My map of the Spinward Marches

[Scarecrow]

I thought you guys would like to see this.

I'm planning on starting a campaign in the Spinward Marches soon - centered around Regina.
So, I decided to put together a map handout for my players.

On the top we have the full map a little bit smaller than it's printed size. It should span two sheets of A4 (about 16"). On the bottom is the image at screen resolution so you can see all the lovely detail that has been compressed out of the full size version

I've offset the planets in their hexes so that they don't all line up in neat vertical and diagonal rows. They are still within their hex but just not centered. I'm going to put together a system datafile for the players that details the distances between them so they don't need to have the hex grid overlayed. I haven't added the system data to the map yet either (starport type, gas giant etc etc..)
For the planets I've used Behind the Claw and the Internet as reference. I only had the maps for Regina and Dinom so the rest are made up. I've tried to vary them visually as much as possible.

Enjoy, Crow

 

[robject]

Now that's a starmap.

 

[TheEngineer]

Pretty good looking map !
Nearly too pretty for Traveller

Huh, a tiny part my technocratic engineering personality misses some kind of coordinate system in the map....

 

[Border Reiver]

Very nice.

I'm sure with a little effort the citizens could supply a list of available maps for 'Crow, perhaps even post a few copies for him.

 

[Valarian]

Very nice. How was it created?

 

[Malenfant]

That looks pretty awesome

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by Valarian:
Very nice. How was it created?

Photoshop, with lots and lots of layers of varying layer types and judicious use of the Distort>Spherise filter

It was originally a lot bigger but there were some 64 planets to illustrate (Traveller space is really crowded) which gave me the fear, so I shrank it down to a 12 parsec dia which still gives me a load of planets of varying types.

Crow

 

[Laryssa]

Do the appearance of the planets have anything to do with their hydrographic percentage? A planet with a hydrographic percentage digit of 1 would not look very blue for instance.

 

[Scarecrow]

Yes, though I guestimated it the water coverage is dictated by it's hydrographic percentage. I might've cocked up in some place. It gets confusing. A world might be frozen but have 5% water coverage. In those instances I represented the water as ice concentrated at the poles. I was trying not to have too many earth-like planets but the bulk of them were in the 30-70% water coverage and Normal atmosphere. I was desperate for a Star Wars style 'Jungle World' too but none presented itself =(

Crow

 

[mike wightman]

Now that is a much better way to show the planets in a subsector IMHO

Well done Crow, it's a brilliant piece of work

Any chance it'll be available to buy as a pdf...

 

[Scarecrow]

Sure. Let me finish it and I'll put the full size image online somwhere - (free, btw).

Crow

 

[mike wightman]

Could you do each quadrant...

 

[hydrozoa]

Extraordinary work, Crow. Many thanks for sharing this here.

 

[mike wightman]

By the way, have you seen Andrew Bolton's excellent <a href="http://www.traveller3d.com/igsm/index.htm" target="_blank">Illustrated Guide To The
Spinward Marches</a>?

Could you have the worlds different sizes?

 

[Zob10701]

Nice work, Crow.

A clean, simple layout and an easy to read non-serif font. A very good design, indeed.

Can't wait to get the completed PDF.

 

[jfetters]

'Crow, that looks great!!

Reminds me of the old 2300 AD starmaps...

 

[Scarecrow]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
By the way, have you seen Andrew Bolton's excellent <a href="http://www.traveller3d.com/igsm/index.htm" target="_blank">Illustrated Guide To The
Spinward Marches</a>?

Could you have the worlds different sizes?

I have indeed seen Andrew's IGttSM and I'd love each page of my accompanying gazetteer to have similar illustrations - they'd need to be as realistic as Andrew's to stand up to that scale though =).

Something I have contemplated - and may very well do actually - is scale the images so that they are in proportion to each other. I think it makes sense.

Crow

 

[Pickles]

Beautiful work. I hope you get the PDF up in the next week or two, while I still have access to the university printers!

 

[inexorabletash]

Holy crud, Scarecrow, that's nice. I'm reminded of the "starmaps" you see in movies like the later Star Treks or Serenity.

Of course, those are holographic, but that's just incentive for v.Next.

Someone remind me in a year and I'll make this a rendering option in my map site.

 

[Berg]

Brilliant Sir!