Better Maps

Kick-Off Posting

A couple of things have happened recently that make me think of better maps for BattleMaster.

I've been looking at stuff like

• http://www.cartographersguild.com

or

• http://www.gamer-printshop.com/portfolio/portfolio.html

and drooled over it a bit. And, as some of you know, I'm own a license for Terragen 2

• http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/tgd/index.shtml

which can make stuff like this:

• http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/Hannes-Another+jungle+flyover.jpg.html
• http://www.planetside.co.uk/gallery/f/tg2/dune-medieval+Zutphen.jpg.html

And I really can't decide...

Hand-drawn maps are great. But procedural maps allow for easy modification. If the map were generated programmatically, it would be possible to do things like bridges being built or destroyed, cities growing or shrinking, castles being built and razed - lots of interesting stuff. And you've seen a glimpse of something in the BM:WI Trailer.

So this is basically an open call out to anyone in the BM community who is doing anything with maps, be it map data (GIS, etc.), drawing, texturing, etc. Let's put our heads together and find what we can come up with.

Links

Assorted stuff worth looking at:

• http://www.cartographersguild.com
• http://pcg.wikidot.com/ - Procedural Content Generation Wiki
• http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/ - fantastic map generation concept with in-depth explanations
• http://www.raymondhill.net/voronoi/rhill-voronoi.php - I want this :-)

Polygon-Map Concept

I'm drafting some ideas on /Polygon Maps and, based on that, a /Hierarchy. Join me and comment.