Now that my Patreon have been around for a few months and two projects have seen the light of day I have started to reflect on what has worked and things that needs improvement.
The first is that projects need to be reasonable in scope, the target should be something that can be done in a month. The Crater Project fulfilled this really well, but the Island Project was a disaster in this aspect.
Going forward projects that are small scale, 100ft/pixel or less, should be limited to 8K if fully featured. For maps that are not full 3D or without things like buildings and roads it can be 16K. Projects like the Islands will cover 10-30 miles instead of 60.
Large scale maps, more than 100ft/pixel should be limited to 16K. This is means that maps of whole realms of Greyhawk (or other settings) will be 200-500 miles per side.
This is with current technology, and as you all well know technology are in constant change, with better hardware and software coming out. Much improved computers are probably two years away for me, so I can't rely on that part to make things go faster of get bigger.
On the software side of things the near future looks more promising. Three things makes me hopeful, Gaea from Quadspinner, World Machine updates and new versions of Vue.
Gaea is a new fully featured terrain creation tool that is currently in early access. The reason I list it first is that it show some major progress with GPU usage and novel features that I know will speed up things and improve the results. There still a lot of features yet not fully functional, but what is ready is fantastic!
World Machine development shows real signs of coming back from its zombie state which is great news. Vue is also making advances with better features.
I will probably use all three in combination going forward, and add tools like 3DStudio Max and Unity within a year or two. Now back to the more immediate future!
The next project will bring us back to Greyhawk mapping the Lendore Isle. This is the first stage of my Flanaess 2.0 Project, to bring my Flanaess map into the new century.
The goals are:
- Create a elevation model with a resolution of 100 ft - 300ft per pixel.
- Update the textures to match the 3D landscape and increased
resolution.
- Masks and Splat Map data for things like biomes, vegetation, rock,
Seasonal Textures and more.
- Elevation model for ocean (and lake) depth at around 500 ft - 1000 ft
per pixel.
My current Flanaess map are in need of a revision as well. I have collected a number of things to add or change during the last year, so one project will be to include them and create a 2018 revision of the map.
Darlene have some undertakings that will become a project (or several projects) this year as well.
I'm also contemplating a change of the rewards, but I will post my ideas for this in a separate post to keep the discussions of rewards separate from future projects.
Thank you again for supporting me!
