[PnP] Map of Perilous Lands using...?
Burton Choinski
bchoinski at comcast.net
Sun Jan 2 18:57:30 CET 2011
Okay, decided to try my hand at this, working on the map DEM now. Currently scanning the map book at 300DPI and stitching the sections in photoshop. Once the map is complete I'm going to join all the layers and resize the whole such that we end up with 1 pixel per half mile (2500 feet -- keep P&P units clean :}
Once that is done I need to make a layer for each type of terrain, though I really only need 3 real layers: mountains, hills, and everything else. Oh yea, and ocean (non-land). Once I have the land mapped out I'm going to make a greyscale mask based on the terrains.
I can probably produce a straight DEM for terrain, with the assumption of 250' per grey level, but this would only leave about 10 levels for the flats, about 20 for the hills, and the rest mountains. With such a flat set it would be hard to show any meaningful relief in mapping. The only land forms that really imply elevation is the mountains, with hills only using the base elevation but with more ruggedness. the non-mountians would use 50 elevation units with a cloud fractal base (50-99), the mountains would use 150 (100-249). Hills would retain the full fractal, badlands would use the fractal times a fractal (to produce more valleys and spires) and other flat terrains would have the fractal gaussian blurred to smooth it out. Lakes and rivers would reduce the base elevation by HALF, so in relief form they would appear to be in channels, not just floating on top of the terrain.
I'll post summary images (reduced, of course) as it goes along.
Perhaps 50 levels for plains, 100 for hills and the full 200 for mountains
If I used a straight but it has to be with the assumption that each level of grey is 250 feet (allows for a maximum mountain height of 50,000). Levels 0-50 are reserved for the oceans to allow for depth coloring. 51-60 for the low terrains, 51-70 for hills, and 51-250 for mountains.
On Dec 30, 2010, at 11:58 PM, Franklin Robertson wrote:
> Great to see PnP still up and around! I had never forgotten PnP, but it has been quite a while since I saw an email from the list. Good to know we're all still out there.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Adams" <longshotgm at netzero.com>
> To: "The Powers and Perils Mailing List" <pnp at abroere.xs4all.nl>
> Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 10:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [PnP] Map of Perilous Lands using...?
>
>
>>
>> Nice to see the list still alive. Been 4 months. Amazing how the last quarter of the year goes so fraking fast. Then first 3 quarters are a drag.
>>
>> I can't draw worth a flip. No artistic cell in body. I could draw as a kid but not now. now I have trouble doing a simple circle.
>>
>> If it was a make a wish world it would be nice to have the PL world in a software package. The full map. Be able to find a city with a quick search or a click. Do distance measurements from Sivas to Katai city in a flash rather than trying to do manual counts now. Click on a city get its info in population, economy and the like from culture info. Populate the world with info like that and towns. But it would be a huge project and time consuming. I find the maps wonderful as is but figuring distance for one of my players to teleport from half a continent away (yeah he can) is a pain. Usually off some.
>>
>> Digital maps are great and if could somehow etch the hexes like Burton says into one map would be hard work. If we even had 10 artists one could take a province and do the whole world in a month or two.
>>
>> But alas its time and work. I'm happy with anything done. The problem is the software. If one person uses this software to view and use his map the others need it and that might not work for al folks for computer, skill and OS reasons. So it'd have to be some generic platform all can use.
>>
>> A decade ago I wrote a program to view, edit and tons of other features to a world about 500kx500k if I recall. Figure one space was a city. Took only a weekend to do but it was not digital or fancy just a basic low level map.
>>
>> A fun small project would be a site book map set. Do a full color map of the Island or Kril or Avalon. Those would be very useful to folks.
>>
>> If only it was back when in college and had such free time...
>>
>> I'll be happy with anything made.
>> Too all happy New year!
>>
>> [Burton: I know I know. Ship project. I did get about 12 hours work on it of and on since September. But time just gets away and by time you get engrossed soemthing else comes up. Grrr. But 12 hours is better than nothing. Sigh.]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 03:36 PM 12/30/10, you wrote:
>>> The one thing I wish i had, but don't have the software for (or the time to do it all) is a digital map of the world. Something that can be zoomed in to make maps with. I have sort of faked it with the maps I have submitted (basically take the hexes, apply some fractal to the lines to rough them up, apply graphics). The problem is that each map ends up unique...I can't easily do a sequence of close maps (like the map book) since they won't match up.
>>>
>>> It would be interesting to have a base DEM of the entire world, perhaps 1 pixel per mile, locked to a line art. Then when you zoom in you would need to perhaps fractilize the heights prior to working with it.
>>>
>>> But having line work that scales properly would be wonderful. The problem is, that's a lot of data, unless you want nothing but straight lines when you zoom in.
>>>
>>> What is needed is some sort of procedural pre-render that takes something that won't change, like the mile coordinate of the pixel, and use that as the random seed, combined with the terrain type (plains, etc) to generate the actual terrain. As you zoom in the fractional points around the main coord are used for the seed, so you could zoom in on a single hex to render the terrain. then you take your render and use that as the base of a program like illustrator to lay out roads, towns or other needed features.
>>>
>>> Any mapping project will require a lot of work. I'm willing to help, if I have the tools to assist. Perhaps I'll try scanning in the pages of the map book such that 1 pixel is 1 mile and see what we would end up with. If i can stiitch it together, perhaps I can work on the DEM.
>>>
>>> On Dec 30, 2010, at 8:19 AM, Floyd Resler wrote:
>>>
>>>> Paul,
>>>> You can find a JPEG map here (<http://powers.maccrafters.com/Images/map.jpg>http://powers.maccrafters.com/Images/map.jpg). That's one I stitched together years ago.
>>>>
>>>> Take care,
>>>> Floyd
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 30, 2010, at 4:34 AM, Paul Ming wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hiya.
>>>>>
>>>>> I was just wondering if anyone has (or would be interested in) a map of the Perilous Lands in digital format? No, I don't have one yet (well, I did do most of a single map a loooooong time ago around Marentia: <http://themings.tripod.com/denslair/rpgs/powersandperils/rpg_pnp_temp.html>http://themings.tripod.com/denslair/rpgs/powersandperils/rpg_pnp_temp.html Sorry for the crappy site...did it over a decade ago and haven't really touched it sinse...kinda surprised it's still there).
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, I was thinking about starting up a P&P campaign sometime in the new year and I'll probably be doing a lot of campaign stuff on computer. One of the things I'm thinking about doing is maps; world, area, country, city, etc. I'm just trying to decide on a style for them. Maybe a 'simple' hex map (using Hexographer), but perhaps something more artistic (hand-drawn/painted), or maybe using Campaign Cartographer 3 (or some mix between them all). If anyone had a perference, or particular 'artistic style' that they think goes well with the flavour of P&P, please post a link to an example or two. I'm hunting for something myself, but wondering what others have found particularily good.
>>>>>
>>>>> ^_^
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul L. Ming
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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