"Modelling" Maps

[Llannagh]

Hi Guild,

it has been ages since I posted anything here, but every now and then I pay a visit and I'm still amazed by what you people create!

Now I hope to get back to world-building (WorldAnvil, anyone? Opinions? I love it!) and map making. I have moved away from Photoshop and Wacom and now I'm using an iPad Pro with Artstudio Pro. I also tried a little painting, which I love, but my passion is still mostly for maps. But I have a dream, and maybe you guys might have an idea or opinions if it's achievable! I would love to a) outline a landmass with a pen (or in Artsudio etc) and then b) just kind of "model" the terrain, as if working with clay.
My guess is that that would probably be possible with Blender, which so far I have been too lazy to learn.

I'm looking forward to your ideas, opinions, suggestions!

All the best,
Llannagh

[Redrobes]

What do you mean by modeling in this case ? Adjusting the heights of terrain such as painting extra height on with the tablet ?

[Llannagh]

Like pulling up the mountains out of the ground, shaping valleys and hills and stuff like that. Using a tablet or a mouse. I know, it might be a bit too much to ask for.

[Redrobes]

Well its just that most terrain based apps work off of a height map which is just a greyscale bitmap. So you can use the lighten and darken in any paint package to modify it. Then you only need a small app to show the height map in 3D. I used to give one away but right now I haven't got one to hand. But you can easily do it in any number of apps. Blender does it great but there is a bit of a learning curve to get that sorted and I know I have seen a few people post on here about how to do that. Also, I know a very quick and dirty way to get a 3D view of a lower res terrrain is to use OpenSCAD. The bonus being once you have that correct you can export it for a 3D printer and handle it. There are numerous but to my knowledge I think Celestia does it well and I think Wilbur will and that has the bonus of being able to apply lots of processing to it like erosion and other natural effects. Obviously some of the big gun terrain apps will do it too for a cost like World Machine and Terragen etc. But since I use my own stuff I don't have a lot of experience with other apps.

I am not into Macs so not sure whats available for an iPad. Can you use Windows or Linux based stuff ?


Edit: For info, in OpenSCAD I got a nice 3D image with code in one line like this:

scale([1, 1, 0.5]) surface(file = "Terrain.png", center = true);

Where I had a small 256x256 sized Terrain.png as a full RGB file with only greyscale image on it where white is high and black low.


Also:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=22236

https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=35516

[Dimension Door]

I have recently bought nomad sculpt for the iPad and was able to do this in a couple minutes. I created two planes and placed one just above the other and ‘dragged’ the bottom plane through the top plane to create mountains. Really intuitive! The only thing that bugs me is creating coastlines as I didn’t have much control regarding where and how the landmasses formed. But then, I have not spent much time on this app so it might be doable once you get the hang of it.

[Tiana]

I use World Creator for this kind of terrain building. Then you can export your terrain to pull into another program. I haven't done much with it in Blender though, I only tried mapping the terrain to a Blender model once. Usually I just render it and take screenshots to use 2D. You can also link programs like that with UE4, Unity, video game making software.

[Gamerprinter]

While I'm still learning Blender, I've been using Wings 3D for 3D modeling, and Vue Creator to light, texture and render 3D objects. In many cases I create vector based maps using Xara Designer Pro, but somethings like say gunpowder cannons that point slightly upward at an angle - this is difficult to show in 2D format. So I will create a 3D model of the cannon to drop as a map object into my map. I've been doing that for years. Earlier this year, while working on a sci-fi setting, supplements and modules for Starfinder as a third party publisher, I've been designing completely 3D generated maps. The following is an alien moon with black rocks and limited atmosphere used as the site of an illegal bio-weapons lab on some remote moon, as an included one-shot module at the end of a supplement on Colonial Marines.

GP

engagement-outpost-map-bcni.jpg

[Gamerprinter]

Of course I create starship deck plans too, and while the interiors are still largely created in vector (some of the interior content is 3D), but I create 3D ships that I cut out the deck plan from, so it appears fully 3D.

GP

hermes-marathon-composite.jpg

[Gamerprinter]

Here's another recent map for near modern, post apocalyptic scene in some abandoned town. This map is on the outskirts of town along a railroad track. This too uses both vector and 3D objects - try to identify what is 3D and what is not...

GP

street-outskirts.jpg

[Redrobes]

There all nice n all, but how does this relate to pulling up mountains and shaping valleys ?