A Little Background on Sci Fi Terrain Maps

Last year I began experimenting with using real satelite imagery from Nasa and other sources to create aerial terrain maps, and then applying various graphical tricks to see what I could create. The results were a mix of useful geographical terrain and abstract science fiction landscapes, and some of them were incredible.

I knew I was on to something really neat.

The problem I faced was the gridding - even if we custom tailored the opacity of the grid for each landscape, some games preferred smaller grids for soldiers and skirmish warfare, and some games needed larger grid for epic mech battles and spaceship crash landings. Having just 1 grid completely ruined the otherwise incredible versatility of these maps.

But earlier this year, with the success of the Clear Map Grids campaign, we can create plastic overlays as the grid for these maps. This will not only allow you to instantly swap grid style or sizing, it also means these maps do not need to be laminated, since the overlays are already wet and dry erasable. This cuts down on sheet thickness, weight, cost and production times.

Whats in a "Box"?

At least 24 pages of maps, with double sided printing. But with stretch goals, we can go higher, to a maximum of around 40 pages per box (plus overlays). The number of different 'scenes' will depend on how many pages are used to create each scene.

The original experiments were made in a 3-page-wide format. All of our maps are cut to 11"x17", so these came in at a total of 33"x17" per scene. It's a very nice size. Our initial funding goal will be for the creation of this initial box format, with 24 double-sided pages, that make 16 scenes of 3 pages each. We're starting out with 9 different experimental maps, but we'll be creating more and polling our backers to see what styles they prefer, and what direction they would like this project to go.

Costs are locked in at $80 + s&h per box. If the initial goal is met, maps are $3.33 a page, but as the box gets larger it decreases the price per page significantly.

If some boxes have special pricing concerns, we'll address them on a case by case basis.