Great tool for making planet surfaces

[endwarde]

Many of you are probably aware of this program, but I just found and purchased the software recently and I am still WOWed by it.

It's called Fractal Terrains, and what it can do is automatically generate a random world map, complete with elevation data, Temperate Growth zones, Annual rainfall zones, and temperature zones. And the maps are beautiful. I printed out some maps for a survey mission for my players and they were really amazed by them.

You can give the program parameters such as % of water on the surface, highest and lowest elevations, continent size, world diameter, etc... Then you just let it do its thing and Voila, you have a world all made for you. While in the program, you can measure distances between points, view the world in all sorts of formats, and export the data to other programs like CC2(CAD for gamers) or Jpgs or whatnot so you can overlay other graphics on top of the images. You can even export all the elevation and other data with the map and have CC2 create legends and distance bars according to how zoomed in the image you exported was.

I don't mean to sound like an ad for it, but I had been looking for something to get out of the plain ol' hex world maps, and I imagine other folks here would like it too. You can download a demo of it at http://www.profantasy.com

Enjoy folks!

 

[Falkayn]

Eric,

FT is a great tool, but one I've found even easier to use is Flaming Pear's LunarCell plugin for photoshop (which I use in Fireworks).

The Universe plugin is also really good for star backgrounds etc.

Sample results of both are viewable online. That image took abotu 10 mins (mainly because I was finicky about colours and wanted a moon).

 

[johnsocp]

Originally posted by Falkayn:
Eric,

FT is a great tool, but one I've found even easier to use is Flaming Pear's LunarCell plugin for photoshop (which I use in Fireworks).

The Universe plugin is also really good for star backgrounds etc.

The only problem is cost, adobe photoshop is expensive. I agree it is simple and yelds great results. I have used both, but pricepoint wise go with fractal terrains.

--Chris

 

[tenntrav]

For someone who doesn't have photoshop, which would be a better buy to plot deck plans, SF fractal maps and fantasy 2d maps? CC2 or Fractal Mapper? What are the comparable prices to be able to do all three jobs in each environment?

Thanks,

tenntrav

 

[endwarde]

Originally posted by tenntrav:
For someone who doesn't have photoshop, which would be a better buy to plot deck plans, SF fractal maps and fantasy 2d maps? CC2 or Fractal Mapper? What are the comparable prices to be able to do all three jobs in each environment?


Thanks,

tenntrav

=========================
Fractal mapper is great for making world sized maps which you can zoom WAY in on and extract maps from. It isn't really good for making deck plans or dungeons or anyhthing.

CC2 (which works with FM great) is more for making towns, dungeons, deckplans, hex maps, etc... You can make maps manually with its drawing tools and do neat stuff like draw a road and tell the program to populate the side of the road with buildings of the type you choose. You can also make a dungeon, and have the program auto populate the dungeon with stuff like furniture and stuff. You can layer the maps so you can show your players an image (or printout) of a dungeon, and then on the dm's copy, have traps and the like showing for his layer. There are all sorts of neat CAD things you can do. I did find, though, that it appears that it's more aimed towards fantasy gaming than anything else, but the symbols included will work for my SCIFI needs.

FT goes for about $35. CC2 goes for about $75. The add on packs for CC2 (which give more symbols for towns, dungeons, etc...) go for about $35 a piece.
I find that I really enjoy having both programs, because I can make the world in FT, export images of close ups from a continent to CC2, create a city or whatnot and then link that back to the FT map so I can basically zoom in on an area and automatically call up the CC2 maps. It's pretty darn cool.
It sounds like, though, if you were to get one, that CC2 might be more of what you are looking for.

Endwarde

 

[sandman]

Originally posted by johnsocp:
The only problem is cost, adobe photoshop is expensive. I agree it is simple and yelds great results. I have used both, but pricepoint wise go with fractal terrains.

--Chris

Fortunately, Photoshop isn`t the only program that can use it`s plugins.

FYI:

"Paint Shop Pro 7 supports any Adobe standard interface plug-ins up to version 4 (Photoshop 5.5). Some plug-ins may use non-documented interfaces, and these will not work."

Paint Shop Pro 7.0 is 99USD in download
http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/

The Flaming Pear FAQ also directly deals with Paint Shop Pro plugins installation.

 

[worj]

Originally posted by Sandman:
...Paint Shop Pro 7.0 is 99USD in download...

...or only about $40 or so if you can get it from one of the superstores on sale with rebates!

 

[BeRKA]

Originally posted by Falkayn:
I've found even easier to use is Flaming Pear's LunarCell plugin for photoshop

Thank you! I've always had trouble making nice looking planets. Now it's almost too easy.