A map I made recently:


The initial continent layout was done in gimp (felImage noise) then distorted to the protection, and brought in to inkscape an traced

Everything else was done in Inkscape.

A few more details can be seen at my portfolio page here: http://www.cartocopia.com/portfolio/torchio/

Or the full size image can be seen be members at the cartography guild here: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showt ... 06-Torchio

-Rob A>

Awesome Rob!

I've seen all the fantasy maps posted here, by you and nils, over the years. I love looking at maps, and would love to try something like that. But I've been curious how you decide how (where) to draw the coastlines, rivers and other borders. Well, how you decide about anything, really. If I tried to draw a fantasy map, I would be overwhelmed with indecision! So I followed your link to your website, where you said this:

I created a number of random fractal worlds and ran them through the appropriate projection remap and allowed the client to select their preference. From there I traced the coastline and started drawing the map elements.

What do you mean by "random fractal worlds"? Do you use something like Apophysis or Sterling2, to generate fractal images? Or do you make fractal-like drawings by hand? Or maybe use VonKoch path effect?

And also, what is a "projection remap"? I did some scroogling, and found "graphical projection" on Wikipedia, which sort of explains it.....assuming what I found is the right meaning?

If you set about to draw a fantasy map, and you didn't have any requirements, like from a client or specific project, how do you make decisions about where to put things and how they look? Is it just all from your imagination?

brynn-

To make a "random world" the easiest way is to use some form of fractal noise - like Perlin noise.

I like to use gimp and the felimage noise plugin mainly because it supports generating noise with a spherical mapping. This is necessary to represent a globe on a rectangular map. The easiest way of doing this is by using an equirectangular projection. This is a rectangle map that has a width equal to double its height, so the width and height map directly from degrees longitude and latitude.

Another option is to use dedicated world building software that will generate terrain heightfields. Wilbur is a great free one. Fractal terrains is a brilliant commercial product. These are overkill for most of the maps I make as I don't tend to require accurate height-field models unless I am doing 3d work.

Working with a large raster image and detailed spherical noise, I just randomly regenerate a bunch to get a distribution that works with what I want (many small islands, large continents, etc.) To get a shoreline, I just threshold the noise. In Gimp I can just use the slide and watch the map be turned into B&W and decide what value I like.

Depending on the desired map style, I need to go from the equirectangular to something else. For the Torchio map I wanted a two hemisphere projection (like looking t the two opposite sides of the sphere from a large distance). There a a bunch of map specific tools to do these re-projections. I will use Flex Projector, Hugin or just gimp with custom coded reprojections using mathmap.

There is much discussion at the Cartographers' Guild in the forums on this, with such topics as "How to get your rivers in the right place" (basically, they flow as downhill as possible and merge with more and more rivers, until they reach a basin) or "Where do deserts appear?" (depends on mountains and latitudes). There are a large number of armchair geophysicists there helping to answer such questions, and a couple of real ones, too...

Hope that answered a few questions!

-Rob A>

Oh awesome! Thanks for taking the time to explain it. I'm looking forward to learning more about those programs and tools! Maybe I'll try making a fantasy world, one of these days.

Actually I've been working on a sort of landscape map, except with a little more reality than what landscape architects usually do. I was inspired by VitalBodies' project in this topic: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9734. So I'm currently working on....at least one image (the original is posted in that topic), and maybe I'll do a 2nd, if I can get any decent satellite imagery of the other area.

So anyway, I'm thinking there may be a way to merge this landscape map concept with a small fantasy map! Possibly I could use one of those tools in my current work...or my current work in a fantasy map. Or....I'm not sure exactly, at the moment, what such a "merge" would look like, but there's definitely a spark in my imagination. Definitely food for thought!

Thanks again

Very nice, loving the style.