Recreating Mage Knight Map

[Highland_Piper]

The only map I could find of the Mage Knight world is the interactive map on the WizKids website.  With WizKids now defunct I would hate to loose the map.

So I'm going to recreate the map in Campaign Cartographer 3.

The first thing I did was go the the Interactive Map and hit F11 for full screen.  Then pressing Ctrl+Mouse Scroll I zoomed the map until it fit the entire screen.  I then pressed Prt Scr to take a screen shot of the map.

Then in Photoshop I trimmed it up an bit and saved it as a png, jpeg and bmp.

[Highland_Piper]

While I was doing all this who should come online then our own Ibson the Grey!  So I told him what I was doing and sent him some links to the Profantasy galleries and told him to pick the first (of many) style of the map.

Thankfully he chose "Mercator" which I have worked with before!

So I started up CC3 and got everything started.  I'm making the map 1280x1024 which should be large enough (I hope)

Then I import the png file and arrange the size so it fits within the map border.  I then place the original in a Temporary Layer and in the Background Sheet.

Now I go about the tedious task of recreating the map.  I start with the landmass.

[Highland_Piper]

Sorry I picked the wrong image on the last post.  Here is the proper image.

[Highland_Piper]

Next is the rivers and lakes.  It was very hard to see many of the smaller source rivers due to the the textured surface of the map.

On a map that I make from scratch I would normally start with the mountains first, but because I'm attempting to make a copy I started with the Lakes then moved to the larger rivers then moved to medium and small

[Highland_Piper]

Now we add the mountains and hills, For this style of map you do not want to pack the mountains in solid.  Leave some space in between.

[Highland_Piper]

Now we add the trees.  Thankfully there are not too many trees in this map.

[Highland_Piper]

Now to add Terrain fill.  This will be Brown under the mountains and green under the vegetation.  

Do not go over rivers and lakes, go around them.

[Highland_Piper]

Next I place in the villages, towns, cities, and military buildings.

Green for cities, Red for military

[Highland_Piper]

Close up of the cities

[Highland_Piper]

Next I make the roads.  This is a pain in the rear! :angry:

I did not bother making many of the roads go up rivers as boats would be faster.

[Highland_Piper]

Now it is time to label the map.  With different sheet effects I will make three different sheets for Labels.  One for Oceans, one for mountains and the last for normal terrain.

[IbsontheGrey]

I like it... keep going. Is it possible to save a layered version in another format, say photoshop or something else so others can play with it. And would an even large source map be of use (say one at largest available dpi from the site 'patchworked' together). I'd be willing to help with that.

Cheers mate!

Ibson

[rob]

When I grow up... I want to be as productive as HP. :blush:

[Highland_Piper]

When I grow up... I want to be as productive as HP

Hardly, all the kids are in school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays so I get the house to my self.  Tuesdays and Thursdays my youngest goes for half a day so I don't get nearly as much done.

Ibson - The great thing about CC3 is the graphics are vectored so I can save the file as 3 feet by 4 feet if I wanted to.  I plan on saving a very large scale version of all the styles of MK Maps.

[Highland_Piper]

Okay I am now finished with the map and CC3 is currently saving it.  

I have it as a 24"x19.63" (60.96 cm x 49.87 cm) map 200 dpi and it is roughly 17MB

It may be awhile before I start on the next style of map which will be a plain black and white.