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 Ultimate high-resolution map of Toril

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
sonofsaline Posted - 29 Mar 2017 : 18:30:02
I'm fairly new to this forum, so be gentle with me. I am looking for an extremely high resolution map of Toril where you can zoom from world map size down to city map size(e.g. Google Maps), (street level would be a bonus). Does such a thing exist?

I am currently reading the Empires Trilogy and have found fairly detailed maps of Faerun and Kara-Tur, but I haven't found one map that connects them together in great detail. It would be awesome to have one world map where you can zoom out, go to Maztica, and zoom into city level.

If nothing like this has been created, how hard would it be to make? I know nothing about creating maps, web pages, etc. I was just wanting some advice from people who might know a lot more about such things.

In addition, it would be interesting to have interactive maps of all the Forgotten Realms novels, such as a detailed map showing military movements in the Empires Trilogy, or a map showing Shandril's travels in Spellfire.

Thoughts?
30   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
George Krashos Posted - 29 Mar 2024 : 01:30:10
Ed has always deferred to the paper FR Atlas product.

-- George Krashos
George Krashos Posted - 29 Mar 2024 : 01:27:00
Ed has always deferred to the paper FR Atlas product.

-- George Krashos
Blaidd31204 Posted - 27 Mar 2024 : 22:15:24
Outstanding!
Werthead Posted - 27 Mar 2024 : 21:53:41
So I assembled a grand collection of all maps from the OG products I have in PDF form (which is almost all of them, and some faffing around with scans of my physical collection) to create an original megamap of Faerun using the highest-scaled maps possible, starting from 1E and moving forwards.

This started off promisingly. The Old Grey Box maps fully align with near-perfect precision with the Savage Frontier, Empires of the Sands and Bloodstone Lands maps, to the point that all of these feel like cut-offs from a larger map someone created (presumably a 1"=30 miles scale map someone drew based on Ed's original hand-drawn map), with even individual mountains being the same across the overlaps.

However, the Dream of the Red Wizards map is notably out of keeping with the rest, with the sections where it overlaps the Bloodstone Lands maps not quite cohering (not to mention, the cities on both maps in Impiltur are all over the place, with several cities located on different parts of the coast). It feels like it's about 5% off in size, but upping and lowering the size doesn't line things up correctly at all. The best-case approach was to ignore the overlapping area and get the edges to align and cut off the overlap. Even this is imperfect but it's possible to make it work.

The Old Empires map is then completely out of whack with the Dreams of the Red Wizards map (and, of course, with no features in common, it's impossible to determine if it is in keeping with the rest of the continent map) which causes headaches (and wow, Tharsult and Alaor's shapes change on every single map that they made back then).

The Great Glacier map then satisfyingly aligns almost 100% with the Bloodstone Lands map, except for a slight variance in scale.

I'll keep cracking at this and then try the same thing with the 2E maps and see if it's possible to get a good idea of a large-scale map of the continent using the OG sources. I certainly have vastly more respect now for the FRIA team (and that respect was a lot in the first place) who had to make a lot of judgement calls in getting these sources to work.

Ed seems to mention the Karen Wynn Fonstad map a lot from the (non-interactive) Forgotten Realms Atlas, so I wonder if he regards that as a better reference option. Hmm.
Werthead Posted - 27 Mar 2024 : 18:13:38
I think they basically need a modern CC4, but they've resisted doing that, presumably for budget reasons.

It's a shame but other programmes (Inkarnate or Wonderdraft) are much easier to use, even if they're not as powerful or customisable.
sleyvas Posted - 27 Mar 2024 : 15:01:11
quote:
Originally posted by Werthead

I have Campaign Cartographer 3 but that thing is nuts, I've never gotten my head around it. The only reason I have it is because it's compatible with the maps from the Interactive Atlas and it allows me to up-res them to a higher standard and then serve as a basis for new maps.

That said, having had some communication with the people who made the FRIA over the years, I know it has a lot of problems and errors resulting from the timeframe they had to make it. I have been considering going back to the 1E/2E base maps and doing a completely new ultra-map based on the original source material, but that would be excessively time-consuming. If I had better skills I'd also look at creating the "Google Toril" idea someone mentioned before, but that seems daunting as well.



Yeah, I have CC3+ as well, and I spent a lot of time trying to make maps for my own versions of Anchorome/Maztica/Lopango/Katashaka using it. They were very pretty. But what I found is that once I got a bunch of icons for forests, cities, etc... basically the program was crashing or taking so long to do updates that it became fruitless (even though the file sizes were relatively minimal, guessing because it was using pointers or something to the icons). I then played with the idea of using the icons from that program in drawing programs, but realized that's against the rules, especially if you want to use it in anything you'd publicly share. I then THOUGHT it wouldn't be hard to make my own icons... and yeah, I'm no artist and it takes a lot longer than I would have thought. All of this to say ... I've gained an appreciation for good map makers as I've begun to slowly learn the issues.
Werthead Posted - 25 Mar 2024 : 23:34:23
I have Campaign Cartographer 3 but that thing is nuts, I've never gotten my head around it. The only reason I have it is because it's compatible with the maps from the Interactive Atlas and it allows me to up-res them to a higher standard and then serve as a basis for new maps.

That said, having had some communication with the people who made the FRIA over the years, I know it has a lot of problems and errors resulting from the timeframe they had to make it. I have been considering going back to the 1E/2E base maps and doing a completely new ultra-map based on the original source material, but that would be excessively time-consuming. If I had better skills I'd also look at creating the "Google Toril" idea someone mentioned before, but that seems daunting as well.
sleyvas Posted - 25 Mar 2024 : 20:15:20
Just wanted to say to you Werthead, from having tried to make a similar map of the world inside of campaign cartographer, I can appreciate your dedication. I'm definitely not a good map maker. BTW, I also appreciate your question on your world map about Arandron. That's what I suspect as well is "Arandron". I would like to get some definitives on that from Ed. Granted, at the same time... what one group calls Arandon others call something else. That's why I've taken to calling the "northern huge continent part of Maztica" .... by the name of "the place that Faerunians call Anchorome".
Werthead Posted - 25 Mar 2024 : 14:42:45
I think a lot of the images in the discussion no longer exist, or are in Dropboxes that expired some time ago.

I have tried to pick up the cartographic gauntlet a little bit after the numerous early worthies, with my recent Nations of the Forgotten Realms series (plus maps of every continent, plus the entire planet) here. My maps are heavily influenced by the official Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas CD-ROM from 1999.

I believe - someone can correct me on this - that "Handsome Rob" is now doing official cartography for both Pathfinder and also some of the DM's Guild Forgotten Realms material, so a lot of his earlier, unofficial work got scrubbed from the Internet. As Markustay points out above, a lot of his maps were also scrubbed due to him using an art style that was similar-ish to the offical 3E maps, which Wizards of the Coast were not so keen on.
Blaidd31204 Posted - 24 Mar 2024 : 17:45:21
Where can I find these images?
cpthero2 Posted - 20 Sep 2020 : 22:40:02
Learned Scribe PattPlays,

It sounds like you may have a copy of this still....? ;)

Any chance I could snag a copy of that from you?

Best regards as always,


cpthero2 Posted - 20 Sep 2020 : 22:36:39
Seeker Divinity,

Do you still have a copy of this?

Best regards,


winterwulf Posted - 02 Sep 2020 : 16:19:18
I loved your toril map, it is really awesome!
Would you mind to share it without labels? I mean only the land, because I would like to use in my campaign if thats ok.

quote:
Originally posted by Divinity

[quote]Originally posted by sleyvas

[quote]Originally posted by Divinity

Over the past few years, I've been making my own Faerūn map from scratch. I've posted the WIP a couple times, but not since Dec '18 or so and I've not really done too much since then. I'm paused in the process of naming of roads and rivers. What I've learned is that making a perfect map is impossible. Too many people have made creative liberties on official products for there to be a perfect map - let alone then having to figure out which city map is best used. Plus, some things simply have never been detailed. Just figuring out which side of the river a town is supposed to be on can be almost impossible. The best I've been able to do is compare all the maps I can find, and then compare that to official text, then unofficial text and talking to authors (like we can through here) and in some cases make a judgment call that seems like it makes the most sense. It can literally take an hour or more just to figure out one location sometimes and the map has been a project of hundreds and hundreds of hours. A world/continent map that included city structures and buildings would be a legendary feat if made from scratch. I can't imagine the computer RAM and patience it would take to build a map like that. Mine already has each phase made in its own file.

Here's a link to a full-scale version of my map on my Google Drive. Take into account it's still a WIP, though most of the important stuff is down, minus a legend.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Y-0Uarlbrcw9jLnKAh3fQ_JE8FYIKy_/view?usp=sharing

Edit: I updated this map with a few changes including adding a legend.

PattPlays Posted - 29 May 2020 : 20:51:38
That fullres is amazing! I have found almost half a dozen high res maps on these threads just in the past two months. Excellent material for cross referencing interpretations!

Now... anything on the Uppaproachable East? The Dock and that amazing mountain range is juuuust off the map's southeast corner...
Divinity Posted - 29 May 2020 : 20:46:41
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

quote:
Originally posted by Divinity

Over the past few years, I've been making my own Faerūn map from scratch. I've posted the WIP a couple times, but not since Dec '18 or so and I've not really done too much since then. I'm paused in the process of naming of roads and rivers. What I've learned is that making a perfect map is impossible. Too many people have made creative liberties on official products for there to be a perfect map - let alone then having to figure out which city map is best used. Plus, some things simply have never been detailed. Just figuring out which side of the river a town is supposed to be on can be almost impossible. The best I've been able to do is compare all the maps I can find, and then compare that to official text, then unofficial text and talking to authors (like we can through here) and in some cases make a judgment call that seems like it makes the most sense. It can literally take an hour or more just to figure out one location sometimes and the map has been a project of hundreds and hundreds of hours. A world/continent map that included city structures and buildings would be a legendary feat if made from scratch. I can't imagine the computer RAM and patience it would take to build a map like that. Mine already has each phase made in its own file.

Here's a link to a full-scale version of my map on my Google Drive. Take into account it's still a WIP, though most of the important stuff is down, minus a legend.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Y-0Uarlbrcw9jLnKAh3fQ_JE8FYIKy_/view?usp=sharing

Edit: I updated this map with a few changes including adding a legend.



While by no means a master map maker, and I'm getting that you are probably just using an image editor, but let me first say "bravo" and secondly say …. I feel the pain especially in what you say in the above about the equipment being an issue. I've been using campaign cartographer, and what sucks is I get a map that's starting to be at the point that I want... and then suddenly it starts locking up, etc... What's worse is that I don't think its necessarily my system itself so much as the software being too old to take advantage of my exorbitant memory (had a system with 24 gigs of RAM). There's probably tweaks I can do, but the simple frustration is what makes you want to give up.



I use Photoshop and have an i7 6800k with 6 cores and 16gb of RAM and I still have slowing problems. However! What I've figured out that it isn't the speed of my system, and for most people, it's probably not the speed of theirs either. The problem is when our systems run out of RAM. Everything is fine until that point. After that point, the program has to use scratch disks. The issues then become, is there enough scratch disk space allocated, and how fast is the hard drive you're using as the scratch disk. For me, personally, I've been using the 1.5 TB space on my old HDD storage drive. The issue is that writing to an HDD is -super- slow so its always hanging up as it writes to it over and over. A few days ago I ordered a 500GB NVMe M.2 drive for my Turbo M.2 slot which could increase my transfer rate up to 35x when I use that as my scratch disk instead. I'd recommend reading up on scratch disks, and then making sure you've got yours set up optimally and if need be getting something faster and using it as a dedicated scratch drive. That may be the best way to speed things up for work on large files.
sleyvas Posted - 29 May 2020 : 19:45:45
quote:
Originally posted by Divinity

Over the past few years, I've been making my own Faerūn map from scratch. I've posted the WIP a couple times, but not since Dec '18 or so and I've not really done too much since then. I'm paused in the process of naming of roads and rivers. What I've learned is that making a perfect map is impossible. Too many people have made creative liberties on official products for there to be a perfect map - let alone then having to figure out which city map is best used. Plus, some things simply have never been detailed. Just figuring out which side of the river a town is supposed to be on can be almost impossible. The best I've been able to do is compare all the maps I can find, and then compare that to official text, then unofficial text and talking to authors (like we can through here) and in some cases make a judgment call that seems like it makes the most sense. It can literally take an hour or more just to figure out one location sometimes and the map has been a project of hundreds and hundreds of hours. A world/continent map that included city structures and buildings would be a legendary feat if made from scratch. I can't imagine the computer RAM and patience it would take to build a map like that. Mine already has each phase made in its own file.

Here's a link to a full-scale version of my map on my Google Drive. Take into account it's still a WIP, though most of the important stuff is down, minus a legend.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Y-0Uarlbrcw9jLnKAh3fQ_JE8FYIKy_/view?usp=sharing

Edit: I updated this map with a few changes including adding a legend.



While by no means a master map maker, and I'm getting that you are probably just using an image editor, but let me first say "bravo" and secondly say …. I feel the pain especially in what you say in the above about the equipment being an issue. I've been using campaign cartographer, and what sucks is I get a map that's starting to be at the point that I want... and then suddenly it starts locking up, etc... What's worse is that I don't think its necessarily my system itself so much as the software being too old to take advantage of my exorbitant memory (had a system with 24 gigs of RAM). There's probably tweaks I can do, but the simple frustration is what makes you want to give up.
Myth Posted - 27 May 2020 : 01:03:10
Great map @Divinity
George Krashos Posted - 26 May 2020 : 02:57:43
This is a thing of total beauty. Bravo.

-- George Krashos
Scimitars of Drizzt Posted - 25 May 2020 : 19:18:21
quote:
Originally posted by Divinity

Over the past few years, I've been making my own Faerūn map from scratch. I've posted the WIP a couple times, but not since Dec '18 or so and I've not really done too much since then. I'm paused in the process of naming of roads and rivers. What I've learned is that making a perfect map is impossible. Too many people have made creative liberties on official products for there to be a perfect map - let alone then having to figure out which city map is best used. Plus, some things simply have never been detailed. Just figuring out which side of the river a town is supposed to be on can be almost impossible. The best I've been able to do is compare all the maps I can find, and then compare that to official text, then unofficial text and talking to authors (like we can through here) and in some cases make a judgment call that seems like it makes the most sense. It can literally take an hour or more just to figure out one location sometimes and the map has been a project of hundreds and hundreds of hours. A world/continent map that included city structures and buildings would be a legendary feat if made from scratch. I can't imagine the computer RAM and patience it would take to build a map like that. Mine already has each phase made in its own file.

Here's a link to a full-scale version of my map on my Google Drive. Take into account it's still a WIP, though most of the important stuff is down, minus a legend.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iYtooKNJaSQB1PU_Sq2Is3aOhCf5YdSL



Damn, this is a beautiful map. Your write-up is interesting and makes perfect sense, I couldn't imagine the work put into this piece. I will be using this map for now on, noting it's still a WIP; well done.
Renin Posted - 25 May 2020 : 15:47:54
Divinity,

I love studying your map. I know it's a craft that takes, like you said, hundreds of hours, and my words of appreciation don't come to mean any kind of compensation; but thank you for your work and effort, and thank you for sharing. It's wonderful!
Divinity Posted - 24 May 2020 : 07:35:47
Over the past few years, I've been making my own Faerūn map from scratch. I've posted the WIP a couple times, but not since Dec '18 or so and I've not really done too much since then. I'm paused in the process of naming of roads and rivers. What I've learned is that making a perfect map is impossible. Too many people have made creative liberties on official products for there to be a perfect map - let alone then having to figure out which city map is best used. Plus, some things simply have never been detailed. Just figuring out which side of the river a town is supposed to be on can be almost impossible. The best I've been able to do is compare all the maps I can find, and then compare that to official text, then unofficial text and talking to authors (like we can through here) and in some cases make a judgment call that seems like it makes the most sense. It can literally take an hour or more just to figure out one location sometimes and the map has been a project of hundreds and hundreds of hours. A world/continent map that included city structures and buildings would be a legendary feat if made from scratch. I can't imagine the computer RAM and patience it would take to build a map like that. Mine already has each phase made in its own file.

Here's a link to a full-scale version of my map on my Google Drive. Take into account it's still a WIP, though most of the important stuff is down, minus a legend.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Y-0Uarlbrcw9jLnKAh3fQ_JE8FYIKy_/view?usp=sharing

Edit: I updated this map with a few changes including adding a legend.
perlmugp Posted - 20 May 2020 : 02:13:11
If you look at the map in my linked in my account signature it is a proof of concept for how this could be made. What I've got only looks at a portion of Faerun in any detail and I've limited the level of zoom because I haven't created the images necessary but this uses Leaflet, which is the same mapping software many websites use to show the world from continents down to streets. All you do is point it at a different collection of images that shows Faerun instead of Earth.
Larson McCade Posted - 17 Apr 2020 : 06:21:19
Yeah, that was the Sword Coast map I used - and the one that highlighted the Triboar/Amphail/Goldenfields difference to HandsomeRob's map.

https://imgur.com/a/3taQCee (Done properly this time, I hope)
Shawn Daniels Posted - 17 Apr 2020 : 00:17:32
Well, there is now http://media.wizards.com/2015/images/dnd/resources/Sword-Coast-Map_HighRes.jpg
An extremely high res view of the left side of the continent
Larson McCade Posted - 16 Apr 2020 : 12:34:05
I know this is a really old post and so unlikely to be seen but...

I did make use of the map by HandsomeRob and Leaflet JS to make my own zoomable version of his map - based heavily off the Leaflet coding work of others.
As Wooly Rupert said, there are definitely some differences in maps that have occurred over the years. While I did correct a couple of things I noticed on HandsomeRob's map (Port Castigliar spelling and location, cleaning up Thindol) even recently I noticed that there were some minor differences closer to 'home' (his locations of Triboar, Amphail and Goldenfields relative to Waterdeep... versus the latest 5e Sword Coast regional maps). I've still used it for my own campaign work and it's the best map I've found available - thanks HandsomeRob, wherever you may be.

https://imgur.com/a/MMEg8i7 (3 images from my site)
The created tiles for the various zoom levels of HandsomeRob's map totaled about 2GB!!!

I've done the same with Neverwinter, Waterdeep, The Sword Coast, Menzoberranzan... all personal use, sitting on my home server.
While I would love to do the same thing with an up to date map of Toril - dreams!!! - I'm satisfied that these minor differences do nothing when we all make our own versions of the realms in our games anyway.
Ashe Ravenheart Posted - 31 Mar 2017 : 13:55:06
Okay, I tried the old imageshack links, but it's not sending me to the maps. If anyone wants to upload them to my Candlekeep Dropbox, shoot me a message with your email and I can add you to the folder's "owners". I can then host them on mattdroz.com for perusal/download (as long as Rob gives his ok).

PS. Dropbox may be easier since by sharing the folder with your dropbox account, it then allows you to just copy the files in locally on your computer and it will then sync them up in the background instead of uploading through the web.
Mapolq Posted - 31 Mar 2017 : 05:58:30
I have HandsomeRob's original, too, but have similar issues with uploading it.

If we can find HandsomeRob and get his permission, though, I (and friends) rent a server for our NWN2 world so we could host it there.
Markustay Posted - 30 Mar 2017 : 21:25:59
I've actually mapped a large swathed of Golarion myself - I didn't like the way the kingmaker maps lined-up, so I fixed all that (made one map with everything on it).

I did that one for myself, though, because I was still using the '3e (FR) style' art, and that probably would have been a no-no to take WotC art and apply to a competitor's product. Even if it was legal ('derivative work'), it still wouldn't have been right. I have a few 'just for me' maps like that.

And I even managed to procure the original maps for Iobaria, because all cartographers make mistakes.
Green Giant Posted - 30 Mar 2017 : 16:40:51
quote:
Originally posted by sonofsaline

Thanks for all the info, Markustay. I guess I'll have to keep dreaming. Maybe I'll give Google a call and see what they can do... :)



Perhaps something like they're doing for Golarion here.
sleyvas Posted - 30 Mar 2017 : 13:32:51
quote:
Originally posted by sonofsaline

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas




I've got Handsome Rob's TIF map (776 MB) and I also converted it to JPG (165 MB). He even filled in some of the unnamed places (like Katashaka's lands). I really wish I could have used it DMs Guild, but since it wasn't available there other people couldn't use it. But it did force me to play with some mapping tools, so that's been kind of fun. I just have nowhere I can put them up (don't have a dropbox, and if I put them up on google docs then technically they kind of own them... and I wouldn't want to do that to Rob... too big for email to send as an attachment).



Sleyvas, would you be willing to upload the .jpg to Zippyshare.com and post the link here? It's free.



sorry, but that site has similar stipulations. You could try Private Messaging HandsomeRob from here as well.

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