not terribly hard to learn. Age of Empires, for example, has a good map-maker. So does Empire Earth.
Barring that, Greg's suggestion of getting Civ3 is a good one, and I recommend it as well. There are lots of video games with map builders of all size and scope out there, and they're not terribly hard to learn. Age of Empires, for example, has a good map-maker. So does Empire Earth.
Larry Niven's "Destiny's Road" takes place in Florida after global warming.PeeDee said:
But did you look at it inside out? Put Denmark on the foot of India? Attach Greece to Australia? Erase everything except Borneo? The possibilities are endless.J. Weiland said:
Higgins
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Not so arbitrary?
The outline of land areas are pretty arbitrary. World builders should think in terms of tectonic or non-tectonic forces, erosion etc. Where their world might be in terms of climate or even depostion of fossil fuels or banded iron formations and what not...and they should consider the interaction of their human or humanoid populations with the ecologies: for example are they slash and burn farmers or are they intensive and why?
You should also think about how your characters will get around in the world: is it easy to go by sea in some seasons? and so on.
Actually Ferdinand Braudel's The Mediterranean in the Age of Phillip II might help with a lot of this....
Pthom said:
The outline of land areas are pretty arbitrary. World builders should think in terms of tectonic or non-tectonic forces, erosion etc. Where their world might be in terms of climate or even depostion of fossil fuels or banded iron formations and what not...and they should consider the interaction of their human or humanoid populations with the ecologies: for example are they slash and burn farmers or are they intensive and why?
You should also think about how your characters will get around in the world: is it easy to go by sea in some seasons? and so on.
Actually Ferdinand Braudel's The Mediterranean in the Age of Phillip II might help with a lot of this....
JBI
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Campaign cartographer is a waste of money (I have a copy obtained from a friend of mine. He is a game maker, so it is of some use to him. But for writing I would say it is of use if you are writing a dungeons and dragons book)
That being said, save your 45$, and buy 100 notebooks. All those softwares pretty much are adaptations of any photoshop program. Campaign cartographer in general is photoshop, but with custom icons for buildings. Generally it is worthless, since to make a good map you really need to draw it by hand first anyway.
That being said, I would definatly not spend any money on these softwares, since they do nothing. Pen and paper help unless you plan on generating a story from one of those story generators.
That being said, save your 45$, and buy 100 notebooks. All those softwares pretty much are adaptations of any photoshop program. Campaign cartographer in general is photoshop, but with custom icons for buildings. Generally it is worthless, since to make a good map you really need to draw it by hand first anyway.
That being said, I would definatly not spend any money on these softwares, since they do nothing. Pen and paper help unless you plan on generating a story from one of those story generators.
I've been using vector-based illustration programs for mapping for as long as I can remember. The generic ones don't have some of the nice fractal continent tools or the pre-existing symbol libraries that some of the more map-oriented solutions sport, but you can live without fractal coasts, and you can make your own symbol libraries, so it's a wash as far as I'm concerned.
My current choice is OpenOffice Draw: it's full-featured, exports to PDF, is completely free and comes with OpenOffice Write, which is also the word processor I use now. Worth a look, though it's a bit of an acquired taste.
My current choice is OpenOffice Draw: it's full-featured, exports to PDF, is completely free and comes with OpenOffice Write, which is also the word processor I use now. Worth a look, though it's a bit of an acquired taste.
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Many video games come with mapping features, which can be useful if you want to walk around a little bit.
Neverwinter Nights has lovely mapping features.
Neverwinter Nights has lovely mapping features.
Graph paper and various pens, pencils, markers etc. for me! I'm not going to get excited about cost, though. I know I've spent over $50.00 on graph paper and colored pencils. It's the fact that I can sit down and just do it without having to learn anything that appeals to me.
In order to have the land masses look realistic on my world I drew a Pangea (sp?) like super continent and then used scissors to cut it into five sections, plus a few islands. I positioned the land masses as if they were moving on four separate tectonic plates. Then I redrew the entire thing on a larger scale and not taped together, divided the land masses into countries, added a few chains of volcanic islands along the plate dividing lines, and I was ready to go.
It only took me about eight hours to do the entire map, and that included mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, and different shadings for different climates. I have it stuck on the wall next to my computer so I can refer to it while I'm writing.
IMO, draw the map. I'm not an artist by any means and I did it. Luckily, land doesn't usually end in straight lines. If my hand slips, I add a peninsula.
In order to have the land masses look realistic on my world I drew a Pangea (sp?) like super continent and then used scissors to cut it into five sections, plus a few islands. I positioned the land masses as if they were moving on four separate tectonic plates. Then I redrew the entire thing on a larger scale and not taped together, divided the land masses into countries, added a few chains of volcanic islands along the plate dividing lines, and I was ready to go.
It only took me about eight hours to do the entire map, and that included mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, and different shadings for different climates. I have it stuck on the wall next to my computer so I can refer to it while I'm writing.
IMO, draw the map. I'm not an artist by any means and I did it. Luckily, land doesn't usually end in straight lines. If my hand slips, I add a peninsula.
badducky said:
Neverwinter Nights was a fun game when it first came out. I played it for awhile.
The mapping feature was gorgeous. I love video game map editors.
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind also had a very lovely map maker. Very detailed.
Hope To The Horizon said:If my hand slips, I add a peninsula.
God sneezed, and we got Florida.
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Higgins
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Cratons, Island Arcs, Iron deposition and Coal deposits
Your continental areas are cratons, the ancient platforms where you will find most of your banded iron formations. Areas where cratons have collided repeatedly, and cratons have split up different ways (such as western Europe) will have highly variable terrain and lots of mineral resources....areas with lots of ancient island arcs all smushed up (like China) will have great early fossils, but not necessarily much in terms of coal and iron. Areas of more recent craton collisions island arc collisons and deposition such as California or the Persian Gulf, will have more oil...
For course if your world has a different evolutionary and/or mineral history or is non-tectonic...things would be different.
Hope To The Horizon said:Graph paper and various pens, pencils, markers etc. for me! I'm not going to get excited about cost, though. I know I've spent over $50.00 on graph paper and colored pencils. It's the fact that I can sit down and just do it without having to learn anything that appeals to me.
In order to have the land masses look realistic on my world I drew a Pangea (sp?) like super continent and then used scissors to cut it into five sections, plus a few islands. I positioned the land masses as if they were moving on four separate tectonic plates. Then I redrew the entire thing on a larger scale and not taped together, divided the land masses into countries, added a few chains of volcanic islands along the plate dividing lines, and I was ready to go.
It only took me about eight hours to do the entire map, and that included mountains, hills, lakes, rivers, and different shadings for different climates. I have it stuck on the wall next to my computer so I can refer to it while I'm writing.
IMO, draw the map. I'm not an artist by any means and I did it. Luckily, land doesn't usually end in straight lines. If my hand slips, I add a peninsula.
Your continental areas are cratons, the ancient platforms where you will find most of your banded iron formations. Areas where cratons have collided repeatedly, and cratons have split up different ways (such as western Europe) will have highly variable terrain and lots of mineral resources....areas with lots of ancient island arcs all smushed up (like China) will have great early fossils, but not necessarily much in terms of coal and iron. Areas of more recent craton collisions island arc collisons and deposition such as California or the Persian Gulf, will have more oil...
For course if your world has a different evolutionary and/or mineral history or is non-tectonic...things would be different.
I like AutoRealm--it does fall into the "makes your normal maps look more impressive" category, but it's good at that. Being able to use "a day's travel by horse" and other such units for measurement is handy too.
Other people's commentary geological on stuff just made my head explode, though...I think I have to go revise my world...
Other people's commentary geological on stuff just made my head explode, though...I think I have to go revise my world...
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