Greetings from Paris !

[twister]

Hello everyone !
I just discovered your site, and haven't had the time to go through all of it yet, but it seems quite thorough and friendly !

The name is Tristan, but the nickname goes by Twist. (twister here, since the former has already been taken ...)

I'm an architect, currently 30yrs old, long time role playing gamer and storyteller. I've been in the "mapping" business ever since I've learned how to use a pen, paper and imagination, so this forum seemed like a very providential discovery ! I've picked up paintball playing and organising games a couple of years ago, then switching to live role playing games, and a few of my slim photoshopping and autocad skills have proven to be very useful in this field (also the fact that it's actually my job to draw plans and maps ...).

I'll try to find the time to post here a few examples of what I've been doing over the time, from Vampire the Dark Ages maps, to actual paintball fields, and maybe a few of my own professionnal works as well, as soon as I get a hand on my backup hard drive (must be lying somewhere around my stuff ...)

I'm a "quiet poster" type of forum user, since I'm quite busy during my day, but I try to keep myself informed and in the loop when it comes to essential things, so don't hesitate to ask me anything, it might take me some time to answer, but as we frogs say, "better late than never !".

ooh, and, I'm half aussie as well, so g'day to y'all mates !


Cheers !

[Redrobes]

French / Aussie - so that's like a "b'jour" or something

Welcome, post some work when you can. In the past the pro architects have had really good clean meticulous work - often with autocad or something similar. Do you do any 3D visualizations of buildings ?

Oh and any LARP pics in full battle dress we can gawp at too ?

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[twister]

thanks for the warm welcome !

I've had to do a few 3D visualisations in the past, but only sporadic projects here and there, when it seemed necessary to present a "sexy" view of our work. (i'm the "photoshop/3D" guy at the office, but that's easy, since it's only the 3 of us). I might try to find a few to show you guys, although they're all quite simple renderings afterall. Or you can visit our website (needs some updating though...) : agence-kva.com/


About my work in other more fun fields :
a paintball map intended to help the staff get settled and set the different camps in place.

another paintball field map for the same purposes ...

It has to be noted that these two (and a few others, yet to be posted) are designed to work with a few given imperatives :

_ They have to be "printer friendly", since we almost print them all in large numbers (~100 units average), and moslty on personal and/or home printers, and we don't want to run out of any ink. Hence the scarcely colored and filled patterns. The fact that they are bright maps printed on white paper also allows also the players to write notes about encounters, hills and valleys, attack or defense lines and so on during his game if he wants to tansmit information without having to talk (like a recon reporting back to a hidden ambush party right before the attack is set to happen)
_ They have to be useful for paintball players, meaning that even if it's complete chaos on the field, paint flying everywhere above the reader's head, he can still read and get oriented with this map. Many tims I've been in games where the staff provided homemade maps for all players, but even if they were quite pretty to look at, said maps were useless on a field when the adrenaline kicks in (when the opposing team was in the middle of a rush on your position, and you had to get directions or send your teammates somewhere ...)
_ They need to be both large AND small formats, because given the amount of time you spend preparing and planning a game (when you're a staff member) you don't want to spend too much time designing too many documents, or you'll be lost in your own paperwork when the day comes ...
_ Taken from actual Land registry plans, googlemaps, actual existing maps and other sources, they need to be both synthetical AND complete, so many hard choices of showing /not showing information have to be made quickly when designing them.
ie : information like height, elevation, mountains and hills, if not given by curves or shades on the map (just read one of your tutorials about this) might overflow the map with information.
_ Last but not least, given the nature of the context (a paintball game) all fields require to have clear and identifiable limits, so any one player should know and realize if he's in the limits of the game, or if he went astray and/or got lost somewhere in the country/forest. Hence the thick dark line, surrounding the fields.

These are all pretty intangible constraints, and seem quite creative-blocking, but they all appear to be usefulon the field once they've been taken into account while designing. Also, most of these maps depict areas lost in the middle of forest, and with very little/no/tiny buildings (safe from the first one). And even if there actually are buildings on te field, they almost all the time are a bit derelict and surrounded with vegetation/ferns/trees.

Next up, a map I'm designing for another game in belgium, still in process.

right there ... Still a lot of information missing, lie building names (we've set up a bar, a bank, a dope lab, a radio station, a border post, a necropolis, a temple (the building that looks like a character) and so on ... adding to that the team camps, headquarters and main objectives, I don't know how I'll manage to get a "readable" map in A5 formatin the end ... and here I was, talking about being synthetical !!!

Enjoy !

[E2D2]

Bonjour d'un Français à un autre Français ;-)

Cordialement

[twister]

heey, salut confrère cartographe !

[Tiko]

Tiens, il y a du franchouillard par ici !

[jtougas]

Welcome to the Guild.

[twister]

cheers ! Back again !

Here's a partial set of maps I had to do for a LARP/Paintball game last weekend, in belgium. The story setting was in a small town in Belize, near ancient mayan ruins. The field itself was covered in vegetation, and some buildings were just perfect for that, having this derelict/ruins character to them.

Each team (total of four, each with around 15/20 players each) had its own map, with partial information, depending on their goals, and on the intel the background provided about the other teams) :








The whole game started to have a "gran theft auto" mood as soon as we started teasing it (with posters, small background narratives and so on) so it only fitted that the maps reflected that mood.

Enjoy !

Ill try to open a topic this afternoon about a project I'm working on, a modular map of paintball fields, supposedly interactive (still working on the way it could work with a friend of mine, much more qualified as I am in these matters ...) allowing players and teams to choose amongst a large number of fields, opponents, and control points, in order to organize meetings and battles on their own. Considered as much a playing extension as a referencing tool, this should keep me occupied for some time

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!