The World of Virana
Monsen
Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
Well, I thought I would do something I rarely do; show of some of my maps.
This is usually a rare occurrence, partly because I don't have had much time for personal mapping lately, and partially because many of my maps are usually in a half-done state, because I generally only map the areas the players in my campaign know about, so most of the continents on my world map is still just outlines, to be developed later, and I generally plop down additional interesting locations on most maps as the players discover them, so they are generally not "fully populated".
So, for anyone interested, this is the link to the wiki of my world, where you can find most of the maps. Maps have clickable hotspots like in the community atlas, as well as links in the wiki text below them, but you'll have to rely on the browser back button to go back to the parent map. Also, you may find a couple of the maps quite familiar.
Note that if you find the text in the wiki a bit lacking in the descriptions, keep in mind this is for a face-to-face game, so the wiki is just a secondary information hub to give a bit of an overview, most things are communicated during game sessions and never make it to the wiki.
Criticism are always welcome, but keep in mind that these maps have already been presented to the players, so I can't change any features in them.
This is usually a rare occurrence, partly because I don't have had much time for personal mapping lately, and partially because many of my maps are usually in a half-done state, because I generally only map the areas the players in my campaign know about, so most of the continents on my world map is still just outlines, to be developed later, and I generally plop down additional interesting locations on most maps as the players discover them, so they are generally not "fully populated".
So, for anyone interested, this is the link to the wiki of my world, where you can find most of the maps. Maps have clickable hotspots like in the community atlas, as well as links in the wiki text below them, but you'll have to rely on the browser back button to go back to the parent map. Also, you may find a couple of the maps quite familiar.
Note that if you find the text in the wiki a bit lacking in the descriptions, keep in mind this is for a face-to-face game, so the wiki is just a secondary information hub to give a bit of an overview, most things are communicated during game sessions and never make it to the wiki.
Criticism are always welcome, but keep in mind that these maps have already been presented to the players, so I can't change any features in them.
Comments
And I love the world and descriptions,. Yes, mush is very familiar
I love using wiki software because the way editing and linking between articles work, it is a great way when you have structured information. I know some people just use blogging software, but I find it way more limiting when it comes to organizing the information properly. I have also given my players write access to the wiki, so they can update details as well.
I was first considering running the maps on the same software I wrote for running the community atlas site, but I found that I needed a wiki for the rest of the information anyway, so I decided it would be best to just have everything in the wiki. The atlas software allows for easier map management than the wiki, but needing to use both was a complicating factor in itself.
This is why I like to set up my own stuff. Obsidian Portal is probably great, but I generally want more control. Usually costs me quite a bit more of time and effort, but usually worth it in the long run.
Try this demo page and tell me what you think. Note that it still have a hotspot in the image that is clickable, and works correctly with the zooming. Also worth noting is the small full screen button in the toolbar at the bottom of the image, great way to enjoy the zoomable image.
For reference, the world image used in this demo is 30766x16000 pixels in size. The Ilara image the hotspot leads to is 24000x20000 pixels.
I will try to find the code (I think it Ascendent neutral).
<map name="green">
<area shape="circle" coords="226, 424, 20" href="http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/alfaysia/wikis/five-kingdoms">
</map>
is an example of using coords and a link to another page.
It doesn't work very well on Edge, but not much does it seems, so that's nothing to worry about. Great stuff, and... isn't there something distinctly familiar about the Kings Coast map? Oh yes! Of course, its remarkably similar to the user manual tutorial example. I often wondered who's that was
I use the same program to generate the image maps for the atlas.
Strange, it works perfectly fine in Edge for me. Truth be told, I have very little problems with edge.
Not just remarkably similar, it is the same map. When I made the tutorial maps, I found it better to map something in my own world instead of just a random location. You'll also find the Windclaw and Snowport maps in the Tome. So, now you can see where these maps belong in the greater world
Maybe my problem with Edge is that I have the view zoom set permanently to 125% because I only have a 15" screen. Can't read anything without having to squint at 100%.
The great thing about the zoomable version is that it loads appropriate quality tiles on demand, allowing for viewing of high quality details without having to load the entire image.
I've also put in a dynamic scale bar (upper right of the image as long as the mouse is over it), and enabled measurements (the ruler button in the toolbar below the image [note that you need to turn off the measuring again before you can drag the image with the mouse, it is either measuring OR dragging])
For the technical aspect of things, I am using the pro version of Zoomify. This allowed me access to their source code, so I could add miles and feet as valid scale options since they only had options for metric units by default. Everything else was just experimenting with their configuration to get things the way I wanted. I then created a special tag for it in the wiki, making it easy to add zoomable images to any wiki page without having to to a lot of setup on each page.
Being on the other side of the globe, how did you experience the performance of this? Some load times are definitely expected, it won't be instant even if you sit on top of the server, but I am curious how your experience is.
I am currently processing the inn maps.