Map This! - Cartography Services

[Vandy]

Map This! - Cartography Services
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Hello, Fellow Cartographers.

My name is Gary and I either go by Vandy or Gary on the 'net. I'll answer to either name.

Map This! - Cartography Services is please to announce its presence on the Cartographers' Guild. The purpose of this thread is to showcase the SimCity 4maps I have created and released and will be creating in the future. Now that I've found this great site, I fully expect to expand my map-making to include maps similar to what I've seen on this site. Obviously, this thread will be used to showcase them as well.

With that thought in mind, I would like to make the following very serious and (for me) heartfelt Statement of Purpose as follows:

"It is not the intention of Map This! - Cartography Services to be in direct competition with or otherwise impede, infringe upon or take away from any other individual or group involved in map making. The sole purpose of Map This! - Cartography Services is that of sharing my map-making skills with others. I will never talk down to another map maker or otherwise cause him or her to believe they are being denigrated, attacked or "slammed". My goal is to offer genuine help in the field of map making and to create a product (maps and tutorials) that will be useful to the mapping community."

The main application I use to create SimCity 4 maps is wouanagaine's excellent application, SC4Terraformer. Regards of how the initial map is created, SC4Terraformer is my application of choice to finish a SC4 map. When I first starting making SC4 maps, I used Landscape Designer to create my initial map then used Paint Shop Pro to edit and finish the map. I also "hand create" maps either completely from "scratch" on a piece of paper then scan them or completely create them using SC4Terraformer.

Within the last two months, I have started to experiment with using a Terragen .TER terrain file as the file input to a World Machine .TMD file. The resultant .TMD file is then exported as a 16-bit .PNG and used as the import file in SC4Terraformer.

AS I become more comfortable with this site and more experienced with the posted tutorials and wealth of member information, I fully intend to select a set of software tools and start creating similar maps as I've seen on this site.

Map This! - Cartography Services currently has active threads at Simtropolis, Pegasus Productions, SC4Devotion and SimCity Polska.

The SimCity 4 maps I have created are available from the following download locations:

Type of Map: Pre-SC4Terraformer Maps
Application Used: Landscape Designer
Locations: Simtropolis STEX, Pegasus PLEX

Gonzo Bay
Prescott Bay Original (The first map I ever created.)
Donovan's Reach
Leonard Lake
Aecheson Crater Field
Puerta Del Dios
East She Who Will Not Be Named's Isles
West She Who Will Not Be Named's Isles
The Lake District
Vicki's Sound
Hadrian's Torch

Type of Map: SC4Terraformer-Created Maps)
Application Used: SC4Terraformer
Locations: Simtropolis STEX, Pegasus PLEX, SimCity Polska SPEX

Maps under the Map This! - Cartography Services Name

Shaphiyr Harran
Koyama Island
Silver River Valley
Smierc Smoka
American Southwest - Monument Valley
Republika Tawalsu

Maps under the New Horizon Productions Name (Simtropolis STEX only -- Other exchanges under the MTCS name)

Carthage - Region of the Stones
Heartland
Okeanidies
O'Shawnasee's Crossing

Finally, please know that I am always open to suggestions, GOOD constructive criticism and genuinely enjoy the banter back and forth between the interested people who will be posting to this thread as well as downloading and enjoying my SC4 maps.

I'm a bit hesitant to post any pictures of my SimCity 4 maps as I'm not sure they are appropriate for this site. I would very much like to read you opinions as to whether or not I should post pictures of my finished SC4 maps.

Finally, if folks believe I should post pictures of them, I believe I would be more comfortable posting them in this thread rather than in the Finished Maps forum as I don't believe them to be in the "spirit" of this site (that is, the type of map they are compared to what is on this site). What do y'all think?

Thanks, in advance, to all who come visiting and WELCOME to Map This! - Cartography Services.

Regards,

Gary (Vandy)

[Redrobes]

I'm a bit hesitant to post any pictures of my SimCity 4 maps as I'm not sure they are appropriate for this site

Nonsense, just get em up !

Oh and we love tutorials and brain dumps. You get nifty badges of honor for tutorials and stuff that's highly rated. You also get badges for winning the mapping challenge which is once a month (see main page), there's a few more... err unusual or dubious badges too but ill let you discover those as time goes by.

Edit -- I like this one -> http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...usModded-3.jpg
Edit2 - and this one -> http://simpeg.com/forum/tp-images/Im...rthageMain.jpg

[Vandy]

Hi, Redrobes.

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement to post my SC4 maps. Here goes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE TO ALL
Unless someone specifically would like to see any of the maps I detailed in my first post, I won't be posting pictures of them. (There will be one or two exceptions as jfrazierjr indicated he'd like to see my hand-drawn maps.)

I will start posting with my latest maps which are also my first series of maps. This post will showcase the "Lake Wamusco" map which is a detail of a later map, "Wamusco National Park".

I have yet to complete "packaging these maps and getting them uploaded to the various SC4 Fan Site File Exchanges. Once that is completed, I'll post a message here to let you know they're available for download.


The Wamusco Series: Lake Wamusco

What in the world is a "Wamusco"? Well, I don't have a clue, either. I go through quite a process when naming my maps and, to be honest with you, I was at a loss as to what to call these four maps. Suddenly, without warning and totally out of the blue, a thought came into my head -- "Call them Wamusco." It sounded just strange enough to work. Consequently, the four maps I am presenting to you all have the word "Wamusco" in their titles.

I will be presenting a SC4Terraformer 2D (with city boundaries) and 3D views of each of the four region maps. I'll also be showing a SC4 umodded rendering of each map and a SC4 modded rendering of each map showing a different terrain mod.

Let me give you a bit of the history behind how these maps were created. Using Terragen, v0.9.43 I created a terrain then "played" with it until I got something I liked. I saved the .TER file for later use. Next, using World Machine 2 Basic, I used the .TER file as a device import file to create a terrain. After "hooking up" my devices and setting the various device parameters to my liking, I saved the resulting .TMD terrain file as a 16-bit .PNG file. I then imported the .PNG file into SC4Terrafomer and, using that excellent application, "tweaked" the terrain to ensure it looked as close to the original .TMD file as possible. Finally, I did some flattening, smoothing and contouring to make the resulting region a bit more "playable" in SimCity 4.

All of the maps have region dimensions of 513 x 513 pixels and config.bmp dimensions of 8 x 8 pixels. (The reasoning here is because World Machine 2 Basic only supports region sizes of up to 513 x 513 pixels. One has to purchase the Standard or Professional version to support larger regions.)

Lake Wamusco
This map is a detail of the lake area from the Wamusco National Park map.

Original World Machine .TMD Output File




SC4TF 2D Region View With City Boundaries




SC4TF 3D Region View




SC4 Rendered Region (Unmodded)




SC4 Rendered Region (Modded)




I hope you've enjoyed this map.

Regards,

Gary

[Vandy]

Hi, All.

Here is the second in the Wamusco Map Series.

The Wamusco Series: Reupblic of Wamusco

What in the world is a "Wamusco"? Well, I don't have a clue, either. I go through quite a process when naming my maps and, to be honest with you, I was at a loss as to what to call these four maps. Suddenly, without warning and totally out of the blue, a thought came into my head -- "Call them Wamusco." It sounded just strange enough to work. Consequently, the four maps I am presenting to you all have the word "Wamusco" in their titles.

I will be presenting a SC4Terraformer 2D (with city boundaries) and 3D views of each of the four region maps. I'll also be showing a SC4 umodded rendering of each map and a SC4 modded rendering of each map showing a different terrain mod.

Let me give you a bit of the history behind how these maps were created. Using Terragen, v0.9.43 I created a terrain then "played" with it until I got something I liked. I saved the .TER file for later use. Next, using World Machine 2 Basic, I used the .TER file as a device import file to create a terrain. After "hooking up" my devices and setting the various device parameters to my liking, I saved the resulting .TMD terrain file as a 16-bit .PNG file. I then imported the .PNG file into SC4Terrafomer and, using that excellent application, "tweaked" the terrain to ensure it looked as close to the original .TMD file as possible. Finally, I did some flattening, smoothing and contouring to make the resulting region a bit more "playable" in SimCity 4.

All of the maps have region dimensions of 513 x 513 pixels and config.bmp dimensions of 8 x 8 pixels. (The reasoning here is because World Machine 2 Basic only supports region sizes of up to 513 x 513 pixels. One has to purchase the Standard or Professional version to support larger regions.)


Republic of Wamusco

Original World Machine .TMD Output File




SC4TF 2D Region View With City Boundaries




SC4TF 3D Region View




SC4 Rendered Region (Unmodded)




SC4 Rendered Region (Modded)




I hope you've enjoyed this map.

Regards,

Gary

[Vandy]

Hi, All.

Here is the third in the Wamusco Map Series.

The Wamusco Series: Wamusco National Park

What in the world is a "Wamusco"? Well, I don't have a clue, either. I go through quite a process when naming my maps and, to be honest with you, I was at a loss as to what to call these four maps. Suddenly, without warning and totally out of the blue, a thought came into my head -- "Call them Wamusco." It sounded just strange enough to work. Consequently, the four maps I am presenting to you all have the word "Wamusco" in their titles.

I will be presenting a SC4Terraformer 2D (with city boundaries) and 3D views of each of the four region maps. I'll also be showing a SC4 umodded rendering of each map and a SC4 modded rendering of each map showing a different terrain mod.

Let me give you a bit of the history behind how these maps were created. Using Terragen, v0.9.43 I created a terrain then "played" with it until I got something I liked. I saved the .TER file for later use. Next, using World Machine 2 Basic, I used the .TER file as a device import file to create a terrain. After "hooking up" my devices and setting the various device parameters to my liking, I saved the resulting .TMD terrain file as a 16-bit .PNG file. I then imported the .PNG file into SC4Terrafomer and, using that excellent application, "tweaked" the terrain to ensure it looked as close to the original .TMD file as possible. Finally, I did some flattening, smoothing and contouring to make the resulting region a bit more "playable" in SimCity 4.

All of the maps have region dimensions of 513 x 513 pixels and config.bmp dimensions of 8 x 8 pixels. (The reasoning here is because World Machine 2 Basic only supports region sizes of up to 513 x 513 pixels. One has to purchase the Standard or Professional version to support larger regions.)


Wamusco National park

Original World Machine .TMD Output File




SC4TF 2D Region View With City Boundaries




SC4TF 3D Region View




SC4 Rendered Region (Unmodded)




SC4 Rendered Region (Modded)




I hope you've enjoyed this map.

Regards,

Gary

[Vandy]

Hi, All.

Here is the fourth and final map in the Wamusco Map Series.

The Wamusco Series: Wamusco Volcano

What in the world is a "Wamusco"? Well, I don't have a clue, either. I go through quite a process when naming my maps and, to be honest with you, I was at a loss as to what to call these four maps. Suddenly, without warning and totally out of the blue, a thought came into my head -- "Call them Wamusco." It sounded just strange enough to work. Consequently, the four maps I am presenting to you all have the word "Wamusco" in their titles.

I will be presenting a SC4Terraformer 2D (with city boundaries) and 3D views of each of the four region maps. I'll also be showing a SC4 umodded rendering of each map and a SC4 modded rendering of each map showing a different terrain mod.

Let me give you a bit of the history behind how this map was created. This map is my results from a World Machine tutoria. Using World Machine 2 Basic, I "hooking up" my devices and setting the various device parameters to my liking, I saved the resulting .TMD terrain file as a 16-bit .PNG file. I then imported the .PNG file into SC4Terrafomer and, using that excellent application, "tweaked" the terrain to ensure it looked as close to the original .TMD file as possible. Finally, I did some flattening, smoothing and contouring to make the resulting region a bit more "playable" in SimCity 4.

All of the maps have region dimensions of 513 x 513 pixels and config.bmp dimensions of 8 x 8 pixels. (The reasoning here is because World Machine 2 Basic only supports region sizes of up to 513 x 513 pixels. One has to purchase the Standard or Professional version to support larger regions.)


Wamusco Volcano

Original World Machine .TMD Output File




SC4TF 2D Region View With City Boundaries




SC4TF 3D Region View




SC4 Rendered Region (Unmodded)




SC4 Rendered Region (Modded)




I hope you've enjoyed this map.

Regards,

Gary

[Steel General]

Very nice...

[Ascension]

Looks like I've got some work to do...these are way cool. Gotta find that Gonzo Bay as my fraternity nickname was Gonzo.

[Redrobes]

Cool. Shame the res is 513 as the erosion properties get better as you have more. So, once you have these maps and you import them into SimCity then what do you do with them there. Is the idea to build cities on them ?

You should try Wilbur since it can output a PNG16 directly I think. Its free and will go higher res than 513. You can get imagemagick to convert images to PNG16 too if you want and thats free too.

Theres a few height maps floating about on this site. I know I have put a few in there. Theres a thread called Thatching for Dummies which has an interesting height map for you to play with. My tile in the CWBP (Community world building project) has a few too - my tile is number 7, Thrubmorton Fens, though I have provided many of them with height maps (8 bpp) as starting points for mapping them.

[Korash]

Love these!!!

bonkidy bonkidy bonk