Why Pay to Play?™
Committed to free, open gaming
Complete content Copyright © 2009-2012,
Steigerwald EDV™ Verlag, all rights reserved.
Steigerwald EDV Verlag, Am Hasenloehle 12, 91481, Federal Republic of
Germany. Dungeons Daring™, Jörðgarð™, Vintyri™
and Steigerwald EDV™ are trademarks
of Steigerwald EDV Verlag. Fractal
Mapper™ is a trademark of NBOS Software.
The Vintyri
Project is the successor to the Projects
Groups 1370™ and the earlier game design groups who created the Northern Journey™ adventure. which now is distributed by http://www.candlekeep.com
.
Current:
February 1, 2012
A Vintyri Cartographic Collection Expansion
Tutorial:
Raster Mapping with Fractal Mapper 8
Updated Version 1.01 Released February 2012
A free, open 220-page PDF booklet with supporting
files released under the Open Game
License
Click here to skip the words and go direct to the
download site!
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This product is a second level
instruction booklet that takes up where the free NBOS manual-tutorial leaves off.
The material all is presented in step-for-step detail with more than
270 color screen shots and illustrations intended to keep things
understandable and easy. It goes from
the surface of raster mapping with FM8
into areas that usually are viewed as being of expert level. However, because FM8 itself is so simple to use, even inexperienced mappers should
be able to master everything in this volume with little trouble. It should be noted that anyone pondering
whether FM8 is the right tool can
work his or her way through this tutorial without buying anything. It will work with the free trial version of
FM8 or with the full purchase
version. All other software required
for the tutorial can be downloaded free and legally in the Internet. The first chapter shows the cartographer
how to best set up FM8 for raster
mapping, explaining why these settings are made and what their advantages
are. It also explains what other free
software products might be desirable and where to download all of them at no
cost. The second chapter takes the reader
step-by-step through the making of the overland map on the cover of the
booklet, producing it with two entirely different alternative ocean
types. A sample of this finished map
follows:
The third chapter offers step-by-step
instructions on how to create an FM8
"super zoom" map of a city, town or village. One makes the following map of the town of
Odínsdomov, which is a part of the free and open Jörðgarð™ campaign setting being created by the Vintyri Project. Here is an overall view of the finished
map:
And here are two zoom views into the
town center: |
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Chapter 4 deals with the raster mapping
of floor plans and dungeons in multi-layer technique. This chapter devotes special attention to
the mapping of a dungeon or floor plan in such a manner that the game master
easily can show his or her players all things that their PCs can see and hide
all things that they haven't seen yet.
The project in this chapter is the mapping of the Old Well Inn that once stood in the Northern Bavarian city of
Bamberg. The building has a cellar, a
ground floor and an upper story. |
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In Chapter 5 one begins to see how to
get the power of all of FM8's
horses into a map. The RPG world has a
thing with raster maps. It's said that
if everything in a raster map is scaled fine, it looks like a mish mash on
strong zoom-outs. On the other hand,
one claims, if things are scaled right for a wide scale raster map, most
objects pixilate terribly on close zoom-ins. With a number of graphic programs that's
quite true. FM8 is one of relatively few programs used to make RPG maps where
this doesn't need to be the case at all.
FM8 has zoom controls that
can and should make such problems superfluous in your map. When you use FM8 well, important objects in your maps will have different
scales at different zoom levels.
Chapter 5 shows how that works. But there's more yet. There are many game masters and cartographers
who would like to have maps so versatile that one could zoom in on any
settlement on the map, and instead of seeing the isometric or cartographic
symbol that had been there, one would see a totally zoomable, detailed map of
the settlement. Chapter 5 takes a large scale overland
map with scale dimensions of 3,900 by 2,800 miles. The region mapped includes the town of
Odínsdomov, which was mapped in detail in Chapter 3. When one zooms in on Odínsdomov in the
overland map, one sees the town map, completely zoomable down to the
individual wood piles and outhouses.
How that works also is a topic of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 takes on another important
theme for raster mappers: The making
of presets is important knowledge for any serious mapper. Presets make it possible for a raster
cartographer to fill large areas quickly with credible symbols in full
quality and with full zoom abilities. Chapter 7 shows how to use FM8 to make raster symbols. The topic in this section is the Eyerlohe
hunting castle in Northern Bavaria, which is modeled into an FM8 raster symbol in FM8 without the help of any outside
program. |
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For all of FM8's power, there are some things it can't do. One of them is to create symbols with
transparent elements. FM8 can't do that, but it's an easy
chore with a free graphic program like Paint.NET. Chapter 8 starts out with a digital photo
of two chickens that supposedly are of a race bred already in the 1400s and
1500s - two medieval chickens, if you will. This chapter shows one how to pull the
chickens separately out of the photo with Paint.NET
and turn them into two FM8 symbols
with transparency. Once the symbols
have been created, the digital medieval chickens can join the pigs in the
barnyard, as seen to the right above. |
Five files are available for download. All are in the same download folder:
1. pdftu01.zip is a necessary file. It contains the tutorial PDF booklet (40 MB).
2. tu01sptpack01.zip also is a necessary
file, It contains all the support files
necessary
to do the exercises in the booklet. Be
sure to read the small PDF file in this zip!
It contains important information (47 MB).
The three remaining files are optional. They contain finished versions of the three
main maps made in the tutorial
exercises:
·
overland.zip, from Chapter 2 (24 MB)
·
odinsdomov.zip from Chapter 3 (60 MB)
·
oldwellinn.zip from Chapter 4 (16 MB)
Vintyri
Download Site
·
Click here to download the tutorial PDF booklet (78
MB).
·
Click here to download the support files pack (47 MB).
Optional files:
·
Click here to download the overland map (Chapter 2 - 24 MB).
·
Click here
to download the town map (Chapter 3 - 60 MB).
·
Click here
to download the inn floor plan (Chapter 4 - 16 MB).
Alternative
NBOS Download Site (www.nbos.com)
·
Click here to download the tutorial PDF booklet (78
MB).
·
Click here to download the support files pack (47 MB).
Optional files:
·
Click here to download the overland map (Chapter 2 - 24 MB).
·
Click here to download the town map (Chapter 3 - 60 MB).
·
Click here to download the inn floor plan (Chapter 4 - 16 MB).
Click here for the alternate MediaFire download site!
REMEMBER when you load these
three maps or the Fallen Lands map in
the support pack to immediately
click the menu option Map in FM8 and then the
option Display Quality. Set the basic Display Quality to Highest
and then pick Special
Effects - Medium Res. Without these
settings, the maps will not always work
in the manner described in the tutorial!