Anyway I've got a rough idea for a world map and want to design it on my Mac. Not sure how I'd even start doing that though. Any help?
First off, if you haven't done so, trying to figure out a quick, 10 second or so description for your campaign world can help give you a bit of focus. IE: What's the core idea, and are there terrain features that need to exist for it to work. (A swashbuckling setting with vast oceans, a gritty noir game dominated by city interactions, a classic Conan style world with vast open wilderness, ect...) You don't necessarily need to stereotype your world, but it helps to have an idea of where you're going.
Second, how realistic are you going to be? Ranges can be anywhere from total fancy with skies of bubblegum and continents made of giant platters, to utter realism with accurate wind patterns, biomes, wildlife, demographics, all that. Many people, particularly first-timers, aim for somewhere in the middle. Reasonable looking but not over the top in either direction.
Third, like with campaign design, decide on a big to small progression, or the inverse.
Fourth, figure out a rough scale for the overall size of the setting. From edge to edge of the map, how much do you have to work with? Are you mapping out a globe sized area, a continent sized area, mainland Europe, a country, a region, smaller? Perhaps lilliputian in size?
Fifth, based on these parameters, make a starting point and begin drawing. Fractally add detail progressing in the direction you chose in step 3.
As an example, lets say:
- I want to have a swashbuckling world with lots of high seas adventure.
- I want it to be self consistent, as far as weather, biomes, wildlife, ect..., but with some well integrated fantastic elements.
- I want to start big and work towards detail.
- I'm going to make a hemispherical, "New World" setting.
- I start drawing.
- I create a drawing layer in whatever program I have called "draft", or I do my first creation on paper and scan it. Whichever I choose, I sketch everything in quick lines with not much detail.
- I make the outlines of two continents.
- I roughly sketch in mountain ranges, and knowing how plate tectonics work, I make them as close as I can.
- I decide that this is a Northern hemisphere, and the winds move from West to East.
- I figure out roughly where rainshadows exist based on the mountains, and where high rain zones would be.
- I draw forests, swamps, and other high rain features in areas where there is lots of it. I draw savannah, deserts, and plains in areas where there's not much rain.
- I make rivers flow out of the mountains, and make more of them in areas of high rain.
- To add some fantastic elements to the land, I decide that on the tip of the Southern continent, there is a supermountain, which extends well into the stratosphere, and was one of the main reasons the South was colonized first. I also decide that deep inland there are dark cracks in the world which run deeper than anyone has been able to explore and return. In the Northern continent, there is a great storm in the center of the land which seems to defy the laws of nature, and disrupts the weather for miles around it.
- I decide that the Northern continent is currently only explored on its outer edge, but the heartland is totally wild. However, the Southern continent was found first, and its been carved up long ago, and is now being fought over in bloody conflict.
- I decide on starting points for each colony on each continent.
- I expand their territories based on the terrain around them, and little stories I concoct for them in my head as I draw.
- For the Southern continent, I make the progression go all the way inland, and then start swapping areas based on wars. For the Northern continent, I only progress them part of the way in, and leave a lot of the land unexplored.
- I then start making points for some of the major settlements. Usually making the biggest ones in harbors or near major features of interest.
- I draw a few rough trade routes or roads to show interconnectivity.
- I figure this is a decent place to stop on the draft.
- I make the outlines of two continents.
- I now create new layers in my drawing program for each of the steps I just did. Landmass, mountains, biomes, rivers, ect... or I scan my draft paper into my program and then do this.
- I then start creating refined features for each of the things I sketched out previously. At this point, it depends on style, but you could use either stylized shapes for a lot of the terrain, or you could try to find textures that you like, and make a map that looks like an atlas map. It is also recommended that you look at examples of maps in your favorite campaign settings, cartography sites, or books to get an idea of what you want / looks good.
- Work until you feel you've achieved a sufficient level of detail on the overall map. This is largely determined by the length scale you chose on the fourth step. If its a World map, you're not going to be picking off anything but the most general features unless you've got nothing but time, but if its a regional map, you'll probably be filling in every country road, little village, and local curiosity.
- I create a drawing layer in whatever program I have called "draft", or I do my first creation on paper and scan it. Whichever I choose, I sketch everything in quick lines with not much detail.
Anyhow, I don't know what the particular programs are that you have access to, but that should give you at least a rough idea of how to progress.
The other option would be to invest in a drawing progam or map-making program. Prices very widely depending on how sophisticated the application it and the difficulty of the learning curve. I myself use "Campaign Cartographer" from www.profantasy.com. This does take a bit of time to get to know but you can develop fairly sophisticated maps and in color. MS Illustrator can also be useful. I've even seen some people use Paint.
The downside of the drawing programs is that they require a lot of work before you get a useful map out of it. They are definitely not for people who only want to make a single map or two, but for those who constantly draw maps and floorplans. It takes definitely longer to make a map with a program than drawing it by hand.
The advantage is that such maps can be changed easily, and you can turn the layers on and off to make a map for you and one for the players (without the DM infos on it). The Campaign Cartographer can also link files and subdrawings to a map, if you want to make an interactive map (this is a lot of work, though). You could call up the map of Aquilonia, click on Tarantia and get a submap of the city. Clicking on the palace gets you a floorplan with a rough description (you can find examples on their homepage).
Araes already put it better than I could on how to draft a campaign map
I have photoshop, but I have never used it to make maps like that.
Do you mind giving me some tips?
So you could download GIMP (which is a pretty rich image editor for free) for your mac (a search should give you a link to that.)
Then if you've never used that or photoshop before, I'd look for a few on-line tutorials and spend maybe an hour to half a day learning GIMP because it is pretty rich. But the time investment is worth it because you'll be able to make the maps and other images pretty quickly.
Then download the GIMP brushes I created, install them and make you map following the instructions at this page: http://inkwellideas.com/?page_id=9
There's also an example there that will show you the style of map you can create with these brushes (late 80s-early 90s TSR maps).
Good luck!
P.S. And I have written a couple of worldbuilding articles on other topics when you get to them. See the right sidebar on the linked website.
I went over from the layers palette to the paths palette, and created a new path, but couldn't copy/paste the black and white layer into it. Was I supposed to do this in the channel palette instead?
I went over from the layers palette to the paths palette, and created a new path, but couldn't copy/paste the black and white layer into it. Was I supposed to do this in the channel palette instead?
This is the part I got stuck on too. Never realised creating a map would be so difficult.
The trees seem very small, and on your map, some look very bright.
Anything else I should know or do I just play until I get something?
By the way, thanks a WHOLE lot!
It's looking fairly good, I'll post it when I get it done, which should be very soon.
You can maybe find symbol libraries on the web to ease your burden of fleshing out the map (town symbols, plants, compass rose, etc.).
I think that the different strokes need to be balanced. In your first image, the stroke was very pronounced, and made the water look like it was above the land. The second one, however, seems like the difference between land and sea is less pronounced. I think if the stroke was a bit darker, maybe blurred, it might find a better balance. This is just a hunch. I couldn't get that idea to work effectively in my own, so maybe you could.
OH! How about a brown blurred coastline? After my class today, I'll experiment with that idea.
As far as the cartographer's guild is concerned, I may very well head over there, but I want to make sure I get this map finished for good. Also, thank you vatras for the symbol-pack idea, that will definitely help.
Your work has been much appreciated.
Thanks for all the info, Leichen; those maps look amazing and I'm quite eager to get a few free hours to try that process out.
And considering how often the Cartographers Guild comes up, I really should look into it.
Your towns and settlements seem rather haphazard. That's perfectly fine, but I find it a lot easier to make a believeble world if I develop the cities "organically", that is to say I try to take terrain, trade, and borders into account. By doing so, I have a large chunk of a city's flavour already done, just by placing the locations thus.
On your map, for example, the dot labeled "Djarnor's pass" would make the most sense as a military-oriented town. Because the terrain narrows considerably at that point, any force wanting to travel between the mainland and the large peninsula would either have to control that location or travel by boat, which is always a risky way to move an army. Weather you decide to make it a purely military post (a stout fortification with only enough town to support the garrison) or a thriving metropolis, it would only be in that location if it started out as a defensive measure.
Now, given the nature of your terrain, water will be the primary means of commerce. (Not only are there large bays and coves, but there is a large river network reaching deeply inland.) Your cities seem to have taken this into accounts to a limited degree so far. Assuming that the larger the dot, the larger the city, the dot labled Merrywine is in an excellent position, and should be one of the largest cities on the map. The narrow spot it's placed on effectively divides the available water routes in half. (In other words, half of your map can't ship goods by water to the other half without passing Merrywine). Because it is in such an ideal location, most traffic would stop there for resupply and repairs, and a great deal of cargo would change hands there (they might haul it from the river towns in small coastal craft, and load it onto larger, more seaworhty craft at Merryeine for the long journey, for example
At present, you have several large dots deep inside forest with little means of access. Unless you intend to add roads, you'll either want to move them, or explain why they're so isolated.
That's pretty much all the advice I can give you without knowing more about your campaign world. (how many countries there are, what the siplomatic status is, etc.), but I can give you two general observations.
1. This map is very sparsely settled. Is this deliberate?
2. The northernmost dot is in an interesting position. While too isolated for trade relations, it's in an ideal spot for a pirate base.
http://www.wizardsdnd.com/shared/B&W.jpg
http://www.wizardsdnd.com/shared/Colour.jpg
Okay I toyed around for half an hour, and came up with the following:
Without further ado,
