Quick Guide - Megasploot/Wonderdraft GitHub Wiki

Wonderdraft is an OpenGL software. It leverages the capabilities of your graphics card to create effects to emulate fantasy style maps. Like GIMP and Photoshop, Wonderdraft is a bitmap image processor. The resulting map exported by Wonderdraft is a JPEG or PNG.

First Map

When you first launch Wonderdraft, you will be met by a loading screen followed by an empty window with a top menubar. To create your first map, click New or Ctrl+N. Select a theme and click Okay. Pastel is a good first choice. After a brief moment, you should see an empty canvas filled by an ocean texture.

Navigation

At this time, I recommend navigating around the map. Try Middle Mouse+Drag or Spacebar+Left Mouse+Drag to move the map. Then, try Ctrl+Mouse Wheel to zoom in out and of the map. It should begin to feel like navigating Google Maps.

Landmass

Now, let's try creating a basic world map. First, recenter the map with Ctrl+0. Then, click on the Landmass Wizard icon on the left toolbar. Your Tool Options panel (on the right side of the window) will change to a new set of options. Select the World option from the Pattern dropdown. Click the large Generate button below. Wait several seconds for the computer to work and you should see a world map on screen.

If after generating a landmass, no landmass appears except a glowing outline of a landmass, your graphics card has an outdated driver. Please go to the graphic card manufacturer's website to download the latest drivers from Nvidia, AMD, or Intel.

Drawing

To help you draw your map, Wonderdraft comes with a full suite of tools. The top left corner has a list of tabs, Water, Landmass, Symbols, Labels, and Overlay. Clicking these tab items will change the toolbar to show tools designed for each of these categories. E.g. You select the Symbols tab and Mountain Tool to start drawing mountains. Left click+Drag anywhere on the canvas to create a mountain range.

Saving

Saving the map allows you to continue modifying the map in future sessions. Click Save from the top menu or Ctrl+S to open the Save Dialog. By default, Wonderdraft will save the map in the 'maps' folder inside the 'user folder'. For Windows, it is located in %AppData%/Wonderdraft/maps.

Exporting

To display or print your map outside of Wonderdraft, you will want to export the map to another format. Click Export from the top menu or press Ctrl+E to bring up the Export options. Use the default settings for most exports. You will be prompted to choose a name and a format (jpg or png). Note the location of the folder to find the exported image afterwards.

Suggested Workflow

While you can work in any sequence in Wonderdraft, if you have not created a fantasy map before, consider the following workflow.

  1. New Map
  2. Draw Landmass
  3. Add Mountains
  4. Add Rivers
  5. Color Biomes
  6. Add Trees
  7. Add Settlements
  8. Add Labels
  9. Export to Image