Aborea Worldmap

[Djekspek]

Hi, working on a huge atlas style map (A0-Din size at 300 dpi ) for a rolemaster game. It's done using my Mistique map techniques. Still working on labels and terrain (it really is big), but a prototype-print has been posted on their forum. You can check it out at their website. (For the keen eyes, the compass-design you see was 'borrowed' from Ascension. I used it as a stand-in until I create one of similar coolness myself, hope he dont mind). cheers! DJ

[dickovdk]

First off - it looks really nice - it has a very stylish feel to it and when you mentioned Rolemaster I simply smiled. Your map is very much in line with the officiel shadow world maps made long ago.

May I ask how large the image are made to be able to support A0 size?

maybe drop some screenshots of the map bits - specially I would like to see how you made the mountains in the center. They seem very dominating and maybe a but to straight for my taste (but its only taste).
Another thing - where did you get it printed and laminated ? I only have access to A3 laminting machine but when time comes then the dream is making it huge for the table as you did.

All in All it just look PRO!

NB: didnt know anybody played Rolemaster anymore it also sadly died out in Denmark I believe!

[Djekspek]

thanks !
the image is 14043 x 9933 pixels to support 300dpi on this size. I'm afraid I cannot post any screenshots (at least not until it's published but i'd have to check). The mountains are indeed a bit straight indeed as they are on the original source design. They are really high (like 10km or so). I agree maybe they should be a bit more 'curly', not sure if i could get that in, in time though. I didn't print it myself, but I think there are many copy/print-shops around town that could print it if you showed up with a PS file that size (incl. lamination and stuff). As for Rolemaster, I don't play it myself so I'm really not sure, I think it's played a lot in Germany and US. cheers!

[rdanhenry]

Germany is one of the main non-English-speaking countries for Rolemaster. For what it is worth a poll of nationalities on the ICE forum showed more members in Europe than the U.S.

[Aelyn]

Hey! I bought the game yesterday and was dead sure the style looked familiar. Great map, huge map! And the game is fun, yet I don't know whether or not it will be published in English. (Probably not?)
How did you get the job? Who was responsible for the place names? (especially Leet *g* my group loled about it) And how on earth did you work on a map of this size? Is your computer superbrain or something? Mine would melt down

So many questions, hope you can answer some of them Once again: Great work!

[Djekspek]

Hi, glad you like the map (and the game of course . I don't think 13Mann publishes in English, but you never know of course. I already did some work in the past for them for their rolemaster games (like the "Trölle!" adventure) and was glad to be involved in Aborea and their new game system. I didn't create the labels, as the content was all designed by 13Mann themselves (they have been working on it for some years). My PC is ok but I worked with around 4 files all between 2 and 5GB, for the different parts (one for the sea, one for the labels, etc.). These where all merged for the final map. cheers, DJ

[Aelyn]

If they don't publish it that would be a pity. Too bad it's (tm), otherwise one could just make translations for people who are interested. Well, kismet.

Again on the map: Would you mind explaining the process of using 4 files? how do you get them to match during the process? Maybe I am too unskilled a cartographer to understand it, but I sure would like to. (Not for commercial purpose, it's just that I might have some free time in the near future that I would like to spend on a nice project- why not try to make a big map like yours?) Is there a tutorial for the style? Couldn't find one.

Btw: wasn't able to give you rep, but be sure that I will once I can

And: my players force me to ask why many of the mountains are parallel to each other?

[Djekspek]

It took me some experimenting to make it work but this is sort of how I do it: It's basically going "bottom-up": I have a file with the land shape and paint the sea. When that is done i save it as a flat bitmap and load it as smart-object in my next file. I then build on top of that and save that again as a bitmap, etc. During the work process I use lower-res bitmaps in the smart-objects, but for the final build I replace the smart objects with the actual PS files, so I get a good final resolution. This final build takes around 15 minutes to completely load and render all the labels. As for a tutorial, I'm afraid there is no real one but there is a thread with some explanation on how I did this. Hmm, I hope this makes sense... As for the geography, the map layout was provided to me as a pre-production sketch. They have a forum with info and questions on the world (like size, geography, etc.) so if you drop a note there, I bet they'll provide anwsers to your questions. cheers, DJ

[Aelyn]

I think I get the gist of it, but I don't think I can make that work. So no high-res maps for me until I can replace my aging laptop. But thank you for the explaination and the link. The game is really cool, and I can certainly recommend it to everyone who learned German in school

Keep up the good work!