Re: Maps in Fantasy

Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> Konrad Gaertner wrote:
>
> > I'd say money is a big one. Most authors aren't artists, let alone
> > cartographers, so that means paying someone to turn the author's
> > scribbles into something that looks respectable.
>
> What is needed is a good fantasy-world map drawing program. These
> should know all about plate tectonics and the principles of grography,
> and be able to draw realistic maps of earthlike worlds.

Actually, if we look to the rpg hobby, I think we already have programs
pretty close to that goal, in the form of programs like Campaign
Cartographer. Likewise, Fractal World Explorer also says it uses "real
world" elements such as elevation and precepitation levels to determine
world feature. I also remember one of the sourcebooks for the
Traveller RPG actually had as a start determining the number of
tectonic plates for a world, based on its size, and then figuring out
the number of continents based on hydrographic percentage. It should
be pretty easy to set that up as a simple computer program.

The only problem I see is that most authors I know of come up with the
world they want, and then work backwards to come up with the map. That
could be trickier to work backwards- setting the parametrers and then
creating the world. Then there would be the problem that a geood
geography-based program would probably reject quite a few of the
fantasy worlds out there as being too improbable.

.

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