Well met ! From Redrobes

[Redrobes]

Well I have been lurking for a long time but thought id actually join up now as I have a few things coming out shortly that I thought would be of interest.

I am Redrobes on various sites or the Saracen on the occasion where that moniker has already been used.

I write the mapping and virtual table top application ViewingDale which is a 2D zoom browser for large scale mapping. You can take existing raster maps and import them, set up the scale and then all the other maps and icons will relate to it at correct scale. It uses graphics card hardware acceleration and has infinite zoom capability. So an ant to solar system zoom all in one map.

I also write GeoTerSys which is not released yet but in Beta now. Its a 3D terrain mapping system for auto generating outdoor terrain. Its calculating rivers, vegetation, ice, lava flows, and a whole host of other stuff. If your interested, then check out the movies on its website.

I am also one of the admins for Me-Dem where were trying to build the Middle Earth map at a ridiculous scale, something like 20m res, using a variety of tools including GeoTerSys.

On the ViewingDale web site you can find some free tools and I have already looked over posts requesting this sort of stuff so try them out. I think the Dragon Flight 3D might be interesting to some folk as well as the Instant Islands. Both are quite minimal little apps but might help out here and there.

Well I see a few known faces here already, but greetings (seasonal or otherwise) to everyone !


www.viewingdale.com
www.geotersys.com
www.me-dem.org
terrain.cg-arts.org/forum/index.php

[NeonKnight]

Hello and Welcome!

[jaerdaph]

Welcome to the Guild, Redrobes.

[The Cartographist]

Redrobes, Welcome!

[ravells]

Hi Redrobes! Welcome to the Guild. Thanks for de-lurking and looking forward to checking out your programmes!

[Redrobes]

Thanks guys !

[Robbie]

I'm totally looking forward to that GeoTerSys program! Make sure you keep us posted on that one! Thats phenominal looking.

Welcome aboard!!!

[RobA]

Hi as well!

I too am interested in GeoTerSys. I had looked at the demo video a while back and it seems quite powerful. In particular, the erosion model.

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

Hey thats pretty cool. Its about Geo that I am here really. For a long time I wanted a really detailed RPG realm and in the last half dozen years we have the tech to do this. I was writing a mapping program from a real long time ago but about 5 years ago I really hit at it a bit harder and used the new graphics cards and game APIs to get something that you could see the whole realm at once. Any point - zoom in right down to the battle. And also to add all the text and stats to the map right at the point where it counts so you don't have to cross reference stuff or look it up. So that was ViewingDale.

The problem with it tho is that to make a large realm with sufficient detail that it makes it worth going in all the way to the battle means an awful lot of work. So stage 2 has always been to create this vast RPG realm at a silly amount of detail. Thats where Geo comes in.

Stage 3 is where we put all the houses and roads in, caves and caverns, castles and citadels. Thats kinda the fun bit but its hard to start that with no place to put it all. So its a catch 22. Its like boot strapping a universe !

So now that these tools are beginning to come together I wanted to discuss what kinds of things people thought were essential and important in an RPG realm so that I don't miss out on stuff. I would like to know how many people run campaigns in deserts, jungle, snow and ice, etc. What kind of scale do people think are important and so on. Would a hundred miles be too small and is 4000 miles too big ? This kind of thing. And does it need to fit on a CD, a DVD, a few DVDs or maybe P2P torrent kinds of thing. Does it need to be kept up to date etc etc - loads of stuff like that.

Were doing Middle Earth but thats all fixed. Its nuts because of the size and res required but I would also like to have a custom RPG world thats constantly in development. A living world where you can edit it.

A couple of B.T.W's too. Firstly Arcana - was looking at that compass 3D model. Wow real nice work there.

I also mentioned the Dragon Flight 3D the earlier but failed to mention that there are some downloads on the web site to get a few models and textures of some very old terrains. At the bottom of some of the world maps there is a link to download a zip of the Dragon Flight sets. Chuck them in a folder, add the DF exe and run it up. You'll see what I mean.

E.g. - Vulture creek...
http://www.viewing.ltd.uk/cgi-bin/vi..._vulture_creek

[Midgardsormr]

I was reading the description of the Middle Earth project and I have a curiousness. You are projecting the map onto a globe, yes? How are you dealing with the Aman issue? The undying lands are unreachable by Men because the seas are "bent." I'm not sure precisely what that means, save that it means that it should be rather difficult to map that western ocean.