Continuing our series of interviews with cartographers, this month we're talking to Mark Oliva. He's known for his large scale of work and the huge quantity of maps produced for gaming.
We asked him 7 questions, as we will in each interview.
We asked him 7 questions, as we will in each interview.
Greipurs Tower by Mark Oliva
1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background...
I'm an American who's been living in Northern Bavaria for the past 35 years. The stuff I produce under the aegis of the Vintyri Project I do together with two online colleagues. We make the Dungeons Daring fantasy RPG and the Jörðgarð campaign setting. I guess I'm the right person for this interview, because as things have evolved, I do about 85 or 90% of our maps.
I started working as a professional photographer in Wisconsin in 1959. In 1961, I became a newspaper reporter in Appleton, Wisconsin, and also a part-time announcer at an Appleton radio station. I spent time in the U.S. Army in the late 1960s with a two-year stint in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam, working as an advisor for psychological operations, and then went back into the newspaper business in the 1970s and early 80s in Riverside, California, and Reno, Nevada. In Reno I also did part-time classical music programming on the local public radio FM station. In Reno in 1974 I contracted the fantasy RPG disease through my first contact with original Dungeons & Dragons and I still have the disease today. In Reno, I also was the editorial staff's contact man with the computer programmers. I contracted that disease too, and switched to programming with my move to Bavaria in 1981. I founded my own company in 1989 and ran it until I retired 20 years later.
2) How did you get into mapping?
I got into mapping when our project group originally started up in the late 1980s. We wanted (and still do) to produce free, open gaming products with open source content. The latter means that whatever we produce has to be 100% editable so that both game masters and people who want to recycle our material into their own works can do so with little difficulty. To achieve all of these goals, we had no choice but to learn how to make maps and then create our own.
Southwood Fortress by Mark Oliva
3) Do you create maps professionally, or for fun? If you've sold your work, how did you get started? Any fun/horror stories to share about commissioned work?
Neither-nor. Although I often do consider making maps to be fun. We have a large number of products available, but they all are free, open source, open gaming products. Therefore, I have a bit of a hard time sticking the word professional onto my back.
4) What kind of computer setup/equipment/software do you have? Any advice or tips for learners?
Our main cartographic program is Fractal Mapper 8. It used to be CC2 Pro, but we had to stop using Campaign Cartographer for maps when we went from vector to raster mapping. When ProFantasy introduced raster mapping with CC3, we had to drop Campaign Cartographer for cartography because it is unable to embed objects. Without embedded objects, it's impossible to make the kind of open source maps that we want to offer. Thus, the switch to FM8. However, I do still use CC3+ together with the Character Artist 3 add-on to make NPC portraits. In addition, we make extensive use of The GIMP, Nikon Capture NX2, Paint.net, ImageSynth and even the Microsoft Office Picture Manager. On the hardware side, I have two desktop PCs with SSD drives and a laptop, all running Windows 10 Professional 64-bit.
Advice - Before starting mapping, give a good bit of thought to what kind of maps you want to make and how you want them to look. Then test the different programs, seeing which does best what you want. Also check the various Internet forums for your target programs, see how satisfied users are and how many problems they have installing them and making them work properly. Doing that can prevent ulcers and such.
5) What are your favourite kind of maps or favourite map makers from history?
My favorite maps to look at probably are the best samples from users of The GIMP and Photoshop. That's where the real masterpieces are. My favorite maps when playing or running an RPG campaign, however, are somewhat photorealistic satellite views, because they do the best job of telling me where I am and what I really see.
6) What do you consider your best piece of work? How about your favourite, if different?
I haven't the foggiest idea!
Vainosdock by Mark Oliva
7) Where can we find you on the web?
http://www.vintyri.org