|
Stuff from above cut to take up less space :)
Okay got ya on the Tropic topic! lol sorry I just wasn't following.
The scale is set in stone as per above from James Jacobs. Which is why I adjusted the original maps to current one so that at that location where the scale is, it equals 240 miles. Now bear in mind that some of the size of the map, the smallness of it, is due to the fact that the original map is 2D and it is being distorted over a 3D surface. That is why Magnimar and Korvosa is now about 260 miles closer to one another than they were. :)
Honestly there is no reason not to scale it up other than the lower portion of the map then bulges even more, exaggerating the distortion. For example, the map should be scaled CLOSE (not 100% by any means) so that north/south maintains the scale of 240 miles. However, East/West is severely warped, and is impossible to keep to that scale. The compromise I made was to make the location of the scale equal to 240 miles. There is absolutely no reason at all I can't adjust that so some other location is to proper scale. If you want to see a different area kept as the scale reference let me know. :)
On this map, I scaled up roughly 10% and dropped the map down 2* (I like the * for degrees, thanks). The 2* drop put Magnimar over Seattle, Alaska is almost entirely under the ice shelf, Hudson Bay is a tad east of the Lake of Mists and Veils (really long name! couldn't just be Lake of Mists and somewhere else have a Lake of Veils?), the Eye of Adendego is indeed about even with the Bermuda Triangle (about), and Mwangi expanse is in the area of the Mexican forests.
Honestly I like the positioning quite a bit. I would like to note that the desert regions of Garund fit REAL CLOSE to the driest parts of Mexico and southern US, so even that works out pretty nice.
Now, I am going to mess with the E/W scaling as well some, in just a bit. I'll see about using the center of the Inner Sea ass keeping the scale of 240, which should cause Garund to expand horribly, but if we keep in mind the limitations (and per the Community Use License I can't cut and paste the map in Photoshop to fit better-mmmm per Community Use I probably can't be posting these maps either...). We'll see what I come up with and if I get in trouble I'll blame you guys! lol
*** EDIT***
forgot the link to that map! lol Here ya go.
|
|
Uggg! made a new map. Again over North America. I can place it over Europe too if you guys like. This one has the Golarion map split in two so I could adjust it in more detail. Now there is more "eye balling" going on in this one.
However, we have a scale of 240 miles that is within about 2 miles of the Golarion map. You can see the scale in the middle of the Inner Sea. I also scaled to the N/S distance of the map is right. My scale in Photoshop has N/S as 2880, but there is a LITTLE space not accounted for, and the globe map puts it at 2973, so easily the right height.
Now, I did adjust the northern and southern borders by eye. You'll notice the west border is not on the same longitude on the North as the South. Same for the east border. It just "looked better." If I had kept the longitudes exactly the northern portion of the map would squish in, and the southern part would bloat out, like the other maps did.
Now with those adjustments, essentially eye balling some areas, the map takes up a LOT more space on the globe.
Let me know what ya think. It's getting easier to adjust! lol
***Edit***
I'll make a new topic about the Mystara stuff... :)
|
Thanks for all of the maps to compare, Krome, and thanks to everyone pounding out the possibilities here.
I know this is just a fantasy world, but I also like the idea of being able to place the known map of Golarion where it would approximately fit on Earth. It helps to get an idea of how weather patterns may work, etc.
I think if you have ever world-built for a campaign before or have any interest in it, these details tend to be important.
The official scale does seems a bit small to be brutally honest. Most fantasy worlds suffer that for convenience sake, as all of the terrain types are crammed in closely for ease of adventuring.
Keep Magnimar at the latitude of Seattle to please the designers,etc. but IF there is an issue of scale, wouldn't it be better to just officially fix it now and go forward with a better one (a LOT of the world isn't even mapped yet!) and just retroactively adjust the scale on past stuff?
Just my thoughts.
*continues to watch thread with interest*
|
|
Uggg! made a new map. Again over North America. I can place it over Europe too if you guys like. This one has the Golarion map split in two so I could adjust it in more detail. Now there is more "eye balling" going on in this one.
However, we have a scale of 240 miles that is within about 2 miles of the Golarion map. You can see the scale in the middle of the Inner Sea. I also scaled to the N/S distance of the map is right. My scale in Photoshop has N/S as 2880, but there is a LITTLE space not accounted for, and the globe map puts it at 2973, so easily the right height.
Now, I did adjust the northern and southern borders by eye. You'll notice the west border is not on the same longitude on the North as the South. Same for the east border. It just "looked better." If I had kept the longitudes exactly the northern portion of the map would squish in, and the southern part would bloat out, like the other maps did.
Now with those adjustments, essentially eye balling some areas, the map takes up a LOT more space on the globe.
Let me know what ya think. It's getting easier to adjust! lol
***Edit***
I'll make a new topic about the Mystara stuff... :)
hmm for some reason this one makes the most sense to me, Krome!
I think it is placed pretty much perfectly as to how I would envision it needing to be!
This world seems to have as people have noted a Northern polar continent unlike Earth... because there is a LOT of ice cap going on , but that I guess I can deal with (sort of).
The only thing that truly bothers me with this scale is that Golarion seems a bit deforested ;)
|
|
Uggg! made a new map. Again over North America. I can place it over Europe too if you guys like. This one has the Golarion map split in two so I could adjust it in more detail. Now there is more "eye balling" going on in this one.
However, we have a scale of 240 miles that is within about 2 miles of the Golarion map. You can see the scale in the middle of the Inner Sea. I also scaled to the N/S distance of the map is right. My scale in Photoshop has N/S as 2880, but there is a LITTLE space not accounted for, and the globe map puts it at 2973, so easily the right height.
Now, I did adjust the northern and southern borders by eye. You'll notice the west border is not on the same longitude on the North as the South. Same for the east border. It just "looked better." If I had kept the longitudes exactly the northern portion of the map would squish in, and the southern part would bloat out, like the other maps did.
Now with those adjustments, essentially eye balling some areas, the map takes up a LOT more space on the globe.
Let me know what ya think. It's getting easier to adjust! lol
***Edit***
I'll make a new topic about the Mystara stuff... :)hmm for some reason this one makes the most sense to me, Krome!
I think it is placed pretty much perfectly as to how I would envision it needing to be!
This world seems to have as people have noted a Northern polar continent unlike Earth... because there is a LOT of ice cap going on , but that I guess I can deal with (sort of).
The only thing that truly bothers me with this scale is that Golarion seems a bit deforested ;)
Yeah I like this map much better too, though, I think it is too far south. The Polar Ice cap would be immense! But it puts Magnimar in the right place. :) However, like Antarctica, the northern continent doesn't have to cover ALL of that area.
I don't know about deforested... Pretty much all of Avistan is covered in trees, even the light green areas have trees just not huge, thick forests. There are more forests shown there, though, than currently exist in North America.
BTW over North America, I can "see" the eastern part of Golarion there looking a lot like western North America. You have the west coast and Baja California. Then it looks like someone stuck a smushed Europe onto the American west coast. Garund looks like Australia tilted sideways and on acid. lol
[/threadjack] for the Mystara lovers I started a thread here. [/threadjack]
|
|
Uggg! made a new map. Again over North America. I can place it over Europe too if you guys like. This one has the Golarion map split in two so I could adjust it in more detail. Now there is more "eye balling" going on in this one.
However, we have a scale of 240 miles that is within about 2 miles of the Golarion map. You can see the scale in the middle of the Inner Sea. I also scaled to the N/S distance of the map is right. My scale in Photoshop has N/S as 2880, but there is a LITTLE space not accounted for, and the globe map puts it at 2973, so easily the right height.
Now, I did adjust the northern and southern borders by eye. You'll notice the west border is not on the same longitude on the North as the South. Same for the east border. It just "looked better." If I had kept the longitudes exactly the northern portion of the map would squish in, and the southern part would bloat out, like the other maps did.
Now with those adjustments, essentially eye balling some areas, the map takes up a LOT more space on the globe.
Let me know what ya think. It's getting easier to adjust! lol
***Edit***
I'll make a new topic about the Mystara stuff... :)hmm for some reason this one makes the most sense to me, Krome!
I think it is placed pretty much perfectly as to how I would envision it needing to be!
This world seems to have as people have noted a Northern polar continent unlike Earth... because there is a LOT of ice cap going on , but that I guess I can deal with (sort of).
The only thing that truly bothers me with this scale is that Golarion seems a bit deforested ;)
Yeah I like this map much better too, though, I think it is too far south. The Polar Ice cap would be immense! But it puts Magnimar in the right place. :) However, like Antarctica, the northern continent doesn't have to cover ALL of that area.
[/threadjack] for the...
I don't know if it is too far South, Krome.
I live at N latitude 45 here in Minneapolis w/o the benefit of yummy warm sea air. Certainly there are father places North in the world, but during the Winter the Polar Express shoots straight down from the North and we get hit as badly as anyone. If Golarion has something like that going on, then with the size of that ice sheet (all of it being continent or not) there sure must be some frigid Winters for a Lot of people living on the map!Perhaps there would be a nice warm Southerly jet stream coming through this area of Golarion that tends to be pervasive, making the places on the map warmer (also solving some of the Qadira and other desert-like region issues). That could make for some awesome storms, too! haha
|
If I had kept the longitudes exactly the northern portion of the map would squish in, and the southern part would bloat out, like the other maps did.
But that's how maps work. You're taking a portion of a sphere and flattening it out - to get a perfect rectangle from the northern part of a sphere, you have to squish the south and bloat the north. If you want a "true" representation based on the poster map, you'll have to squish the north and bloat the south so the edges follow the meridians.
As for deforested, I've always wondered how a 4000-year-old wood burning culture could still HAVE so many big, scary forests left. I guess druids are to blame here. Keep in mind that all those mountains all over Avistan are going to be wooded as well, it's just that this type of cartography can't show Mountain and Forest in the same place.
|
|
But that's how maps work. You're taking a portion of a sphere and flattening it out - to get a perfect rectangle from the northern part of a sphere, you have to squish the south and bloat the north. If you want a "true" representation based on the poster map, you'll have to squish the north and bloat the south so the edges follow the meridians.
Yeah, I know, I just wanted to minimize it and adjust a bit for bloat. That whole 2D to 3D paradox! lol I just wanted to make sure everyone viewing the map understood why I made those adjustments.
|
|
I don't know if it is too far South, Krome.
I live at N latitude 45 here in Minneapolis w/o the benefit of yummy warm sea air. Certainly there are father places North in the world, but during the Winter the Polar Express shoots straight down from the North and we get hit as badly as anyone. If Golarion has something like that going on, then with the size of that ice sheet (all of it being continent or not) there sure must be some frigid Winters for a Lot of people living on the map!Perhaps there would be a nice warm Southerly jet stream coming through this area of Golarion that tends to be pervasive, making the places on the map warmer (also solving some of the Qadira and other desert-like region issues). That could make for some awesome storms, too! haha
Ha! This is pretty much my thinking. I'm betting there's some nice warm, moist water and air being pushed up from the Arcadian Ocean east of Garund, and then getting caught up in the mountains surrounding Varisia. Making that whole area wet as hell - Magnimar as Seattle makes a lot of sense. Varisian fogs are probably famous throughout Avistan, and the Mushfens are nasty New Jersey-style swampland, or even Scottish bog, not sweltering Florida-style swamp.
And everything east of Lake Encarthan (which only misses being an inland sea by dint of its freshwater-ness) is, I think, crazy thunderstorm and tornado country. I bet Gozreh is not considered benign in those parts! And the whole southern coast of Avistan is probably swelteringly humid in the summer and enjoys deep, deep snow in the winters.
Uh... wait, dangit, now I need to see the Darklands map because there's at least one point where surface water plunges below and another one where Vault of Orv waters are drawn up, isn't there? That's going to mess with the weather and currents in those areas... there aren't any places on Earth I know of that would draw currents to them or push currents away like those points would.
Yeah, that Crown of the World ice city notion sounds awesome. And under it? There must be Shoggoth. This is non-negotiable. :)
+1
As for deforested, I've always wondered how a 4000-year-old wood burning culture could still HAVE so many big, scary forests left. I guess druids are to blame here. Keep in mind that all those mountains all over Avistan are going to be wooded as well, it's just that this type of cartography can't show Mountain and Forest in the same place.
I endorse this reasoning.
|
|
Uh... wait, dangit, now I need to see the Darklands map because there's at least one point where surface water plunges below and another one where Vault of Orv waters are drawn up, isn't there? That's going to mess with the weather and currents in those areas... there aren't any places on Earth I know of that would draw currents to them or push currents away like those points would.
That would make for one wild inner tube ride!
|
I like the last map the best too. But to comment about the top of the map and the "ice" James has said that is more fog aka as in the edge of the known world here be monsters. Yes at first it was suppose to be ice but now he says it is just the edge of the known world. I forget where he said it but pretty sure earlier in this very thread.
|
|
Yes at first it was suppose to be ice but now he says it is just the edge of the known world. I forget where he said it but pretty sure earlier in this very thread.
We're ignoring James on that one. He's only the developer, you know. We the fans have decided we like a large ice cap, be it from axial tilt, ice age, portal to the elemental plane of ice, or something more esoteric!
|
|
I like the last map the best too. But to comment about the top of the map and the "ice" James has said that is more fog aka as in the edge of the known world here be monsters. Yes at first it was suppose to be ice but now he says it is just the edge of the known world. I forget where he said it but pretty sure earlier in this very thread.
Earlier in this thread he said he was kidding about that.
|
|
Krome, why not try projecting it over another 2d map of earth?
ummm don't have a good pic lol I'll look for one lol
Okay found a map. No lines on it for equator or tropics, which I remember now, is why I used Google Earth. I would have the lines and able to adjust the image size.
So a flat map on a flat map. Scale should be good. Magnimar is on top of Seattle.
****EDIT****
Try the link now and it should work.
I like the last map the best too. But to comment about the top of the map and the "ice" James has said that is more fog aka as in the edge of the known world here be monsters. Yes at first it was suppose to be ice but now he says it is just the edge of the known world. I forget where he said it but pretty sure earlier in this very thread.Earlier in this thread he said he was kidding about that.
From my reading, it seemed to indicate that area as not locked into stone (or in this case, ice). It is the edge of those countries, but it is not guaranteed to start out all icy and such.
|
Krome, why not try projecting it over another 2d map of earth?ummm don't have a good pic lol I'll look for one lol
Okay found a map. No lines on it for equator or tropics, which I remember now, is why I used Google Earth. I would have the lines and able to adjust the image size.
So a flat map on a flat map. Scale should be good. Magnimar is on top of Seattle.
Linky no worky
|
|
Linky no workyKrome, why not try projecting it over another 2d map of earth?ummm don't have a good pic lol I'll look for one lol
Okay found a map. No lines on it for equator or tropics, which I remember now, is why I used Google Earth. I would have the lines and able to adjust the image size.
So a flat map on a flat map. Scale should be good. Magnimar is on top of Seattle.
Sorry try it now
I like this map pretty well, if we want to map over North America.
I think that one could be shifted another ~5*S in all honesty, so that Lake of VeilyMist lines up with SOUTHERNMOST "finger" of Hudson Bay, not it's largest area... Though since LakeofVM seems to run right up to the Ice Shelf, it could continue as an 'under-ice sea', which could be cool.
About the flat maps, of course the flat Golarion map is itself a projection, so it needs to be 'de-projected' properly to map it over a globe, which I doubt Google Earth does, since it doesn't even know your image file IS a map, much less the type of projection, right?
...I'm sure Wikipedia has a world map with latitude/longitude though.
You're probably aware that most map projections compress Equatorial areas (like Africa), making them appear smaller, so assuming the same treatment for Golarion's map, having Garund 'expand' when mapped to a globe seems perfectly normal. (Equal area maps are interesting. I saw one which actually overlayed continental USA, Europe up to Urals or so, AND China, and they roughly equaled Africa.)
The Inner Sea DOES seem really small compared to Mediterranean, but then again, the number of cultures around it seems signifigantly less than in the real Mediterranan, so being half as long doesn't seem so bad, given if Cheliax/Andoran/Taldor correspond to Western Roman Empire (for this purpose), it doesn't need to 'fit' Yugoslav, Albanian, Greek, or Turkish nations. It DOES pretty much put all naval forces bordering it in much closer proximity, much more than the actual Mediterranean whose Western part is some travel time from the Eastern part.
I DO think revisiting the Golarion map scale in light of it's implications re: surface area is certainly something that should be looked at seriously, because 'putting all the climates in close proximity' for Avistan/Inner Sea means the remaining areas outside that map will be all the more proportionately huge. The North America correlation seems do-able at the current scale, but keeping a decent mapping to Avistan/Garund seems like some scale massaging (+10ish%) is needed.
|
|
Sorry try it nowLinky no workyKrome, why not try projecting it over another 2d map of earth?ummm don't have a good pic lol I'll look for one lol
Okay found a map. No lines on it for equator or tropics, which I remember now, is why I used Google Earth. I would have the lines and able to adjust the image size.
So a flat map on a flat map. Scale should be good. Magnimar is on top of Seattle.
Thank'ye
Now how about a mercator version. :)
|
|
Last couple of maps look great Krome.
Just an idea - you said you kept the 240 mile/inch scale at the location of the key. If I remember correctly, that's at the bottom, right? But so much more has been published about the more northern areas. What if, instead of maintaining scale in the south and compressing in the north, you maintained the scale in the north (say right around Maginmar/Seattle) and expanded the map toward the equator. Garund would get bigger, but what's really been published about Garund. Less cannon to conflict with than compressing Varisia. And the whole are would get a little bigger, as some seem to feel it needs to do.
And if I'm wrong about where the 240 miles/inch scale is, ignore this post.
|
|
Last couple of maps look great Krome.
Just an idea - you said you kept the 240 mile/inch scale at the location of the key. If I remember correctly, that's at the bottom, right? But so much more has been published about the more northern areas. What if, instead of maintaining scale in the south and compressing in the north, you maintained the scale in the north (say right around Maginmar/Seattle) and expanded the map toward the equator. Garund would get bigger, but what's really been published about Garund. Less cannon to conflict with than compressing Varisia. And the whole are would get a little bigger, as some seem to feel it needs to do.
And if I'm wrong about where the 240 miles/inch scale is, ignore this post.
I kept that scale only in the ones that expand out. The last couple of maps I kept the scale in the middle, the Inner Sea (you MIGHT be able to see a red line which is my scale marker).
Truthfully, I made so many maps in such a short time I am getting them confused now! lol
Quandary: The last, flat map, has no lines on it at all. Best large sized file I could find. The ones that are lined sort of suck. lol
As far as the scale, I have no say on that, but James said there is no way they can go back and change it now. For our maps I can change the scale anyway we want. But they are not legit then. Not really legit now either! lol But you know what I mean. lol
Been making maps and reading the PFRPG all day and I'm tired! sorry if this doesn't make much sense.
Been making maps and reading the PFRPG all day and I'm tired! sorry if this doesn't make much sense.
Translation: It's been a good glue-sniffin' day...
/off-topic in-joke
Been making maps and reading the PFRPG all day and I'm tired! sorry if this doesn't make much sense.
Thanks for all the work. A few months ago, I did a couple of map projections like the last one you did (the flat one) and it looks fairly similar, so I think you're on the right track.
It would be really great if we could get a proper Google Earth overlay. Something that the community can download, run in Google Earth, and comment on. For me, as a DM, this sort of thing really helps me get my head around the scale, climate and geography.
Bump. I also would love to see some the images everyone's chatting about. Would be a great help for my Kingmaker campaign!
The Community Use Package: World Maps contain many useful maps. :)
*sigh*
I made this a year ago with the intent to post it.. and forgot. Anyways,
Inner Sea superimposed onto europe
Background - as best I can remember it from a year ago:
The image was made in ArcGIS 10.1 by georeferencing the inner sea onto a map of the world using tidbits culled from these and other posts. I used Absalom as the prime meridian and used the measured distance at the bottom of the map. I kept the fact that the equator was "a few inches" from the bottom of the map.
Because projections get out of whack as you go towards the poles, I felt that it was inappropriate to georeference using lines of longitude (as the distance between longitude lines vary with latitude). So i did the reverse, knowing that the N-S distance between lines of latitude are the same up and down the globe. In-game this makes sense because the more civilized nations are to the south and they would have the more exact maps. So if distance is off to the north, well, that's fine because those maps were never to the same quality.
I still have the files set up and georeferenced. I've added the crown of the world as well. Can't really add Xian-Tia as it's not connected to things. The crown is anchored by the geographic north pole so I can work with that by doing the distance from the north pole along the major lines of latitude. If more gets released, I'll add more to the map. Right now, I'm working on an expanded map of the kingmaker area.