Hello from me!

[Sandman01086]

Hi all

I've just joined the site after silently scouring your forums for help on my project!

My project is to write a fantasy novel set in a world I'm building, however at the moment I have no idea what my world will look like or how it is all going to fit together! My plan is to begin mapping out some of the smaller villages and towns using the tutorials I can find and work my way up to the large cities once I get some experience.

I currently have Adobe CS3, I'm willing to download any free software etc that you think will help, what are peoples favourite packages for this?

I don't plan on making polished, beautiful maps just yet as I have very little experience on Photoshop or any kind of graphics design. The maps are mainly going to be used for my reference purposes but once I am a lot better I'll be printing out my masterpieces! My favourites that I have seen here are:

Cruzamento De Rio - by Coyotemax - http://www.cartographersguild.com/ca...coyotemax.html
The Bridge District - by Dain - http://www.cartographersguild.com/fi...-district.html

As this work is going to be tied into my novel, where do I stand in terms of ownership once it has been uploaded to the internet?

All help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Jim

[SuspiciousCookie]

Let me welcome you, seeing as this forum is not exactly highly populated (what a weird thing to say).

Interesting that you would start with mapping villages. I always map out the continents first, and pretty much never map out a village or a city. After all, I don't plan on giving pinpoint accurate descriptions about the streets and the position of the houses and so on when writing my own novel. Anyway, good luck!

I use Adobe Photoshop CS5 myself, but like I said, I usually only map continents. I heard of some good city mapping software though, Google would surely be more than willing to help, too.

I really like the maps you referenced as well. Great detail and design in both of them, even though the second one looks more like a city artwork than an actual map, hehe.

Well, uploading things to the internet certainly doesn't "rob" you of your ownership. You should, however, either add a Copyright mark into your map if you want to upload it, or only upload a smaller, compressed version (this way you always have proof that you are the actual owner). Or, of course, just do both, which is what I do as well.

Cheers,
Cookie

[Sandman01086]

Thank for the speedy reply!

I'm gonna be mapping out the villages, towns etc more as a reference for myself, the novel is going to be pretty descriptive and have a lot of history to it so I don't want to contradict myself whilst writing.

I've had a look at a few on Google, but they often seem complex and not really what I'm looking for (or I'm just impatient and don't learn them properly!)

The first map is pretty much the kind of thing what I'm going for, although Coyotemax is a million miles ahead of me in skill!

I see what you mean regarding ownership, what about reproducing/modifying my work? Do people have rights to do that + how do I specify either way?

Jim

[SuspiciousCookie]

Reproducing/modifying is not allowed if you specify it as a copyrighted work. That's what copyright means All you should have to do is add one of these nice little (c) symbols along with your username (or your real name, if you wish) and the year. I'm sure you know how to do that. If you still feel uncomfortable, you could add a license to the description (i.e. in the forum post, next to the link) of your map. There are a lot of licenses out there, the one you're looking for would be

It only allows others to download your work, not change or redistribute them in any way. You can, however, take a look at this page as there are some other licenses to choose from as well. For example, you could say others are allowed to do anything they want with the map and even redistribute it, however it has to be non-commercial.

Keep in mind that I'm not a copyright "expert" in any way but I am pretty sure this is all you have to do.

Cheers.

[Viking]

Hi and welcome sandman!

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Jim! There are several great town map tutorials for Photoshop in the tutorials section. I am not aware of any for GIMP, but many of these tutorials can be modified to work with GIMP as well. So I'd start with one of these two programs.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Sandman01086]

Thanks for the welcomes and the info guys!

I can't find anywhere to edit my signature, is that just me being dumb or is there a reason for it?

Jim

[- Max -]

Welcome Jim. Go on your settings page to edit it

[Sandman01086]

I'm looking under Settings > Edit Profile but I don't see it

Jim

[- Max -]

Same place a few lines down you have edit signature.