Hello all! This is my first post/question. Thanks for welcoming me, and thanks even more for creating such a helpful and informative community.

I'm a complete neophyte, both to cartography and to graphics programs. Like many here, no doubt, I have a story/world in my head and I'd really like to visualize it, both for me and for others, as vibrantly as possible. So I started doing my research, downloaded a few programs, bugged my graphic designer fiance, and tried a few things. I've been reading the tutorials on here for a few weeks now, and I've been mixing and matching ideas, both from here and from other places, but I can't figure out if I'm on the right track. Perhaps I missed an on point tutorial? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Here's what I'm trying to do:


My favorite game world is Rifts, by Palladium Books (a few artists on these boards have done some work on/for either Rifts or other Palladium worlds, so you may be familiar already). The word of Rifts is the planet Earth, a few hundred years in the future, after a magical apocalypse. Basically, the planet is recognizable. The continents and major geographical features are, for the most part, the same. There may be an extra mountain here, and a few missing over there, and there's a lot of water where there wasn't much before.

My story happens in the environs of present day Athens, Ohio. It's currently (real world) on a small river. Being a center point of magical upheaval (a major ley line nexus, and therefore powerful and destructive rifts), the area surrounding Athens has flooded (river around town expanding into small lake size), and the river is wider generally (2-4 times depending). But basically I can use current actual topography as a basis for the map, and essentially raise the water level.

I've been particularly interested in some of the tutorials involving Wilbur and GIMP and I figured I could do something similar with actual DEM (digital elevation model) data. I'd already downloaded Qgis, because I found there's lots of ways to pull out real world data that cold be useful as independent layers, but for which I apparently need to be able to read shapefiles (the Athens County government websites have a load of interesting things mapped out). I figure I can use the DEM (digital elevation model) in place of a GIMP generated cloud/noise map and the things wilbur does.

Other layers from the county include a layer for water (significant rivers and all the little ponds), the streams (mostly much smaller bodies of water) and, significantly, the floodplains. In Qgis I can manipulate the DEM with a custom gradient (and hillshading). I can layer on all the water things. Eventually I need to change a lot of the water things. For instance, the floodplain is a bit too wide along the river, but is an excellent basis for the lake (also there's lots of bridges and other things that break up the floodplain that I would need to get rid of). So I figure I can transfer the map with layers to SVG or PDF.

This is really where I'm stuck (if I'm at all on the right track). No matter how I transfer, the entire picture is transferred as one layer. So maybe I need to transfer each layer separately. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly tricky to transfer each layer in the same ratio (unless I don't know the way to do it). Qgis layers all the vectors and rasters automatically as they should be, accurately, on top of each other. But when I transfer, I'm basically going through a print preview, and I have to align the part of the image I want with a page size, and zoom in and out until it's sort of what I want. Doing so precisely with each different layer (when no base layer can be shown as a guide) seems like a losing battle.

So maybe I need to simply transfer the DEM and paint the water on it the way I want it in GIMP. I was really excited about those floodplains and waterways as a guide though.

I'm hoping someone else out there has a process for manipulating real world data (including real world topography) into a fantasy map. Please let me know if I'm on the right track or not, and if not, where should I go?

I've searched high and low for an on point tutorial. If I missed it, I apologize, and I'd love a link.

I currently have Qgis, Inksacape, Gimp and Google Earth. Any other software advice is welcome as well.

Thanks to all who took time to read. I hope soon I'll be able to share my efforts here. I plan on making a local area map, and more focused maps on important locations/towns/etc.