World Map Tutorial

Hopefully, if you are trying to learn how to make a map for your world space, you’ve already made your world. If you don’t have a world then please read the tutorials on world building and hightmap editing before attempting this tutorial.

Assuming that you do have a ready made worldspace I’ll start this tutorial. This is however NOT the way Bethesda did it. I had to work this out on my own with no help from other modders and no tutorials. It may not be the best way of doing this but it does work and it works very well. I have not tried it on a small worldspace so I don’t know if it will work the same on an island as it does on a continent.

So! You have a brand new worldspace, you’ve done most of the work but when you go into your game, enter your world and bring up the map, you still see the Cyrodiil map. You can’t even fast travel around your worldspace to check out all the new things that you have added. Well we’re going to fix that.

First, you will need two programs

Faststone image viewer available at MajorGeeks.com

And Paint.net google it

If you don’t like using free programs you can always make a donation to any of those sites.

Getting started

You will need a screen shot of the hightmap editor with your worldspace displayed . Make sure that all of your worldspace is showing.



You can take a screenshot in Windows XP by holding Ctrl and hitting PrtScn, open paint (Yeah, the program that came with your PC) Holding Ctrl and hitting V will post the screenshot to paint. Now save the paint image with a name you can remember. It would be best to save it to a new folder so that it is easy to find later. For this tutorial I built a world and named it TutorialWorld I saved all images in TuteFolder. Close paint.

(Sorry but I couldn't get any screenshots with FIV open)

Open Fastone image viewer (FIV)using the screen on the left, navigate to your hightmap screenshot and double click the image. This will bring it up on the screen. Moving the cursor to the top, bottom, left or right side of the screen brings up new menu’s. Move the cursor to the left hand side of the screen and click on “crop board” in the list.

In the new window draw a box around the entire image. Drag the squares to adjust it to make sure you get all of the image. On the bottom left you should see “Preserve Aspect Ratio” with a check box, make sure it is un-checked. Above the aspect ratio button you can see two sets of numbers choose the right side square for dragging the crop line and watch the numbers as you move it inward. The number that did not change is the height of the image. You want a square image so move both sides inward until you have a square. The numbers should match now. Crop the image and save it.

On the left side choose the resize option. This time make sure that the “Preserve aspect ratio” button IS checked and change the size to 1024. Notice that both numbers changed to 1024?
Save the image again and exit FIV.

Open Paint. Click on file/open and navigate to your hightmap screenshot. The 1024x1024 square image that you just made.




Using the paint brush tool, set at a large size brush, and choosing black, outline your world. You can use smaller brush sizes to outline lakes, rivers, mountains and any other landmarks you want in your map but use a heavy brush for the worlds outline.




With the large brush and using white paint, paint everything inside and outside of your outline. This doesn’t have to be perfect so don’t worry about every single colored pixel. (square)



When you are finished you should have an outline of your world on a white page. Use the bucket fill tool and choosing a bright color like red, fill in your world. You should have an even color. If you have white patches you need to repaint those areas. If the image looks solid, use bucket fill and paint the area white again. Do the same with the outside of your world as well.

Using the brush tool you can now thin the border. Circle your mountain with a bright color like red and switching to the line tool with black paint, draw in your landmarks. Use the bucket fill to paint the red white. You can at this point add all the details that you want or you can layer some of them in paint.net later. The more details you add, the better the finished map will look. Remember to save the image when you are finished.



Now we need to google “parchment” and choose the image tab. Find a parchment that you like and save it to the same folder as your hightmap and your new hand drawn map. Using FIV open the parchment and use the same method as before to create an 1024X1024 pixel image and save it. That new folder is coming in handy isn’t it?



Now we need to open Paint.net

Navigate to your hand drawn map and choosing the “wand” tool remove everything that you don’t want on your map from the image. When something is removed or deleted a checker board pattern replaces it. Keep only what you want on your map.





When you are finished, choose file/select all, file/ copy.
Now choose file/ open and open your background image (your 1024X1024 parchment.



Click the pages in the bottom right window, This will open the layer
Hit file again but this time click the “past” option.

WOW! Look at that. Now that’s a nice map.



Are you done admiring your work? Okay let’s move on. Click the file tab again and choose “save as” in the pop up window , name the file and choose DDS from the drop down menu. Save it in the same folder as all the other stuff. Two screens will pop up



Yes, Flatten



But do not save the other opened windows

Now to put your map in the game. Open your “My Documents” , find and open the map folder. Do you see a new DDS file? Good! Right click on it and copy it.



Open C:/Program Files/ Bethesda Softworks/ Oblivion/ Data

Look under textures/ menus If you don’t have a folder named “Maps” create one now. Inside Maps there should be a folder named “World” if not create that also. Now paste your DDS into your world folder and close the files.

Open the CS (construction set) Choose your world esp., set it as active and hit OK
From the World tab choose your world. See the button for adding a map? Click it and navigate to your new map DDS.



Do you remember the dimensions of your map? 1024x1024. Add them to the appropriate boxes. Choose the world tab and select Tamriel, You can use these numbers as a starting point. Add the numbers to your world, save and exit the CS.



If you have a way into your world, now is the time to go ingame and check everything out. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Your map looks good but it’s a mess isn’t it. All the reference points are off, Your cursor shows that you are in the ocean when you are standing on the shore and I bet you can’t even look at the bottom of your map. Am I right? Well it’s time to start the real work. It’s been fun up until now but it’s going to get bad from here on out.

The best way to correct these problems is through trial and error. Each time you change a number you will need to check it out ingame. Do not close the CS for this or it’s going to take you a lifetime. Instead, minimize the CS and open Oblivion, check your map, close Oblivion. Go to the CS and try another number

I can tell you what most of the numbers will do and that is a lot more help than I got when trying to figure this out.



X the 1024 is the width of your map and this should be ok so I wouldn't advise messing with it unless some of your map on the side is missing.

Y is the maps highth, if the bottom of your map will not show ingame, increase this number. I had to increase it to 1175 to get my map right.

NWCellX this is how wide the working part of your map is. If you go east and west on your world and the cursor shows you in the ocean when you are actually on the shore, you will need to increase this number.

NWCellY this should be the same as NWcellX except that it stretches the map north and south. I didn't have to adjust this much.

SECellX this is for adjusting the placement of your icons. When you enter your world you should see an icon on the map, moving this number up will move that icon west (left), down moves it east (right)

Changing either NWCellX or NWCellY changes the structure of the map meaning that both the lower numbers will have to be adjusted. I suggest getting them correct before fine tuning the icons with the lower two numbers

SECellY same as SECellX except that this moves the icon up and down. Raising this number moves the icon north, lowering it moves the icon south

Remember to minimize the CS so that you will not have to wait for it to load between each tweak. It's not as hard as modders would have you believe and you should pick it up fairly easy.

To show some of what can be done I am posting this shot of the map I am currently working on

I believe that I have explained everything clearly and you should have no problem with this tutorial. I have posted the link to this tutorial many times to people who are trying to find a way to make a map. No one has ever contacted me. This means one of several things.

1: The people who want to make a map for their world don't want to read all of this tutorial and therefore never try it.

2: The tutorial is so well written that everyone who tries it is successful. They make a map for their world that works and then never contact me or visit my forum again.

3: People come here, see the tutorial and then forget where the tutorial is and therefore, never try it.

Although I know that this tutorial will produce a working map of any worldspace, I don't know how clear the tutorial is. I ask that anyone who does use this tutorial please contact me and let me know how I can make the tutorial easier to follow. If the tutorial is clear and you make your own map, please send me a copy so I can see the results others are having. I can be contacted here, on the Nexus forums, at SavageArtistry forums and on the Bethesda forums. All of my memberships are under the name Exanimis

Thank you
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