First of all a big thank you to all of who support me, and there are over 600 hundred of you here on my patreon, thank you all so much, it means the world to me. Especially the last month or so. A fantastic double convention and then a severe case of "con crud" which kept me in bed for over a week. The world Machine 4 started crashing on both my machines, lots going on....

Having your support made it possible for me to be at the convention and also to recover an trying to fix the issues with one of my primary tool.

World Machine 4 Crashes

Lets start with World Machine 4 acting up all of a sudden. WM 4 is one of my main tools used to render large area terrain in high detail. After the last Windows update it started to crash almost every time I tried to use it. After my initial getting upset phase, I tried to switch to a more analytical approach. I filed a report, tested it on my three different machines that has different hardware, reinstalled etc.

After a coupe of days of mucking around by me and the WM's developer the extent of the problem was starting to reigned in and a set of hopefully usable crash dumps where sent. Now there is a good chance that the issue can be found and a solution fixed. It took some vital time but if it can WM4 usable again for me that will be worth it. I still want to use World Machine and see improved versions of it in the future. The market is heating up but WM it is still the best terrain creation tool available, and can stay in top position with updated versions.

GIS

The GIS conversion of my existing Greyhawk map just passed a milestone, all the settlements are added and the roads are nearly done as well. It means the project is still on schedule for a full initial release later this year. It is a huge undertaking but now its on the home stretch with lots of label placing and other more fun bits. An symbol revision will be in the making as well, the village symbols needs a bit of a new touch but the rest are good enough.

An important part of GIS (and most forms of cartography) is to have some soft of referencing system. The Darlene map had the 30 mile hexes with its clunky way of finding its numbers along the edges of the map. I created a 12 mile hex grid with a numbering scheme that covered the Flanaess, but was not really up to covering the whole Oerth so I ditched it for the lates expanded map. Now its time to start looking for how to reference future GIS based maps, using GPS coordinates, simple lat long degrees, custom made hex grid, or something more esoteric like what3words. Lots of options and thanks to the nature of GIS several standards can be used.

Sources Project

I will present a template for my sources project soon, I want to make sure we use some cooperative thinking on what information to gather and how to organize that information before the work starts. With a plan of how to do it, it will be ready to start later this year when the initial data placement is done and we have a first map to work from.

Shield Lands

I've put my Shield Lands Campaign on a hiatus so I can concentrate on catching up on my map making. This will give me a chance to solidify my work flow and create a system of maps to set my standard for how to map things from big to small and properly document it. My goal is to have a comprehensive set of map to both support my gaming in the area and as an platform for my future Greyhawk work.

As a part of this I'm testing out new tools like VTT's and dungeon map makers. so far after testing a dozen or so new (and not so new) promising tools I was just suggested to test "Dragon Map Maker" (https://www.dragonmapmaker.com) and of all the tools I've seen this one seems the most promising, and I will get it, spend a couple of hours testing it and see if it is worth trying to incorporate into my toolbox. It has some really cool features and looks great, the big question for me - is it flexible enough, and is it easy enough to work with..

House Rules

This secret pet project of my has taking shape beyond my humble initial ambitions of tweaking 5E a little more to my liking. During the process I've gotten more and more certain of what I want to do, where I want complexity and where I instead crave simplicity. My needs are for a simple set of rules that somehow carries a lot of fantasy flavor, and keep some compatibility with D&D (spells, monster stats and items).

This was short update on what is going on and more on each of these topics and more is in the works. Next mapping stream is this Friday at 6pm PDT as usual on my Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/anna_b_meyer

Thank you again for all joining me in this journey!! 🙂

It took me a long time, but finally a long time favorite is back!
The bite size printer friendly version of my Flanaess map is back, this time in 11x17 inch format.

The 11x17 format required 70 pages to effectively cover the whole Flanaess. There are some overlap on each page to make them more useful.  Below is the page layout.

Most of the pages are in a grid but I added a few extra pages to cover the leftovers, and create a better coverage of areas that got fragmented otherwise.

Each page comes in JPG and PDF format. The JPG has a 0.25 inch bleed added to cover prints that needs it. The PDF version are better liked by some prit services who have problems with pixel ratios and similar problems with JPG's. This way I hope I have covered most bases. 

Here is an example of the area covered by a page. The inner green rectangle is the area exclusive to this page. The orange area is the 11x17 page border, so the area between green and orange are the overlap between pages. The pink is the bleed area added to the JPG.

Each page comes with a Mini Map, small licensing info, scales and a page number and guide to adjacent pages.

So far I have done the nine pages surrounding the City of Greyhawk and you can find them here: http://bit.ly/GH-FlanaessAtlas-598CY-2019

I will create more on my Mapping Live Twitch Stream tonight at 6pm PDT!
Please come and join me at:  https://www.twitch.tv/anna_b_meyer 

Thank you so much guys for joining my Patreon. Your support means so much for me giving me the chance to devote half my working time on my passion, mapping the Greyhawk setting!

Time to re-start my Twitch Map Live Streams, and the first will be Tuesday March 26th @6pm PST.

https://www.twitch.tv/anna_b_meyer
Topics will be Lendore Mapping in World Machine, New Icons and a first look at Gaea and the latest World Machine Dev Update.

Welcome to some live mapping and Q&A!

Here comes a Flanaess map for Photoshop, It has 41 layers with text and symbols on different layers, as well as terrain both with and without hexes. This file is way too large to use the standard PSD format, instead it is using the PSB format, which is the special format for very large files. Few applications besides Adobe Photoshop are able to open it.

This will be the base file for a number of variants of the 2019 Edition, area maps, DM - Player versions, handout maps, spread maps and more. These variants will use more common file formats like PSD, JPG and PNG.

Work on these different maps will be an ongoing effort the coming months.

You can download the 7.42 GB large file here: http://bit.ly/GH-FlanaessFull598CY-PSB-2019

We are 195 Patreon members as I write this, thank you all for supporting me, it means more than you can image to gain such a trust!

My posts have been scarce lately, for which I apologize. It is due to two reasons, a Kobold Press Project that takes up the majority of my time at the moment and will so for another month or so. Then Greyhawk mapping is back into the forefront again. The other reason is that a lot of groundwork is being done for things to come. Now that March is soon here and so is the start of Con Season, it is time to start to reveal what I have planned for this year.

Lendore Isles and Hepmonaland are already under way, and significant progress are being made on the Lendore project. Hepmonaland is a different beast that share a lot of workflow and technique with what I'm doing for Kobold Press, so it will get a boost from what I'm doing there this summer. A major installment is scheduled for you guys in August. Exactly how much it will be depends a bit, but it will be a large part of the continent for sure.

Lendore Isles is a project on the cutting edge of both my abilities and what current technology can provide, so it will take a bit longer to get fully polished. A first look at the terrain and how its made is planned for Cartography Patrons in June. These are contested islands with various versions presented in the past, so this project will have to honor that too with at least three different versions coming this fall.

The 2019 Edition of my Flanaess map was just launched, and I'm very proud of how it turned out and I've received an unusually large amount of positive feedback. This doesn't mean that this year's Edition is done, there are a whole bunch of versions still to be made. I'm currently exporting it layer by layer in full resolution PNG's with transparency so I can make things like: Player - DM maps, area maps, and special versions for Realm Works among other things. 

One of the benefits of this is I get a good chance to go back to a pet project again - handout maps. The first batch of handout maps got a lots of love, but also constructive criticism. This was good valid points (most of them), which I take to heart. It was also my first try at doing something similar and learned a lot from it. So the take away is - Do it again and Do it better this time - Flanaess Handout Maps Set 2 is coming! This time they will be full resolution, include layered versions, better labeling and a documentation on how you go about creating similar maps for all the Cartography Patrons.

As soon as something is done, my routine is to sit down and try and figure out what to do better next time, so work on 2020 Edition is already under way.  My Campaign version of the map has always been serving as the test bed for new features, which is a tradition I intend to keep, so this spring and summer an updated version is coming. Will update the borders to the new territorial control paradigm instead of the old claimed territory. 

Thanks to some well worded questions and criticism I came up with the idea to test out if Adobe Illustrator CS could be used to add mile markers at certain intervals along roads and trails. Initial trails where very promising, and you can see the first results in the image above. So now I will add a small marker every 10 miles and a larger marker every 50 miles. Thought this was a feature that needed GIS tools, but it looks like old Illustrator still has some tricks up it sleeve.  An special post on how I did this, and styles for download, will come later for Cartography Patrons when I have the final settings done.

Preparering for my next campaign set in the former Shield Lands in the winter of 598-599 CY, and as you probably all guess maps are a big part of my campaign planning. So the Empire of Iuz and its surroundings will get a major work over for the new Campaign Map 2019 Edition, with a special add-on in the form of my take on Iuz Demiplane. It will be my first foray into planar mapping, so don't expect too much , but one has too start somewhere right! 

So what can be left to talk about? 😉

Well, something that have been asked for since I posted my first map on the web, a "classic" map of the Flanaess. I'm hearing you, and now its the time to do a Flanaess 576 CY Map!

Struggled for a long time on how to approach this, and even did a smaller version a few years ago with just the same information that was on Darlene's original map. I have now decided to do it like the features that are on the 598 CY map existed back in 576 CY, and change borders, names and heraldry etc to match the situation of 572 CY. There will be exceptions of course, some places where not built until later, but they are the exception. And yes it will come with a 30 mile hex option, and no, my 30 mile hex layer will not match the one on Darlene's map. Despite this I think it is a map that many will find useful.

Gary Con preparations are under way and I just go back from the printer with a bunch of handouts presenting my Greyhawk mapping and my Patreon. You can download a PDF version here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nm9gyszyq7zmg3/Anna%20Meyer%2017.5x12%20inch%20Handout-preview.pdf?dl=0

The back side, seen above, is a sample area around Greyhawk. The print turned out really well, much better than previous prints I've done at Staples and other print shops. This print is done at a printing company where I help out from time in their art departement, with Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign work, and they have modern large capacity digital printing equipment. The equipment they have and the fact that I could oversee the whole process made me really pleased with the result. 

The good results with the Gary Con handout made me think, what about printing the whole map in pieces.  They largest format they can print borderless without resorting to expensive inkjet, is effectively 12x18 inches so we are talking a number of pieces here. One of the benefits of digital printing is that it can be done in small numbers. It will be expensive but less than the of $500 - $1K that an inkjet print would be. It is also a lot of work managing the print and then packaging and sending out the prints, but my Patreon members who are interested could be a manageable number to do. 

I've thought about doing this as a special offer when we reach 250 members, it will give me more steady funds so I can devote more time to do something like this. If it works out well it can be done as a yearly thing perhaps. If we reach 500 then the budget both in time and money increase and bigger print projects can be tackled.

Regular Twitch Mapping Sessions and special Patreon only sessions will start when I get back from Gary Con. The Patreon only sessions will use Zoom, a tool that makes two-way communication and high resolution screen share work well. Been using it now for the Legends & Lore Show and very pleased with how it works.

There are a number of new cool tools to look at as well as maps to work on!

Thank you again for making this possible, together we can make more Greyhawk maps!