My daughter has almost completed writing her own fantasy novel (think Lord of the Rings style) and she would like me to create a 3d map of her world she has written about, so that she or anyone else can just wander around in it, and visualise it.

Any ideas which map making tools I should be looking at to create it? It doesn't have to be HL2 based either.

I don't really want to be creating new 3d models either, just essentially, forming a terrain, and adding, mountains, trees, huts, cliff faces, forest, water, pathways etc

Thanks in advance for any assistance (p.s. I couldnt see a generic forum for posting a non HL2 specific question. Happy to do it in any SDK/map maker))

Cheers,
Max

Dono about HL2 but in the CoD games it would be hard to make a whole world. You would have to do it section by section and it would most likely take years to do anything halfway decent

(that is if he story is like most fantasy fiction stories and takes place over a large area.)

Do you have any mapping experience? What games do you have?

Hey Mpz, thanks for the reply.

Initially I was thinking I have games such as Half Life i/ii, Quakes, BF2, UT, Far Cry, etc

Since posting my initial question I was thinking a little more about what I already have, or more to the point what my kids have on my system. What they have is Battle for Middle Earth I and II so I googled for that.

Seems it has a map builder and is also in the right genre so I will check out what that has to offer.

I take your point about it possibly involving several maps because the map world will be large. Again an RTS style BFME II might be able to handle this in a single map and the graphics level in that game is quite good, so may be ok (even though it isn't quite the same as wandering around in a half life 2 episode style of map).

I have no experience in using map/world builders although I am a programmer/IT person by profession and written and created graphics for a 2d DOS based game. That isn't much help in 3d world building though.

Cheers,
Max

Another thing I would suggest, though probably not the best option would be making the scenes in 3ds max and rendering it. Im still dumbfounded with 3ds max but trying to learn it, so as I said not sure if this would be the best thing to do.

thanks TexasRebel, however I don't own the software, and I think that level of ability is beyond me, or would take years to achieve.

I have had a play with the free blender 3d software and struggled with that, so again creating an entire world isn't feasible in a short to medium timeframe.

You used the word dumbfounded and that probably is an apt description of how I felt with blender.

Thanks,
Max

you should take a look at the ut2003/4 it's not that hard to create a wide open area with mountains and such in that engine, i guess it goes the same for ut3, but it isn't released yet so i haven't had an opertunety to look at the editor

bartje321 writes...Be careful about getting into editing for the Unreal series at this point. If you learn to work with existing Unreal games, then you will have a difficult time transitioning to Unreal 3. The editing will be that much different.

I agree that it sounds like you would want to look into an RPG-type game. However I don't know (and don't think) you will be able to do much other than working with terrain unless you also get into modeling. I believe the buildings in most RPG games are models from something such as 3D Max.

I would recommend the Quake series of engines or Half-Life 2. They will allow you to create terrain and create buildings.

Take a look at some of the video tutorials we have (tutorial page link on the left with videos at the bottom). Look at Call of Duty too because it utilizes the Quake engine and will be extremely similar in editing.

You might also want to look into the new crysis game. I have seen a video of the editor and it makes CoD2 mapping look like quantum physics in comparison.

I have seen none easier to manipulate terrain, and make natural looking grass/bushes/trees.

What you need is an editor to a game like morrowind but I'm not sure any are out.

edited on Nov. 7, 2007 10:57 am by Mpz

I agree with Mpz, but also you can generate terrain within Crysis using heightmaps, so with a couple of clicks of a button you can create realistic terrain, or you can take images of real world locations and generate them within the sandbox editor. There is some software out there that lets you take Google Earth images and change them into heightmap images for terrain purposes, but I can't remember it at the moment. Anyone else know what I talking about?

Thanks guys for all the suggestions.

I will check out BFME II editor and also I downloaded and played with the demo SP crysis, so hoping I already have the editor for that, and will check that out.

I think I opened up the tools in HL2 a little while back and thought, hmmm, I have no idea how to use this, but maybe with some tutes on this site I might get somewhere.

Cheers guys,
Max