My World of Larysia

[ladiestorm]

Greetings Everyone!

I am new to the mapping environment. I've been a gamer(rpg) since I was fairly young, and I both play and gm many different games. D&D has always been my favorite. Well, I was recently approached to run a 5th ed D&D campaign that would include players completely new to the rp scene. Since I am also a writer, I have always created my own worlds and campaigns for every game I've ever run. So having new players and creating yet another world for their gaming pleasure, I decided it was time to find a way to map my worlds and bring them to life.

After trying out a few free mapping programs that left me completely discouraged, I happened upon the profantasy site, and saw some of the maps made using CC3(+), and was amazed. 2 weeks later I bought the product, read the essentials, watched Joe Sweeney's tutorials, and starting making my world map.

Unfortunately I couldn't get an entire world map to look the way I wanted it to... so I eventually settled on making each continent/archipelago separately, intending to put them together later.

A little background info on my world so that these maps aren't out of context.

Larysia was once a beautiful, lush, advanced world within the D&D setting. Spelljammers and Airships roamed the skies. Portal gates could be found in every major city to teleport anywhere anyone wanted to go, from other continents, to other worlds/planes. But the Great Larysian Wars (world wars), the wrath of the gods that shaped and guided Larysia and the abuse of magic almost tore Larysia apart. The population was brought to the point of extinction...

Larysia was basically blasted back to about the stone age. It's been about a thousand years, since the major catastrophies that brought Larysia to its knees. The population is finally growing again, slowly, but life is harsh now. Wild magic has contaminated the land, and it's sick and dying in places. There are no great empires, only feudal regions. Ruins of once great cities litter the landscape. Earthquakes have cut into the landscape, rivers have diverted their course.... basically the land isn't right. It looks beautifull, from a birds eye view....

So here are my first maps:












I used Campaign Cartography 3+ to make these maps. And I realize that by the guilds standards....these are probably rudimentary at best. I have probably done a lot of things incorrectly... And while these maps are done... I won't be changing them, I do still want feedback so I can learn for my next maps. I'm still learning the art of mapping, and the program I'm using... so I'm looking forward to growing in both aspects!

[ChickPea]

Hi ladiestorm, thanks for sharing your maps with us.

Your pics are quite small so it's hard to make out details unfortunately, but I think you have a few problems with your river courses. The Ehmeral map, for example, has a river flowing from one side of the landmass to the other other. I think you also have a lake with two outlets on another pic, though it's hard to see clearly. We've got a whole thread dedicated to avoiding these mistakes, so have a look here. You've mostly got things right, I believe, with just a few issues, however it's good to know the general rules for future work.

One thing you might want to consider is using the same fonts across your maps, as this helps to maintain consistency and therefore the sense that these places are all in the same world. I guess there's a case for using different colours on each map, but you should probably try to use the same styles and font sizes across them all. By same font sizes, I mean that labels for different geographic elements should be consistent. For example, seas should always be labelled with (e.g.) italic font at X size, mountains would be all caps at Y size etc. (The specifics of font & style would be up to you obviously. Consistency is the important part.)

I think there are a few people round here who use CC3 so if you need help with that software, I'm sure someone can offer advice. Looking forward to seeing what you do next.

[ladiestorm]

Hey Chickpea, thank you so much for your comments! I'd like to address them, if I may.

I knew coming in that my rivers were going to be an issue . And I have read the thread on correctly drawing rivers and lakes so that when I draw my next maps, I will have them drawn correctly. My rivers on these maps are wrong on purpose, to show how badly the land is screwed up from the wild magic and the wrath of.the gods. But you are right... They are definitely incorrectly drawn, and I do know that.

I do apologize for the map size issue. Being a new mapper, I was worried about my maps.being too big and ered the other way...and I don't know how to make sure my maps are the right size...something for me to look into and fix for next time!

As for the text issue... Consistency in the text is something I honestly didn't think about, and now that you've brought to my attention, that is good, sound advice...which I plan on taking in the future, so thank you for that!

I actually k is a few of the cc3 users on this site, as we are also members of the ProFantasy forum, and they actually have helped me immensely, so far. In fact, it was their suggestion that I join here, to learn about making realistic looking maps. And I just bought their map making tome to help me even farther. I'm looking forward to sharing my future maps so I can do to help to learn!

[ChickPea]

About the map sizes, you can upload files that are up to about 4.2mb(ish) in size. I don't know how CC3 works. Is it a vector-type application where you can export whatever resolution you want? Generally bigger is better for this forum, up to the file size limit obviously.

Looking forward to seeing your next work. Post in one of the Work in Progress threads for advice as you develop your map.

[ladiestorm]

Uhm...to tell the truth, I'm not sure... I know it's a car engine... But that's like saying I know my car's a Volkswagen jetta. Like I said, I'm still learning the program. I just got the uber ultimate mapping guide, and I'm going to do a series of maps using this guide as a walkthrough to learn about the program. This particular guide not.only shows the basics, but shows a lot of the tips and tricks for making better maps... I'll post my tutorial maps in the WIP so anyone else new to cc3 can learn with me

[ladiestorm]

Uhm... That was supposed to be CAD engine. Stupid autocorrect!

[Tonnichiwa]

Hi Ladiestorm, I suggest making your maps a PNG and making the size of them about 2500 or so. Play around with the sizes to see what works best for you but for me that seems to be about right. Anyway, I've been wanting to take a look at your stuff but it has never been large enough to see the details. I'm hoping here you will actually be able to post something bigger. On the other forum it doesn't really let you get away with anything bigger than 1250 and that isn't very big.

[ladiestorm]

hey tonnichiwa!!! I would love to make my maps bigger, so you can see them... unfortunately I don't know how to do that yet. All of these images are pngs, I did get that part right . Perhaps you to walk me through enlarging them, then I can repost them, so you can see them better? I have noticed that you can't make the maps big enough to look at the details on the cc3 forums.

[Tonnichiwa]

Hi Ladiestorm, ok here is how I do it:

1) Open your cc3+ program.

2) Load the map you want to show on the Cartographer's Guild into cc3+. Turn on Sheets and Effects and make sure your map looks exactly like you want it too look.

3) Go to "File"

4) From "File", go to "Save As."

5) Click on "Save As". This brings up the "Save As" menu.

6) In the "Save As" menu, go to "Save In".

7) Click on the arrow that brings down your choices. I always choose "Desktop" but you can always choose somewhere else. Whatever you choose is where your map will save to.

Click on "Desktop"

9) In the "Save As" menu, go to "File Name". Name your map. Make sure it has the .FCW at the end of whatever you choose to name it. Remember that whatever you decide to name it will be what shows up on the Cartographer's Guild website when someone hovers their mouse over the thumbnail of your map.

10) In the "Save As" menu, go to "Save As Type". Click the arrow to bring down your choices.

11) Find "PNG Bitmap file" and click it.

12) In the "Save As" menu, click on the "options" button. This will bring up the "Bitmap Options" menu.

13) In the "Bitmap Options" menu, look for "Maximum Image Dimensions".

14) Type 2500 in both the "Width" and "Height" boxes.

15) In the "Bitmap Options" menu, look for "Options". The only thing that should be checked is "antialias".

16) Set the "Antialias" to 25 % by typing 25 in the box (if it isn't already done for you).

17) In the "Bitmap Options" menu, look for "PNG Compression". Set it to maximum.

1 In the "Bitmap Options" menu, click the "OK" button. This will close the menu.

19) In the "Save As" menu, click "Save" and wait for the image to render. Watch as the program makes multiple passes over your map to render it properly. you will only see number of passes, not an actual visual of the map as it is happening. Also, if it freezes by saying at the top that it is not responding, you can either wait for it (it usually corrects its self) or start over from step one and try again. Once it is done rendering it will start flashing a percentage done on a red line. Once that red line goes away, it should be done and ready on your desktop (or wherever you saved it to). Now just load it up on the Cartographer's Guild and you are good to go.

20) If it is too big for the Cartographer's Guild you will have to go back and make it smaller, so maybe 2400 instead of 2500. Play with it until it gets to a size the site will accept.

Anyway, I hope that helps you.

Can't wait to see these maps finally

[ladiestorm]

Thanks, tonnichiwa! I knew what to do to turn my fcw's into png's. I just didn't k is how to resize them. This should help immensely, not just for uploading to the site, but for printing them for use by my players, too! Being able to make them the size I need is a godsend! I will be reposting these maps soon!