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Fractal World Explorer - Labels? Mark up? Ease of use.

zornhauzzornhau
edited September 2013 in Fractal Mapper General
Hi - I'm a primarily an author, though also a gamer. I'm hoping you guys can help me.

I want is to use Fractal World Explorer as a creativity tool, if that makes sense: create a world and wander over it adding human features such as cities, roads and labels... you get the idea.

But does Fractal World Explorer do this? (There doesn't seem to be a demo, hence the question.)

Cheers and thanks

Martin

EDIT For wrong software title!

Comments

  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    There's a trial version. Under 'Downloads' in the site's menu.

    http://www.nbos.com/download/download-trial.htm
  • zornhauzzornhau
    ARGH! I meant to type does Fractal World Explorer do this?
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    FWE is a terrain generator. There is no markup capability in FWE - it just edits terrain. Its a free add-on designed to support Fractal Mapper. If you want to add roads, rivers, and other items on a map, you'd create the terrain in FWE, and then import it into FM to be able to add text, lines, and other objects.

    FWE is included with the commercial version of Fractal Mapper. If you really want to take a look at it, there's a trial version of FWE in Astro 3's trial download.
  • zornhauzzornhau
    Yes, thanks, just realized it had quietly installed itself as part of the evaluation copy. It's elegant and easy to use, but, of course, it doesn't have any sort of markup.

    I think this is a pity.

    The logical distinction between the two kinds of software makes less sense from the world building point of view;

    I want to build and manage my world holistically, bringing to life trade routes and cultures and then spawn maps as required.

    For SF world building, I often wouldn't need the maps - just the location of star ports and bases would be fine.
  • Ed_NBOSEd_NBOS
    I think you misunderstand how the different pieces of software go together. Fractal Mapper is the primary program. That is what is used to create maps. FWE is a free add-on for creating and editing terrain graphics that can be placed on the background of a Fractal Mapper map, which are then annotated with text, lines, and mapping symbols. Fractal Mapper is a 2d vector based graphic system (lines, text, shapes, symbols), FWE is a 3d terrain editor (height field data, not vector data). The reason they are separate is because they are two completely different types of graphics/data.
  • zornhauzzornhau
    Ed_NBOS wrote:
    I think you misunderstand how the different pieces of software go together. Fractal Mapper is the primary program. That is what is used to create maps. FWE is a free add-on for creating and editing terrain graphics that can be placed on the background of a Fractal Mapper map, which are then annotated with text, lines, and mapping symbols. Fractal Mapper is a 2d vector based graphic system (lines, text, shapes, symbols), FWE is a 3d terrain editor (height field data, not vector data). The reason they are separate is because they are two completely different types of graphics/data.


    No I get that and I appreciate that it's probably too technical complicated.

    However, what you're not getting is that from the user point of view, the technical distinctions are just under-the-hood stuff. I just want to create and manage my fantasy world using a globe as a reference point.

    EDIT: I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to troll here. This suite of programs is an amazing and enticing achievement. It's just frustrating that nobody seems to support my kind of workflow.

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