Fantasy Map Making Programs
World Builders What's the coolest thing about writing speculative fiction? Well, I guess there might be lots of answers to that question.
But I'll bet there's one that falls in everybody's top ten list: Getting to create a whole new world. I mean, writing fiction is a lot like playing God anyway, right? You create people ex nihilo and make them do your bidding.
Pshaw, I say. When you write speculative fiction you often find yourself creating from your imagination not just the people but the very worlds the story takes place on. Suddenly you're thinking about geography and history and languages and tribal migration and systems of government. Stuff the author of a straight thriller doesn't need to bother herself with. But that's okay, because we're weird enough that we enjoy making up pretend worlds. Tolkien as our patron saint, we plunge into our new world, fascinated by the possibilities (and complexities) involved with fashioning the heavens and the earth.
God, it seems, was a busy Guy. Okay, if creating brand new ( brave new?) worlds is one of the coolest things about writing speculative fiction, what's the coolest thing about creating brand new worlds? Maps, of course! Forgive the paraphrase of Oliver.
Maps! Magical maps! Wonderful maps!
The Campaign Cartographer range of map making software allows you to create beautiful maps, from world to local scale, of real and imaginary places.
Marvelous maps! Fabulous maps! Map-Making Software If you feel as, er, enthusiastic about maps as I do, have I got the software goodies for you! Hie thee directly to. ProFantasy is the resource for you. They have lots of software toys to waste hours of otherwise useful time on, but there are two map-making products I particularly want to direct you to.
The first is called. Fractal Terrains Pro Fractal Terrains (the full title is Fractal Terrains Pro) is a random world generator. I can't say enough about it. At the click of a button you see a truly random but believable world materialize before your eyes. Don't like it? Click the button again. Too much land?
Adjust the slider bars and click to create a new world. Adjust and click. Fractal Terrains can show you your created world in multiple views, and it's fully editable. Want to see how much rainfall graces your world?
Click the button. Want to see high and low temperatures, type of foliage, altitude, distance between two points? Fractal Terrains also lets you import real-world data. Detail-ed topographical data sets are available for Earth and Mars.
How cool is that? Fractal Terrains lets you save your files as jpegs and other formats, but perhaps most impressive is how it links up with another ProFantasy product: Campaign Cartographer (see below).
Fractal Terrains Pro sells for $39.95 plus shipping. But they offer a free demo to try. It's well worth it if you're serious about building an alternate world. Campaign Cartographer 3 When you've got your world created in Fractal Terrains, it's time to export it to. In Campaign Cartographer, you 'decorate' your map. You put symbols, rivers, roads, and text.
You can see it's the same landform as created in Fractal Terrains, but now it's useful for you as a storyteller. Campaign Cartographer is another wonderful time-wasting software toy. The colors are pleasing and it's just plain fun to name towns and countries. Incidentally, you don't have to have Fractal Terrains to use Campaign Cartographer.
The latter program lets you design maps from scratch, plus there's an active user community that can help you get started. Campaign Cartographer 3 sells for $44.95 plus shipping. As with Fractal Terrains, there is a free demo of Campaign Cartographer so you can try before you buy. Has a ton of other fun products, too, so check out that site. NBOS Software makes some groovy mapmaking software similar to ProFantasy's list of products.
Check out, a 3D mapping utility for space, galaxies, and local planetary systems. Pure coolness. Also check out their software.
It appears to be a product that combines what Campaign Cartographer and Fractal Terrains do for ProFantasy. More coolness! Character Generating Software Depending on your personality, creating story people might be just as fun for you as creating worlds. As far as I know, though, there is only one software utility that creates detailed characters for you. It won't do all your homework for you, but it will, at the click of a button, give you a very fun character to begin with. If all you need is a walk-on character, CharPick gives you everything you need.
If you're looking to quickly populate a room or a spaceship or a den of thieves, CharPick is the way to go. Need an interesting Governor of the Plant Kyrolia? CharPick is your tool. And even if you're looking for idea-starters for your main characters, CharPick is a great place to begin. CharPick is a steal for $12. It's available right here in the WhereTheMapEnds.
Far less detailed (but free) is quick fantasy character creation utility. To develop fully realized characters who make your story memorable and rich, there is no shortcut. But I have given you a to guide your work. Speculative Story Idea Software Again, WhereTheMapEnds comes to the rescue! This is your place for story starting software for Christian speculative fiction. Check out my absolutely free software utility for creating. Here are some other generators for creating random SF or fantasy plot ideas.
Real Physics Simulators Thanks to and her scientist husband for these. (Note that they require Java.). That Should Get You Started! If it doesn't. Well, then.yikes. Click around some more! Have fun, fellow world builders!
Thank you everyone for a great campaign! We are so happy with everyone’s enthusiasm and support toward making Other World Mapper as awesome as it can be! If you missed the campaign and want to follow our progress, please click through to our website. We'll leave the option to pledge with Paypal for a short time, and you'll be able to purchase from our website once it's released. 'Those of you familiar with computer graphics are familiar with the bitmap vector divide, there are paint programs and there are CAD programs.
Other World Mapper is one of the few attempts I’ve seen to make good use of the strengths as well as usability of both in one package.' Meyer, Professional Fantasy Cartographer. As RPG gamers and amateur story writers, we often need maps to convey our story. After years of bouncing between hand drawn maps and computer programs that didn't provide the tools we wanted, we finally asked ourselves, “Since we're software developers, why don't we make a specialized mapping program with the tools we want?” and that's how Other World Mapper was born.
As soon as we started development we realized how awesome this program could be. Now we want to finish Other World Mapper so that we can share it with our fellow gamers, writers and anyone who enjoys creating worlds! We're a small contracting company and our contract work consumes most of our work time. We've been working on Other World Mapper in our spare time. Please help fund this project so that we can spend the work hours required to finish the program, test it and publish!
Other World Mapper is a design program for making world maps and will be distributed via a digital download. The idea is for it to have specialized tools and an intuitive user interface that allows the user to create maps quickly and takes the frustration out of creating highly detailed maps. Going into the project there were some major features we wanted to include as a baseline. Drawing tools that are designed around map elements such as land, rivers, water bodies, regions and roads, as well as customizable settings for each. Everything drawn with the map element tools to be stored as vectors, yet rasterized real-time.
Campaign Cartographer 3
Objects can be scaled, rotated and modified from their vector outline, while their borders, textures, fills and effects will be rasterized again (real time) after each change. Each map element to be a separate layer so that after it is drawn or placed, it can be moved and manipulated.
A program that would let us import our own art for features such as buildings and trees, so that we could create unique maps, but with all the advantages of computer editing. Region tool can follow existing map objects. Label tool for placement of map text. Customizable font, color and outline color, style and alignment, as well as rotation angle.
Feature tool for adding map symbols (castles, mountains, etc). Edit options for map symbols: scaling, rotation and opacity settings, as well as ink color (You will be able to import your own Map Features. See Art Importing Tool below). Canvas options: fill canvas with a color, a texture and/or image, each with independent opacity controls! The canvas can be set to your own image of a map and then traced with Other World Mapper's tools. Move, Scale and Rotate tools may be used on all map objects.
The ability to modify shapes from control points, for all the map item types. Copy properties from one item, and paste to another.
Fantasy Map Making Program Free
Set the tool properties based on an item's properties. Default themes that set the default properties for all tools, allowing creation of maps in a particular style quickly.
The ability to save and share your own default settings as your own map theme. Square and Hex grid with options for line style, thickness, color and opacity, as well as vertical and horizontal spacing, and optional snapping. Distance tool and the option to set the map scale.
Anti-aliasing for objects and effects, blending of objects with 'smooth' edges. Option to have a circle or ellipse represent the edge of a flat map (instead of rectangular edge). Art importing tool to make it easy for you to bring your own artwork into Other World Mapper. Multiple document interface. You can have multiple maps opened as separate tabs and copy/paste items between them. Exporting of maps to various image formats (jpg, png, bmp, etc) and PDF, and the option to upscale exported map. Exporting of “raw” vector data to SVG format (i.e.
Landmasses, regions, etc. Without rasterization), and the ability to export pixel coordinate data for map features (i.e. This should be particularly helpful for game developers.
Printing/Plotting of high resolution maps. Separate layers for each map object and layers window to hide/show and swap z-order of individual map items, or entire map item category (i.e. Change the z-order of all regions). Other World Mapper allows you to add what we call “map features” such as trees, mountains, castles, sea monsters, etc. By choosing images from art sets loaded in a Feature Pallet. Other World Mapper also allows you to apply textures and backgrounds to the canvas and map elements. We will provide artwork as part of the software.
However, we also want to make it easy for you to import your own artwork into Other World Mapper for creating truly unique maps. Other world mapper will include an art tool which will allow you to import your own artwork as well as organize and manage your art folders. So far, we have created over 300 individual features in five fantasy art sets, which will be included with Other World Mapper. We plan to finalize those already created for the fantasy sets and create more to be included as part of an art expansion, following other themes such as sci-fi and pirate. Other World Mapper will also include textures and other support artwork.
Features, textures and backgrounds included with Other World Mapper will be print quality png's with transparency information. Other World Mapper will support the importing of png, jpg, bmp, and gif files, for those who wish to use their own artwork. The first stretch goal added support for SVG files. As you can see in our “What We are Working On” section, there are still many features we need to add and testing to be done before we can call the program finished. So far, we've developed Other World Mapper on our own time and money. Other World Mapper always has to come second to our contract software development work, which has made it difficult for us to work on it consistently.
Kickstarter funding would allow our team to concentrate on the final part of the development of Other World Mapper. It would allow us to invest in additional licenses for our tools, and additional hardware for the development and testing of Other World Mapper. In short, successful funding would make it possible for us to finish the work that needs to be done in order to bring Other World Mapper into a 2015 release. Automatic Labels An option to turn on automatic labels for landmasses, regions, lakes and features. The label would be shown centered for landmasses, regions and lakes, and shown above or below for features.
Feature Fill Option to populate regions with features (i.e. Fill a region with trees). The tool will have settings for the fill algorithm, density, and other options. Location Notes Option to add text, such as descriptions, notes, and story content to any map item. This would be a useful tool for GM's, or anyone building a world for a story.
The text would appear in a “location notes” window once the item is selected. SVG Support for Map Features SVG support for Map Feature artwork and the inclusion of a small set of SVG symbols. City Map Tools.
Tool for city streets. Tool for town walls. Tool for overhead buildings and locations. Overhead city artwork set Parallels and Meridians for Map Projections Option to show parallels and meridians that correspond to various map projection types (Mercator, Elliptical, Gauss conformal, etc). Importing of SVG files The ability to import SVG files to use as data for landmasses, regions, water bodies, or rivers. This support would be done on a per layer basis, one map object type at a time.
This feature will include an option for Other World Mapper to go into full screen mode and hide all the design time tools. You'll be able to define options for the DM mode, including. Fog of war, completely black, or showing only certain layers (for instance, show all landmasses, mountains and lakes, but hide everything else). You'll also be able to define a complex fog of war “layer” using a tool similar to our region tool (with “following” and snapping options).
Ability to set player(s) icons in the map and move them, either freely or based on grid line (square or hex). Ability to define light radius for players. Location notes become points of interest that upon selection show the “story” of that location. Map links will link to other maps, also in DM mode (or a image). Note: All delivery dates are our worse case estimate, plus some. We expect to beat them.
BASIC EDITION ($25) The basic edition includes one copy of Other World Mapper as a digital download. It includes the base fantasy art sets, over 300 features, and selected textures and backgrounds. It also includes access to our forum and the option of being listed in the backer credits. Estimated delivery: December 2015 ART EXPANSION EDITION ($35) The art expansion includes the same content as the Basic Edition (including access to development forum), plus 3 additional art sets: science fiction, pirate and mythology, for a total of over 100 additional features, plus additional themed textures and backgrounds. Estimated delivery: December 2015 FOR YOU AND A FRIEND ($50) This level includes two of everything at the Art Expansion Edition level. Estimated delivery: December 2015 EARLY BETA ($60) The Early Beta level gives you the opportunity to have your hands on an early release of Other World Mapper, and give us feedback and participate in the final months of development towards the release.
You'll have access to the Beta development forum. Once Other World Mapper is released, you will receive one copy of the Art Expansion Edition. Estimated delivery: September 2015 ALPHA ACCESS ($80) The Alpha level lets you have the earliest access to the software. It will give you a chance to contribute with early testing and final development decisions. Our plan is to make this version accessible to the alpha level backers by late April or early May. As you can see in the video, our current alpha build is stable, so we could make the alpha version available even earlier.
Also, everyone in the alpha tier level will have the opportunity to submit their maps and map themes to be included with Other World Mapper and be fully credited for their contribution. Please note that this is not for everyone, since we could have bugs/compatibility issues at that stage that would be frustrating to the average user. This version could also be missing some features if we feel they are not good enough for an alpha release. Once Other World Mapper is released, you will receive one copy of the Art Expansion Edition.
Estimated delivery: May 2015 SUBMIT SYMBOL ($100) You get to submit a map symbol you drew (within reason) to be included with Other World Mapper. Draw a creature, city, anything that would make a good map symbol!
You also get all the rewards from the ART EXPANSION EDITION tier. Please understand that the material cannot be something licensed/copyrighted (i.e. You can't submit a Hello Kitty map symbol) REQUEST SYMBOL ($100) You get to request a map symbol (within reason) to be included with Other World Mapper. You also get all the rewards from the ART EXPANSION EDITION tier. Please understand that the material cannot be something licensed/copyrighted (i.e. You can't request a Hello Kitty map symbol) ART SET REQUEST ($300) You get to request a mini Art Set (within reason, aprox.
25 symbols) in a theme and style of your choice to be included with Other World Mapper! You also get all the rewards from the ART EXPANSION EDITION tier. Please understand that the material cannot be something licensed/copyrighted. Risks and challenges We understand that the main risk of any project is being unable to deliver the product promised. Since this is our first Kickstarter, we waited to publish our campaign until we had something solid to show. All the features you see are working or partially working. All the maps shown were created, start to finish, using Other World Mapper.
We are also confident that we can implement all the stretch goals that we have planned, as we have proof of concepts for most of them. From our contract software work, we are used to keeping realistic schedules, and adapting when issues do come up so that we still meet our delivery dates. When determining the Kickstarter delivery date, we created a detailed project schedule with all the work left to do. We assumed worse case scenario times for all the areas in our schedule, then added some, so we are confident that we can deliver on time. This will be Three Minds Software's first independent project, so it will be our first time distributing software. We may need to try a couple of different services for digital delivery, but we'll work out those issues well before delivery of the finished project.