Mapping Questions...

1. Mapping Questions...

   #1

   *breathes* Okay. I made my first town map... It's for a large Town or Village. It's not very pretty because I didn't use the ruler sitting in front of me. It was more a "Hey! I should try and make a map! RIGHT NOW!" I'm really interested in the opinions of the people in the forum.
   
   It isn't finished. *pats colored pencils* But I didn't want to put a butt load of work into it until I have some ideas and tips and things.
   
   Also, I don't have the key done yet.
   
   The Map Is Here:
   My Evil Map
   
   I'm going to give a HUGE thank you in advance (as I always do)
   
   I would like to learn how to use photo shop to make town maps, as I use it to build web pages and what not. But I kind of like putting the energy into a home made by pencil and pen.
   
   Thank You Again!

2. Mapping Questions...

   #2

   Uhhh ... I can't find it. Are you sure it's there?

3. Fixed It.

   #3

   It should work now...

4. Mapping Questions...

   #4

   I usually hand draw all my maps just like you did. No straight edge, no perfection, just whipping out a general area map on gridded paper. What you did is perfect as far as I am concerned.
   
   On photoshop and colored pencils. The only map I spent time on was my world map. That I just scanned into photoshop and played with it a little to get rid of the pure colored pencil look.
   
   As far as making towns in photoshop, you could probably make a set of buildings and use them to copy/paste/resize/rotate to fit however you like.
   
   There is another thread somewhere with map making programs but here are a couple.
   
   Campaign Cartographer Which is pretty dang awesome. I have bought a couple versions through the years and has always impressed me. Plus there is a HUGE following for it so there are tons of extra stuff that people make to go along with it.
   
   Autorealm A free alternative to the above.
   
   Fractal Mapper Yet another that costs but is pretty darn cool.
   
   I am sure there are others too. Photoshop is an awesome tool so let me know if you get a system for making maps in it. I know there is an action script out there for photoshop that will create world maps. I found links to it but the page seems to be gone.

5. Mapping Questions...

   #5

   I draw all my maps by hand in pencil on plain white paper. You should see my world map. It's a composite of over 40 sheets.

6. Mapping Questions...

   #6

   Wait, you did some kind of 3D thing with the top of the houses. :)
   
   I generally just make boxes with labels inside them. :oops:

7. Mapping Questions...

   #7

   That's funny because I have downloaded all of those and have really loved fiddling with them!
   
   For some reason though Fractal Mapper does NOT like my computer and seems to run slow which is wierd becasue not much runs slow on my computer.
   
   I kinda like to color and thought that color coding buisness' (Espcialy in Large Cities and Metropilous') would make it easier for me to see at a glance where things are in the city.
   
   Thank you for the suggestions!

8. Mapping Questions...

   #8

   How are you going to keep track of what is in what building?
   
   You can use either
   a) #s on the buildings linked to a numbered list so you can detail what each building uses.
   
   b) Address (street/ lane name plus a number). Though there is no postal service, you can use the name of the street and the number to linked to a list.
   
   c) Coordinate system. Like the Thomas Guide (or any road map) does it. Match the coordinates to find the approximate location of the building and the shape and description in the write up can be used to find the actual building.

9. Mapping Questions...

   #9

   I've thought about numbers and/or colors. Everything would be detailed on the side in a note book. Ready to go...
   
   Although I do have a question:
   
   Are there any good sites where I can see some hand drawn town maps?
   
   I know there are lots for dungeons and worlds, but what about towns?

10. You should all check the Interesting Gaming Links more caref

    #10

    Maps! Maps! Maps!
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html
    The Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress holds more than 4.5 million items, of which Map Collections represents only a small fraction, those that have been converted to digital form.
    
    The focus of Map Collections is Americana and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress. These images were created from maps and atlases and, in general, are restricted to items that are not covered by copyright protection.
    
    Map Collections is organized according to seven major categories. Because a map will be assigned to only one category, unless it is part of more than one core collection, searching Map Collections at this level will provide the most complete results since the indexes for all categories are searched simultaneously. Maps can now be downloaded.
    
    
    http://crpp0001.uqtr.uquebec.ca/www_wanderer/Towns/towns.html
    Lots of historical maps
    
    
    http://www.davidrumsey.com/
    The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has over 8,800 maps online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. Collection categories include antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, childrens and manuscript maps. The collection can be used to study history, genealogy and family history.
    
    http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
    Library of the University of Texas. It has a large collection of info online for our download.
    
    http://www.old-maps.co.uk/
    Providing access to Britain's most extensive digital historical map archive. Find out where your ancestors used to live or check out what your neighbourhood looked like over a hundred years ago.
    
    http://www.fws.gov/data/histmap.html
    many links with a great deal of information about maps historical
    
    My Google-fu is strong. The best advice I can give you about this is find a few map sites and slip through their various links.

11. *oogles*

    #11

    Ohhhh... Thank you.
    
    Those will come in handy for one of my other hobbies as well...
    
    The SCA.
    
    Thank You So Much Again! Everyone here is so nice and informative.

12. Mapping Questions...

    #12

    You're in the Society for Creative Anachronism? Neat.

13. Mapping Questions...

    #13

    Oh, yeah!
    The Society for Creative Anachronisms!
    They have a meet up in Granjean, Idaho every year!

14. Mapping Questions...

    #14

    Right now, some of my friends are in Phoenix for Kingdom 12th Night and war practice!
    
    Wish I were there.
    
    I need less expencive hobbies...

15. Here is another good map site

    #15

    http://www.euratlas.com/time1.htm
    
    The Eruatlas shop is in the business of selling maps and cd maps. These maps are very nice, but a bit pricy. The link above is the free maps you can pull up. If they are giving these maps away for free, the other ones should be quite nice... if you can meet their price.
    
    Some very good ideas can be found in this thread...
    http://pub102.ezboard.com/fokayyourturnfrm9.showMessage?topicID=622.topic

16. Mapping Questions...

    #16

    What I did for my city map, is very simple realy.... Excel with some colorcodes. my map never was intended to act as a real map, but much more to give an idea of how the city looks.
    This is also the reason why I chose to use Excel and not pen/paper. This was easier.... and in general it was much easier to move differnt quarters around.
    
    For me the lay-out of the city was not the most important, but what was much more important, was the general layout of the districts compared to each other.
    
    To go with the map, there is a very long description of the city.
    
    For general mapping of the islands of my world, I either use pen/paper and scanning, or I use a nice hexmapper found on http://www.paonline.com/zaikoski/ak/
    
    Yours,
    
    Ylorea

17. More Mapping

    #17

    Here are some of the sites I use for maps:
    
    www.aginsinn.com/html - very good tiles. Great for battle maps.
    
    The Large Scale Mapping Project - www.geocities.com/blood_tyger/lsm/lsm.html - has some very well made maps.
    
    www.fattyboombatty.com/maps.htm - a fantastic source for real maps - aerial photos, sat photos, the works. Also has links to the JPL (Jet Propusion Labs) which have fantastic photos.
    
    And of course there's Wizard's Map-A-Week at www.wizards.com

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