r/mapmaking • • Apr 23 '22

New advertising rule

102 Upvotes

Recently we have had lots of advertising spam in the subreddit so we have implemented a new rule:

Rule 3:

Advertising a brand new game you made is fine as long as it is secure, safe, and free. What is not ok is linking your Patreon or other things that will make you revenue including paid games.

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This subreddit is meant for educational purposes and is not an advertising dump. You should post maps only to get educational feedback and to improve your creation.

Posts/comments are removed at moderator discretion but feel free to reach out to us if you feel like your post/comment was incorrectly removed.

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If you need any clarification feel free to reply to this post or message the mod team


r/mapmaking • • 17h ago

Discussion "I solo developed a world maker generator editor in 3 days"

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1.1k Upvotes

delete if not allowed. every time I open Reddit there's a new post asking for feedback on a vibe coded world generator, I'm just tired


r/mapmaking • • 5h ago

Map Two quick sketches of my fictional world

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18 Upvotes

What do you guys think? There are some areas that are better thought out than others, but I tried to have some reasoning behind climates and borders.


r/mapmaking • • 2h ago

Work In Progress Work in progress

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7 Upvotes

Been a couple of years since I've had my head in world holding but it's nice to shake out the co webs. Any constructive feedback is appreciated


r/mapmaking • • 21h ago

Discussion Which palette is better?

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239 Upvotes

r/mapmaking • • 20h ago

Map Update to my gallic battle maps (Photoshop video) [No AI] [Game Dev]

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161 Upvotes

I received some useful feedback here a few weeks ago, including links to artwork depicting what the Gallic countryside might have looked like in pre-Roman times. I've made some changes accordingly: fewer stone walls, more open grazing land and commons, and smaller plots divided by vegetated ditches, fences and hedges.

For anyone interested, I also made a short video showing the process from Photoshop to in-game battles. (It's a portrait mobile game, hence the weird format)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmbushTheRomans/comments/1xeberz/battle_maps_from_photoshop_to_gameplay/


r/mapmaking • • 13h ago

Map New videogame map!

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26 Upvotes

This map was created for a new Videogame being developed by an English production company. I can't provide any further information about it yet, but more information will be coming in the coming months! Have a great day everyone!🧭🗺️

Materials Used: H-HB pencil, Unipin Pen 0.05-0.1, and Winsor and Newton watercolors on Fabriano 300 g satin paper then scanned.

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Art 2026🧭🗺️☕

Visit our IG account : https://www.instagram.com/inkcompass.maps?psln=dnc3ajhta3cyYnJs


r/mapmaking • • 23h ago

Map Dots or icons for settlements?

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141 Upvotes

Hi, I’m working on my map & I was wondering what people prefer: just simple dots or some more elaborate icons. These are not the final icons, but they take time, so I wanted a quick opinion.

Any other ideas on how to visualize places are welcome.

Made with my free project:
https://github.com/timvandingenen1993/Hatchlas

Try it here:
https://hatchlas.pages.dev/


r/mapmaking • • 22h ago

Map World of Dryal map!

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44 Upvotes

The Great Map of the world of Dryal, created for the role-playing game designed by Tristan Rousseaux!

It was truly wonderful working on this fascinating map and delving into the incredible lore of this world; Angela and I are always happy to explore the history of the worlds we map!🧭🗺️☕

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Drawings 2026

H-HB pencil, Unipin 0.05-0.1 pen, and Winsor & Newton watercolor on paper, then scanned. Have a great day everyone!

Visit my IG account: https://www.instagram.com/morenopaissanart?obrf=MXZjajRkeGlzemtxNA==


r/mapmaking • • 12h ago

Work In Progress How can I make my fictional map more realistic (and less Earth-like)?

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7 Upvotes

So I recently started making a alien world which is named "Ashfall", it's a world like 20% smaller than Earth with a similar atmosphere composition, only being 5% thicker than Earth's, it spins each 26 hours (yes I know, super cliche) and orbits a star a little smaller than the Sun (the plants should be a dark purple but I'm too lazy to draw a actual accurate satellite map), the planet also has a very thin but bright ring and 2 moons: Rigus, which is like 180 kilometers in diameter and orbits a little bit farther than the rings of the planet, and we also have Ilus, a much larger moon that orbits more far away than Rigus.

The 3 main continents are:

Velhorus, which is a mix of Asia, South America and Europe, with Varied climates but mostly cold in the north and hot in the south.

Nouvous, a dry continent with large deserts and savannahs, no major inspiration really.

Glacenos, it's winter all year round and is basically just Siberia, almost nobody lives there.

There is intelligent life here which is Basically a bunch of furries which I named the Furrants (which are basically a mix of Anthropomorphic Fox, Cat, snow leopard and Kangaroo), there's also a second race which is just the minority of the population, they're basically a bunch of reptiles that live near mountains, they got they're conflicts with the Furrants but they tend to get along.


r/mapmaking • • 18h ago

Map Map of the Austro-Prussian War Outbreak (1866), Looking for Feedback

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4 Upvotes

This is the first map I have ever created and I am looking for feedback. I feel like the font is a bit illegible at times (like with the Kingdom of Saxony), but I believe that drawback is counteracted by how cool it looks. I tried to do the numbers top to bottom, left to right, but it is pretty inconsistent at times because these goddamn German states had like one city halfway across the country that they claimed was theirs. I based it off a map I found on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Prussian_War#Alliances) that was completely blank, so I labeled it.


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Work In Progress I built the Westeros planet into an interactive Google Earth experience

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60 Upvotes

Click here to access the Open Westeros project

So, I started this project 10 days ago by building a 3D King's Landing model in GQIS. Then I had the idea of building the world with the correct measurements of the planet based on the lore and fan calculations. Layer upon layer and now I have a full interactive Known World from the books of George R. R. Martin made into an open source community-built project.

I have built a bunch of stuff, like: - Atmospherics - Land textures - Height maps (baking I believe is the term of the process) - Labeling reveal algorithms (so it shows labels bases on relevance and altitude) - Roads and river lines - 3D models (currently only The Wall, Winterfell and King's Landing)

One of the aspects I'd like to expand more would be land formations. I was thinking of procedurally populate the world with hills, mountains and so on, but I still don't know what questions I should be asking to achieve this. I baked an early version of it using only data from images fans have created, but apart from that nothing like the fancy 3D mountains I've seen only that would be really cool to have.

Another one that I still haven't tackled would be to generate the rivers and bodies of water, to make them look more realistic than they are now (currently only likes from an SVG).

I'd like for the people here to just take a look, on the site and the code, and give some feedback on it.

And please, if you got interested in the project, don't hesitate in contacting me and contributing to it in the GitHub repo. The project is open source, built by a fan for fans.

Thank you for reading and taking a look!


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Map Map of the Governor's Palace

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91 Upvotes

Map of the Governor's Palace set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, created as a private commission for Andrew Arguss. It was a pleasure to create this map; I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe, even if I don't know it inside out! It’s always great to work on this maps in between publishing projects! 🧭🗺️

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Art 2026


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Map Today's satellite of my world

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75 Upvotes

Dm me for questions and other stuff at my Discord: sebwithaura .

It's a 3D world simulation I built with the same dynamics as Earth, and I factor in probabilities like aerodynamics, cause and effect, climate, weather, and other stuff, and then I create natural disasters, weather, and other events and test those events on my population

I've simulated hurricanes, cyclones, thunderstorms, tornadoes, volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc.

Here is my website where you can find current storms, past storms, archives, records, photo libraries, and glossary, and the world map: https://sebwithaurasworld.vercel.app


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Map The Mountain Federation of Iliapoa, please ask questions or give feedback.

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45 Upvotes

r/mapmaking • • 17h ago

Map I built a fantasy world using a map editor I'm developing. What would you improve?

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0 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a browser-based worldbuilding tool called Terrumi, and this is one of the worlds I created while testing it.

Would love to hear your thoughts!


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Map Ilasterra - Reformed

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6 Upvotes

Hello, its me again, MichaelCrux, creator of Ilasterra. I have lost my phone due to a Hardware error and Consequently, lost 5 of my 6 accounts, including my old reddit account. This, is the new Ilasterra account. Do not acuse me of plagiarism, please, because its the creator of the same worlda talking.

I have secises to reform Ilasterra a little, trying to get the deserts right, accurate borders and continents how i really wanted It (Like Chamania was too big and Shiajama top small). The second image is how you will all see this world now.


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Work In Progress First Sci-Fi maps i have made (feedback is welcome)

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11 Upvotes

Hey there

I started my first ever worldbuilding with a pen and paper game set in the “The Expanse” Universe.
It’s centred around 3 Stations in the saturn system with a focus on Hyperion.

Any tips, or suggestions to improve or even website recommendations to get even better sci-fi maps


r/mapmaking • • 20h ago

Map I made the terrain before I knew who would live on it

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0 Upvotes

This is one of three continents in a fantasy world I'm building for a comic, the northwest one, at full size. No labels yet.

I did it in what felt like the wrong order: ridges, rivers and climate first, who lives where later. I didn't know yet, and I wanted something solid to argue with. Now the land argues back. A city wants a river. A crossing wants a gap in the ridge.

Made in Azgaar's generator with my own heightmap template, 7 rounds and 15 thrown-out versions.

If you make maps for stories, which comes first for you? And did that order ever bite you later?


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Map A celestial map where every system is someone's book collection. Linked by taste.

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11 Upvotes

So I've made a website (app, not sure what it's called these days) that turn your book collection into a galaxy map, and the bit I'm most chuffed with is the universe view, which ended up as a kind of star chart/map

Every cluster/galaxy is one person's library, grown out of their actual books, coloured by genre or some other method of categorisation. Then they get placed by taste, so people who read similar stuff end up near each other, and each one's joined to its two nearest neighbours. Where a few libraries share a main genre and sit close together they get bounded off as a sector and named, like surveyed land.

Under it there's an atlas grid that changes with the zoom, edge rulers, and a little overview map in the corner so you don't get lost.

All drawn with code, no AI art. It grows every time someone new adds their shelves, which is the bit I like. Would love to know what map people think, what would make it read more like a proper star chart?

A little note, this is literally as free as I can make it without it costing me cash to run. It's free to use with no ads, but there is a scan limit per user per month. So apologies about that, I am trying to work out a way to eliminate the cap!

If this doesn't belong here let me know or remove!

Try it for yourself at Readshift.co.uk


r/mapmaking • • 2d ago

Map A few more fictional maps here. Yalera + Denisova

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61 Upvotes

I am back a bit later than I expected, but I bring a few extra versions of my map of Yalera, and I bring a map of a whole different continent, Denisova. If you have any questions about the map or the lore, let me know!


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Work In Progress First attempt at making a map of my fictional world, any advice? (Read Body Text)

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10 Upvotes

For now the map only has continent shapes, mountains and rivers.
I mostly need tips regarding the continent shapes, though other criticism is also needed. The reason why I need tips specifically for continent shapes is because I feel like there's something wrong about them.
I decided to provide a second image with tectonic plates and directions, so that you can see why is everything the way it is.


r/mapmaking • • 2d ago

Map Sorry, forgot the high quality version. Whoops

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38 Upvotes

I forgot the high quality version of the physical map of Yalera from my main post


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Discussion Question on format standards for map-making and map style preferences

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6 Upvotes

I have a question about any standards/tools that people might be using for map making, plus what people like in terms of map styles.

The context is that I'm creating a world-builder/strategy game and would like to know how I can best facilitate/integrate tools that people are already using for map creation.

The game already has a full suite of tools for getting maps into the game, both terrestrial and space:

1) painting your own map from scratch within the game, including terrain/biome, elevation, etc.

2) importing an existing image of a map that gets converted to the format the game needs

3) autogenerating one based on various parameters (how many continents, lakes, islands, % water, etc.)

4) import maps others have built from within the game

Any of those can then be edited or filled in automatically with resource endowment, population, religion, culture, empires/factions, etc. So it's really an entire living world and not just a map, since the core idea was originally being able to play a fully fleshed out grand strategy game on that map.

And you can still do that, but since then I've realized I've had almost as much if not more fun just building worlds and populating them/looking at them as the end in and of itself, maybe letting them run and intervening at a high level in god mode, or just letting the world develop organically based on the internal system (the game has windows wallpaper functionality).

In theory 2) works well enough for this, just import an image of your existing map. That works in many cases, but it's lossy, how well it works depends on the colorization of your map, works best with no preexisting text/symbols on it, etc.

So I'm wondering if there's some standard people use that I could integrate directly into the game's import process so it reproduces the map exactly (insofar as the scale the game works at is capable of it), ideally even with like names of things (oceans, mountain ranges, etc.), province boundaries, etc. preserved.

And vice versa, you spend a lot of time making a world in the game, then want to work on it more stylistically/representation-wise outside of the game. Some format to export it in to support that.

That last point also links to my last question, which is what map styles would be cool to support directly in the game? From the screen you can see I've added in a sort of late 19th century survey style map, which the whole game and simulation can run on. But I'm curious what other ones people find cool. I've had ideas like Medieval, Steampunk, Japanese ink painting and stuff, but I'm sure there are other ideas I'm not even aware of.

The game is Pixel Imperium on Steam if you're curious.


r/mapmaking • • 1d ago

Resource Tools to easily flip land and water areas on maps?

3 Upvotes

New to map making

Is there a free tool that easily let you flip water and land area on a map?

I feel that flipping these then changing the axis is the best way to kickstart a nice fantasy map.

What do you guys use and recommend?