Speaking of science fiction rpgs and maps done in Cosmographer 3 in our previous post…
I recently had the pleasure to create a trio of maps for the new FATE edition of Brennan Taylors Bulldogs! game. I drew the following encounter, galaxy and deckplan maps with Cosmographer 3: Continue reading »
The May issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2011 has been available since Sunday. It contains a new style to draw modern road atlas maps, both on a regional or local level:
Modern City Street Map
Mike Riddle, CAD pioneer and creator of FastCAD the software on which CC3 is based, has released a free iPad/iPhone app for FastCAD. It does not support bitmap art – only vector styles, nor does it yet support effects. It’s called CADView.
Campaign Cartographer drawings tend to be much bigger than the usual CAD drawings, and on an iPad 1, detailed overland drawings are a little slow. That said, I’d love to hear how fast CADView is on iPad 2, and get other feedback. Who knows, we might have a full-blown CC3 viewer in a year or two’s time.
We’ve released the April issue of the current Annual. The included floorplan style is inspired by the maps in vintage (1930s) Baedeker travel guides – just perfect for your pulp or horror games .
National Gallery Berlin done in CC3
A long wait is finally over. We’ve got the Cosmographer 3 materials from the printer and Steve has been building stock and assembling shipments since Friday. Look for your Cosmographer 3 box in the mail soon.
As many of you know I’ve been heads down working on “Map Invoker”, a map auto generator, for awhile. In its first (hopefully of many) incarnation it generates random towns/cities.
One of the first hurdles was to somehow create an algorithm to create a realistic shape for a city and its walls. Well, the resulting algorithm created three circles. One fixed in the center of the map and two that had their centers randomly placed within the first circle.
Fine, I check marked that as done and went on to the next challenge.
Well, now I’m in parameterizing mode where I am pulling out all the hard coded numbers and placing them at the disposal of the user, and that lead me back to the Wall algorithm. Why just limit it to two circles? Why not five, or eight? Why not start with a square or turn the additional circles into squares – or a random mix of both?
With the right settings, all these parameters can create so cities that look amazingly natural. With the wrong settings you can create a city that … just looks weird. But, that is the purpose of allowing the users to tweak these parameters, is it not? Nobody wants a cookie-cutter city generator. If anyone is going to want to use a city generator, they want to be able to create a one-of-a-kind city that is all their own.
Then it’s just a matter of trying to name these parameters so that the user has an inkling of what they control. For the circle/square/mixed parameter – a slider, one side all circles, the other all squares and in the middle a mixture. What to call it? Wall Squareness? Wall Sharpness? Wall Roundness? Hmmm…
Hopefully no matter what the parameters are named, users will be able to deduce its effect.
Well, it looks like I’ve gotten most of the Wall generation parameterized. Here is an image of a large city (2000′ x 1600′ Template) with some of the “interesting” settings.
A large city generated by 'Map Invoker'
We were very happy, when fantasy cartographer Jon Roberts agreed to do a Annual style for us late last year. Jon’s work is nothing but remarkable and has appeared in a wide range of gaming publications.
His overland style is now available as the March issue of the Cartographer’s Annual 2011 and can be downloaded by current subscribers.
Take a look at the example map included with the March issue:
Jon Roberts Style Example Map
Another Perspectives 3 preview. The excellent Kai-Uwe Allner is creating the 3D symbols. In Perspectives Pro, we offer four symbol angles, in Per 3, it will be eight. You can me tabbing through the different angles in the clip.
In answer to comments in the previous thread:
Yes, we’ll have wall textures. We haven’t decided how to do wall shading.
Our plan is to have flat doors but with “indent” symbols to give them depth. The advantage of flat symbols is that they can align to walls at any angle. We might do 3D ones limited to fixed directions though. We still have to decide.
We weren’t sure if Perspectives would make it through to version 3, but with this proof of concept, I think it’s clear it’s worthwhile. More detail in another post.
More Dungeon Symbols
Well of Elemental Water
