SL Mapping for fun and profit

OK, I lied, it's actually just for fun.


After reading a thread wherein Moopf Murray posted an image of a landmass I'd only realized existed literally a few days before (when the land store opened and I was looking around). I was a bit confused on what exactly it was. (Obviously, I've figured it out since then.)

In the thread, I pointed out that I'd been living on the Atoll for almost six months without knowing what its official name is (I just found it while writing this post). I said that I've considered doing up a map of the SL world with the major landmasses labelled.

So, mostly for my own amusement, I am. I'm taking a bunch of screenshots of the world map, stuffing them all into one big image, making it a bit more attractive (read: manipulating colors and removing junk), and labelling things on it.

Basically, I'm labelling anything that looks big enough to bother with ... I probably won't bother with anything less than 3-4 sims unless it's Caledon (because I will be living there shortly), a Linden thing, or I otherwise know the place.

I'm not attempting to map the Simulator names -- slmaps.com already has links to that sort of info for most of the world. Rather, I'm trying to put down names to the continents and such, mostly so I know what the heck to call them. When people mention something like "Dreamland", others can go "Oh, yeah, I saw that on the map..." instead of having to track down what the heck people are talking about.

And labelling some of the more stable and important landmarks and locations (Welcome Area, Linden Village, the Great Wall, etc.). Think of it as my explorer's map.

The only problem with this idea is ... I don't actually know a lot of the information that I need.

I know these things:

* The Northern Continent is called Heterocera Atoll.
* The Southern Continent - For want of knowing the official name, I henceforth dub this land Sansara, which is mentioned on the History Wiki as one of the names that was contemplated for SL itself.
* The More Different Southern Continent (that's the one pictured in the thread above, and also the subject of some of the threads I link to below). In honor of the allusion I just made, plus the fact that there be dragons here, we could call it Rodgortlund! Or something ... more creative.
* Dreamland (I call it the Dreamland Archipelago, since it's not really a single landmass now.) I know where it is, but not the official borders ... I didn't have the patience to look up ALL of the islands Anshe owns and see where they were. So I just plopped a label down in that general area and called it it sufficient.
* Gamedev Archipelago - The diagonal line of Gamedev sims west of the atoll.
* Combat Archipelago - Rausch, Weapons Testing Sandbox, etc.
* Shermerville Island - Nine sims sitting Northeast of Sansara
* The Azure Islands - In the southwest. Mostly I know this because there's a screenshot in one of the threads linked below.

What I need:
* Feel free to correct me if I've gotten something official wrong. Of course, since I'm doing this primarily for my own amusement, I may decide to use what suits my tastes regardless.
* I gather that the two rectangular blocks of sims to the northeast and southeast of Sansara (and connected to it by void sims) were part of LL's recent experiements in land sale. But does anyone know what's going to happen to them? Part of another continent?
* I have a hard time exploring intriguing islands (or even getting their names) because the world map in SL invariably kills my internet connection if it is open for longer than approximately ten seconds, and I can't make links directly to them because I don't know their names (slmaps doesn't list them). If you are the owner of one of the larger groups of islands, a post with the official name and a screenshot of the relevant sims (with enough context so I can find them on my images), or better yet an SLURL would be helpful. In particular, there's the checkerboard west of Sandbox Island.

Of course, this could be completely pointless, since SL changes a lot, and because someone may well have already done it and I just hadn't heard. But I don't care.


Vaguely Related Links:
* Thread wherein the Northern Continent's name is mentioned by Torley
* Continent Directory idea, which would make this much easier if we had it.
* Thread about the More Different Southern Continent, and another
* Exploration thereof

I love the fact that someone is doing this!

And, secretly kinda happy that Caledon might get mentioned, I won't lie about that! It's like being "Map Feted Inner Core" or... something!

Neualtenburg, Avalon and maybe some other relatively historic, famous (or notorious!) islands might merit more attention than Caledon deserves as of yet. Gardens of Apollo come to mind as well.




I wonder if any tekki wiki people, Cadroe Murphy's or other folk would know of a quick, short, extra-world process to grab the map and reduce to .tga or something?

Because the world changes so quickly. I did a 'cut and paste' world map myself back in October, and it was more of a task than I expected to get rid of the 'junk'.

Can't wait to see the fonts and style of the map...

I will undoubtedly include some of those, since I do know a few of them. I just don't want it to get out of hand, and there are a lot more islands that I don't know than ones I do, since I can't really explore them very efficiently.

Prioritizing Caledon isn't terribly farfetched. I'm doing this because I have a taste for learning how things that I see relate to one another spatially, and because not knowing the names of major elements of the world annoys me. Thus, things that I've actually interacted with or heard about are going to be more likely to show up than not.



Assembling the images using screenshots via the "View Larger Map" link on the SL homepage (that is, full browser size) isn't too hard for the major stuff.

I could write something with the API to display one of those without all the Event icons and panning widgets and whatnot. I wrote a page that overlaid a parcel map onto Acontia back when the map API was first released; it's not hard, but it's probably more trouble than it is worth, since I don't plan to update it for every little change (may not ever update it at all, who knows).

Currently, it's blue toned with a victorian font for the labels. I was going to do sepia, but it's a bit harder to read that way ... and why be predictable?

The 30 sim tropical continent east of the old mainland is called "Islandia".

The old mainland itself has some regions that people generally refer with names to:

- Snowlands (snowy area)
- Lost Lakes (triangle between Janus and the northeast and southeast corner of old mainland continent)
- Hawaii Sims (also sometimes called "Mahulu region" is 40 sim vulcano island area
- Nuba region (all the green tropical island sims near Nuba and Lozi)

That's the one in the Southeast, then?



I've found a few of these on the History wiki (not all the ones you mention, though, I think).

Thanks!

The grid as a whole is called Agni.

That's Korea, or the Korean Continent. Look at the names of all the sims!

Don't forget the dAlliez Islands.

I'm sure that big chunk of Gorean sims should have a name. I call it "Ar" after a couple of the sims but I have no idea if that's right.

There's the six sims of Furnation, and the six sims of Fox Valley.

Rosario has three sims. And really unusual terraforming, as if it was based off an 8-bit paint program... I don't know if the layer-cake effect is deliberate or not but it's very striking.

The main continents is just "the main continent" to me, but it's got distinct areas... there's the river sims with asteroid names (the asteroid belt?), the snowy mountains, the cliffs of inanity along the east edge...

Yup. I knew that but it hadn't occcurred to me to use it on the map. I think it'll be the map title as a whole.



I knew the sims had that theme, but not that that was the official name of the continent.

Hmm. Naming SL continents after RL lands ... don't think I like that idea much. Sims ... sure. The whole continent?

"So, where do you live?"

"Korea"

"Wow, really?"

"Yeah. It was nice at first, but then all the flying ad cubes and zombie malls came in and paved the whole thing over."

"Yeah, that suc ... wait. What?"



Soon as I figure out where they are ... that's the point of this thread. I need to connect names like that to an actual place on the grid. Or places on the grid to a name.

For most of these areas, I know one or the other but not both, and no good way to get the missing piece, since I can't use the map to check them out.

Well, I've got several of the places Argent mentioned now. Still need a few more.

Incidentally, does anyone know where the mapping API documentation went? The URL in the original post by Bo Linden does not work anymore.

Dyne, this do ya good?

Yes, thank you.

Is that linked from somewhere on the regular site? I couldn't find a link manually, and the forum doesn't allow you to search for "API" (too short).

I didn't see a link--I just Googled for it. I'll ask Bo tho... in case there's a link somewhere.

I have no idea if it's even got an official name, but nobody's confused by "the Korean continent".
Start at Rue dAlliez and work west.