FTPro - Random World Mapping for Fun and (no) Profit

[Master TMO]

A bit of a Duh moment for me, most likely. FT can save tiled map images. I've never really used those before, so I'm exporting a batch now to play with. Assuming they come out with better resolution, they may solve some of the resolution errors. However, that doesn't change the resolution of the data in the FT file itself. I will have to see how it turns out. If the results are acceptable, you can also define views in FT and export those.

[waldronate]

I suspect that you're not going to get the results that you really want... The multi-file export in FT has some alignment issues. You'd think of all the features that one would be particularly hard to mess up, wouldn't you? It happened, though.

[Master TMO]

Wow. Fast response time! Thanks for letting me know before I spend a lot of time exporting 17 layers of tiled maps.

[waldronate]

Some folks have been able to get the tiling to work, but it requires some additional software, if I recall.

[Master TMO]

What if I used the Percent Overlap option when exporting, and then lined them up manually whenever I sewed 2 together?

[ravells]

If you have a sufficiently recent version of photoshop you can stitch them automatically in there with the panorama tool. There are also free panorama stitchers online.

[Master TMO]

I have CS, and it does have Photomerge. I'm exporting a series of overlapped map tiles now to see how it does. I probably shouldn't have started with X-treeem high-res exports, but what the heck. It'll do my computer good to have to exercise those processors. The Help file suggested a 15-40% overlap between tiles, so I selected 20% to get a good overlap without generating too many extra files.

Edit: Playing around with the math a bit. If I pick 1 pixel = 1 mile as my arbitrary target resolution for the output files, that means the total map will be 30000 pixels across. With a 20% overlap, I can produce a 30x30 grid of 1250x625 images. I am currently thinking that more smaller images would be better, so that I can assemble smaller regional maps easier without having to do as much clipping or trimming. I'll just have to keep a record of the grid pieces each region is made up of, since I export my map in several different layers and will want to have identical compositions so that there is no shifting of the different maps.

I thought about just defining Views in FT and exporting those, but then I get into the potential issue of different region views being at different scales, which would mean I would have a hard time re-using hand-drawn political boundaries between the different regions. And it would stink to have to try and draw the same exact boundary on two different maps at two different scales. I much prefer to have a single boundary I can copy/paste between different photoshop files. I prefer to make my computer do the hard work up front so that my job is easier later on.

I put too much thought into these things, don't I?

[Master TMO]

Just a note for other folks (and myself in the future when I look back through my old threads for what I've done), FT seems to be exporting about 1 map slice per minute. So 900 slices will take 15 hours to finish. Fortunately, it seems to take my laptop going to sleep in stride alright and just picks up where it left off when I wake it back up.

[Master TMO]

While I'm waiting for all the layer map slices to export, I'm browsing through the non-mapping worldbuilding threads, looking for tips about economy, trade, demographics, etc. I had some resources of my own already, and am busy bookmarking and subscribing to a bunch of others.

This is far from definitive yet, but here are the general world concept questions I am pondering at the moment:
* I wanted a world with plenty of space for the monsters and non-human races to exist, so it is not a semi-modern Renaissance-like world
** I am actually considering late Stone or Bronze Age, with maybe early Iron in a few places (dwarves most likely). Most resources are Medieval-oriented, but I can work backwards, and I already have some books on early history and tech development that I can build off of.
* How did the world generate multiple sentient races?
** Are all the races branches of the same species, or completely different?
** Are they genetically compatible for crossbreeding?
** If they are the same species, why are they so different from each other?
** Does the race have a different outlook that would affect how they build nations?
* What kinds of magic work? The standards are Wizard, Sorceror, Cleric, Druid, Shaman.
** How common is magic?
** How has magic affected a region?
* Language - just started looking at some of these resources, so I haven't really developed a whole list for it yet.
** Edit: Just read the Language Construction Kit. Now my brain hurts... I'm going to need to be a lot better rested and coherent before I attempt that again.
* Economics
** Trade very much depends on the population and tech of the world, so it can't be fleshed out until that is done.

[Master TMO]

Here is a brief overview of the world that I'm working on:

Overall, the world is in the early Bronze Age (think Ur, Uruk, Sargon, not Greek myths), with quite a few still in the late Stone Ages. Humans are the original race, evolving over millennia and migrating around the world.

Some humans have a talent for magic, but no real control over what spells they learn. These are the Sorcerors.

In major cities (by the local standards), it is possible for a group of Sorcerors to come together to study magic and their powers. With enough study, they could actually learn how to research specific spells, rather than rely on random growth. It takes them longer to learn spells, but they get to pick what to learn. These are the Wizards.

As humanity spread out around the world, occasionally a tribe would encounter a Power. Call them Gods, Spirits, Totems, whatever, they were able to offer power and aid to those who chose to follow them. A Power can guide and aid the magic of a Sorceror who follows them, channeling their magic into certain paths. A Power is very tied to their location, and the magic they promote is magic that is ideally suited to their land. Sorcerors who follow the Power develop magic that can aid their tribe in living and mastering their local environment. These are the Shamans.

Powers also affect their followers in other ways. Powers all hate the other Powers of the world. As a Shaman becomes more powerful, this attitude also affects them, and they become more and more xenophobic as they gain in power and level. And, the Power also affects newborn children, warping them each generation into a different race. This is how the different races came about. For instance, after generations of following the mountain Power, the people gradually turned into dwarves. Those following the forest Power became elves, and so on. The different races can still crossbreed with humans, producing a half-breed, but not any of the other races, as they are too different. It is possible for half-breeds to crossbreed with other half-breeds, but the result will most likely be pure human.