Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well, normally I'm not privy to giving away my secrets, but it's not like I have enough of a competition that I have anything to fear, and really the entire guild could benefit from some map-making knowledge. Besides, I wasn't even the one who came up with the method in the first place (I stole the idea from several other users on this site and others after examining their text in "quote" mode).

All I ask is that you post a charecter in the Tournamet Charecters thread; nobody's entering, I'm beggining you! gonk

*Cough* [/guilt trip]

What you need to do use the "Quote" function from your message options in a post and put your map text inside of it. When finished, it should look something like this, exept that you have to make the { }'s into [ ]'s.

{code} "text" {/code}

When done correctly, with [ ]'s, it should look like this



Now, the way you get your numbers to match up with your rows is a little complicated, but with a little practice it becomes easy. You must start your first line of text with three periods "..." Then, start your numbers immediately after the last period, and put a single space betwen each number thereafter. It should look like this:

Sample Map
...1 2 3 4 5
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)

You put your non-capitalized letters on the side. Then, to add the "squares" you use | | | (this key is the capital function of the button just below the "backspace" key). When filled in, it should look like this:

Sample Map
...1 2 3 4 5
a)| | | | | |
b)| | | | | |
c)| | | | | |
d)| | | | | |
e)| | | | | |

This looks fairly straight right now even as it is, but if you were to try and add letters to this map (to sybolize charecters and such)...

...1 2 3 4 5
a)|W| | |@| |
b)| | | | | |
c)| | |$| | |
d)| | | | | |
e)| | | | |R|

The lines instantly get out of wack. However, so long as you maintain the rule of one chareter in each space, when you put it into code format, everything will line up perfectly:



If your map is particularily big (as mine is) you might have numbers with two digits in it. However, writing this out the long way looks sloppy, and is hard to read:



However, this can be avoided by posting the numbers vertically. You must make two rows for numbers. For single digit rows, the row above your number will have a period above it. So, for this map, we will need 13 period (the 4 periods to match length with the lower row, and 9 periods to space evenly with the numbers; placing one space between each period after the fourth). Then, you simply add your 1's or 2's and continue the bottom row as usual. If done correctly, it will look like this:




And there you have it. Happy mapmaking!

Thank you Anketh! Your DM is pleased. Hehehe...& don't worry, I planned on entering that as well, I'm working on finishing the character, it'll be posted real soon, as well as my map.

Top Down

Side View

The map can change it's environment, the floors can become stone, thick forest, and just about anythin gelse you can imagine. The terrain can become hilly, even extremely step [mountain]. the hills can go from a 2-1 ratio [five feet up for every ten feet] to a 1-3 ratio [five feet forward for evey fiften feet up] Trees have anywhere from 5 to fifteen feet in between them, or can be placed at random points on the map.