[Heightmap] Map of Canada (with a bit of USA and Greenland)

[NekoMaster]

I finally finished a map I've been working on for 3 days now.

Because I can't get any decent LARGE heightmaps of canada, I decided to make my own map from a Map I found in an Atlas.

Its not 100% perfect as some rivers and water bodies may have been left out or drawn incorrectly.

I wanted to make a huge heightmap of Canada so players and myself can get a grasp of how big Canada is, and even at 4096x4096 size not every town and city will fit in, but most of the major and minor towns will fit.

There isn't any elevation for now, so its completely flat. Though with all the lakes and rivers players will still have some fun trying to work around the lakes and rivers (unless you just flatten everything)

I plan on making a scenario out of this soon, but after working on this 3 days strait from waking up till I goto bed I'm tired and my hand hurts from all the clicking and dragging in Paint.net.

Well, here it is Have fun.

[wallyweb]

WOW!
Finally the territories will get a decent rail service.
I've been trying to do one of these for a couple of years now. Well done.
If I get some time between projects I may try to add the Rockies and some height to enable Niagara Falls and the Lachine Rapids, unless you get to them first.

[NekoMaster]

WOW!
Finally the territories will get a decent rail service.
I've been trying to do one of these for a couple of years now. Well done.
If I get some time between projects I may try to add the Rockies and some height to enable Niagara Falls and the Lachine Rapids, unless you get to them first.

I'm actually glad to see someone happy I did something around here
After checking out a Canada scenario from the content downloader I found it to be way too small and cramped for Canada, so I wanted to make a more realistically sized Canada so people can grasp the sparseness of towns and openness of Canada, plenty of space to place your own Trans-canada highway and Cross country railroads.

I dunno if I'll do that stuff my self, as its a lot of work and time for me to add in stuff like that. Hell I'm suprised it only took me 3 days to get this map done, I was more expecting about a week to finish up all the lakes, rivers, islands, and bays of canada (and the bit of USA and greenland)

BTW, I had an idea for greenland and the Arctic to keep parts under snow (or some parts get snow much earlier), if you use opengfx landscapes variable snow line settings, you can set it to be 1 for winter (so snow almost everywhere except costal tiles) and have it retreat a couple levels up for the summer.

So most of Canada would be kept at level 1 and 2 (for hills and what not), but the territories could be at 3 and 4, and the arctic at 5 and 6, where the snow line will be kept at for the summer (so they'll always be under snow year round like the far north should be)

I hope that you (Wallyweb) or someone can add elevation soon (with or without my Artic always under snow idea) because I would like to make a scenario, probably starting in 1865 (The Confederation of Canada aka the Birth of Modern day Canada), but I'll probably end up using towns and cities from Modern day so that people can change the starting date in the scenario editor if they dont want to start that far back. Plus its a tad bit difficult to get old maps that snow more then just the major and medium sized/importance cities and towns leaving too much empty space in some places that should have many small towns around a big or medium city.

EDIT : I suppose wallyweb lives in the Territories or just has a soft spot for the railroads in the Territories (I sorta have some interest in the Narrow gauge rail in Canada, like the WPY railroad)

I my self live in Ontario as you can see in my location, so I might end up getting a little home province crazy with the focus (or at least the area I live in, Durham Region which has a bunch of small towns and cities like Oshawa)

[wallyweb]

I live in Saint John, NB, about an hour's drive from VanHorne's summer home.
It'll probably be the New Year before I could do any map work.
If you want to have a laugh, load in my Canadian Town Names and then build many towns. Toronto looks good at the tip of Baffin Island.
The Canadian sets and George's ECS also have variable snowlines.
Don't worry about loading the map with roads and stuff. That's the players' job.

[NekoMaster]

I live in Saint John, NB, about an hour's drive from VanHorne's summer home.
It'll probably be the New Year before I could do any map work.
If you want to have a laugh, load in my Canadian Town Names and then build many towns. Toronto looks good at the tip of Baffin Island.
The Canadian sets and George's ECS also have variable snowlines.
Don't worry about loading the map with roads and stuff. That's the players' job.

Nah, I dont really plan on doing all the modern day road work, but if I build a scenario after the creation of the Trans-Canada I might add that in to give starting companies a bit of an edge (easy route to plan passenger and cargo via bus and trucks)

Also if its going to take that long I might as well make a Flat version of the Canada scenario for now and then remake it later when you do some map work.

I'll probably be using ECS VEctors for industry because it has many of the industries you'd find in Canada, including the large vehicle plants like you might see in Oshawa. I might put one in London and Montreal as replacements for GMD's London Locomotive plant and Montreals MLW Locomotive Works. I imagine that while the Car plants don't make Locomotives, you do take vehicles to mines and what not which I imagine could be small industrial locomotives and heavy machinery.

[NekoMaster]

Heres my work so far on making a flat version of the map.

I'm thinking of calling the scenario "O'Canada!"

Because this contains a bit of greenland and Northern USA, I will be adding them in so that any canadian transport company can do transport internationally with USA and greenland... or if someone wants to do some far north USA stuff with canada, theres that too.

I actually tried to include enough of Northern USA to enable players to make the Amtrak Cascades and the Amtrak Maple Leaf lines. Plus players may be able to build their own JFK airport in NYC and send jets to Peason International in toronto... or you could give my town of oshawa some love and build an airport there and give us some jets

[firecomet234]

Holy crap! This is a work of art! I've been trying to do my own Canada scenario but it's been pretty pathetic and half finished. I think this might work soooooo much better, bless you fellow Canadian

I'm gonna start with PEI to do a scenario because PEI is pretty flat and it's small XD

Update: I'm done PEI, Saint-Pierre and the Magdalene Islands (all easy stuff). I mean if you wanna you can now run a train service serving PEI or a jet service going from Cap-aux-Meules to Saint-Pierre or from Tignish to Souris

[wallyweb]

... or you could give my town of oshawa some love and build an airport there and give us some jets

You mean like one of these?

[firecomet234]

Here are some screenshots from my work.

Number One, which is aptly titled "One", consists of a view of the Greater Toronto Area. I've got the GTA done from Oshawa up to Orillia and around Lake Ontario to Buffalo. I haven't added Brantford, Guelph, K-W or Cambridge yet, but it's quite the good start.

Number Two, which you can probably guess is titled "Two", shows me giving some love to Oshawa. Using my hard earned British pounds (whoops! gotta change that), I have funded development of the city so we now have two railroad stations, Highway 401, an airport, and several bus stations. I randomly named them with streets in the general area. The population also doubled as I got sick of waiting and simply spent a few million Euros on funding commercial buildings.

I did PEI but no pics because I'm a lazy loser, and Greenland has all the cities I could find on Google Maps that are not uninhabited and a farm because apparently 1% of Greenland's land is arable. I'll do the mountains and if I feel like it maybe some pics will come.

I know I should probably make a separate thread for this, but felt like you guys might wanna see how your heightmap is being used. I promise there will be no more spam posts if there are any objections. Added height for Ontario using this map (check out the attachment map_ont). The green zone around Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara and Windsor is at default height level 1, K-W, Brantford, London is at level 2 as well as a bit of Eastern Ontario, level 3 would be Stratford and most of Ontario, and I'm saving level 4 for Ishpatina Ridge and the area. Currently, Ontario has height up to the French River / Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa / Outaouais River.

Cheers!

[NekoMaster]

Here are some screenshots from my work.

Number One, which is aptly titled "One", consists of a view of the Greater Toronto Area. I've got the GTA done from Oshawa up to Orillia and around Lake Ontario to Buffalo. I haven't added Brantford, Guelph, K-W or Cambridge yet, but it's quite the good start.

Number Two, which you can probably guess is titled "Two", shows me giving some love to Oshawa. Using my hard earned British pounds (whoops! gotta change that), I have funded development of the city so we now have two railroad stations, Highway 401, an airport, and several bus stations. I randomly named them with streets in the general area. The population also doubled as I got sick of waiting and simply spent a few million Euros on funding commercial buildings.

I did PEI but no pics because I'm a lazy loser, and Greenland has all the cities I could find on Google Maps that are not uninhabited and a farm because apparently 1% of Greenland's land is arable. I'll do the mountains and if I feel like it maybe some pics will come.

I know I should probably make a separate thread for this, but felt like you guys might wanna see how your heightmap is being used. I promise there will be no more spam posts if there are any objections. Added height for Ontario using this map (check out the attachment map_ont). The green zone around Ottawa, Toronto, Niagara and Windsor is at default height level 1, K-W, Brantford, London is at level 2 as well as a bit of Eastern Ontario, level 3 would be Stratford and most of Ontario, and I'm saving level 4 for Ishpatina Ridge and the area. Currently, Ontario has height up to the French River / Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa / Outaouais River.

Cheers!

Thanks, its nice to see my height map being used, and its neat to see my home town and current residence done up in game (even with random bus stations named after roads around here).

I guess this game was done on a scenario you created? It looks pretty good so far.

I was originally planning on adding ECS industries (and maybe doing other versions later) but I guess your using the default industries?

[firecomet234]

I added in Oshawa instead of skipping it and going straight to Belleville because you mentioned it and I sympathize, because I live in Burlington (Ontario), a town that is about the same size as Oshawa and often gets skipped over from Toronto to Hamilton.

I have created a Canada scenario using your heightmap and I must say it is pretty good. I did notice that Ontario is a little bigger than it is IRL, but that actually is good because Ontario is very populated. In addition, your version actually looks like a real map. In my old version, I started in Newfoundland and BC at the same time and had the plan to work going inland, but the two sections ended up being off by over 500 kilometers.

I am using the default industries, if you're curious.

[NekoMaster]

I added in Oshawa instead of skipping it and going straight to Belleville because you mentioned it and I sympathize, because I live in Burlington (Ontario), a town that is about the same size as Oshawa and often gets skipped over from Toronto to Hamilton.

I have created a Canada scenario using your heightmap and I must say it is pretty good. I did notice that Ontario is a little bigger than it is IRL, but that actually is good because Ontario is very populated. In addition, your version actually looks like a real map. In my old version, I started in Newfoundland and BC at the same time and had the plan to work going inland, but the two sections ended up being off by over 500 kilometers.

I am using the default industries, if you're curious.

If you have made a scenario with my map, would you care to share it? You can either upload it here or perhaps put it up on Banana's. I'd very much appreciate it.

I'm still sorta working on my Scenario with ECS industries but I've kinda put it down for now as I've been playing other games lately (I just finished Game Dev Tycoon again as well as Crysis 2 and Red Faction guerilla). Plus conflicts in my train of thought and plans for my scenario are kinda wearing away at my motivation to keep going when theres so many towns to include and decide which ones from life get in and which ones are skipped (I still added a few abandoned settlements as 0 population towns, this way eventually the town will build a few buildings or you can fund growth there again)

Also I find that even at the scale of 4096x4096 there still isn't enough space to put in most places I would like to. It would have been really nice to add all the cities and towns serviced by Go Transit, like the Lakeshore East Line that goes from Toronto Union Station, Scarborough, Richmond HIll, PIckering, Ajax, Whitby, and Oshawa (but I can't fit that all in the space between Oshawa and Toronto)

[firecomet234]

I added in Oshawa instead of skipping it and going straight to Belleville because you mentioned it and I sympathize, because I live in Burlington (Ontario), a town that is about the same size as Oshawa and often gets skipped over from Toronto to Hamilton.

I have created a Canada scenario using your heightmap and I must say it is pretty good. I did notice that Ontario is a little bigger than it is IRL, but that actually is good because Ontario is very populated. In addition, your version actually looks like a real map. In my old version, I started in Newfoundland and BC at the same time and had the plan to work going inland, but the two sections ended up being off by over 500 kilometers.

I am using the default industries, if you're curious.

If you have made a scenario with my map, would you care to share it? You can either upload it here or perhaps put it up on Banana's. I'd very much appreciate it.

I'm still sorta working on my Scenario with ECS industries but I've kinda put it down for now as I've been playing other games lately (I just finished Game Dev Tycoon again as well as Crysis 2 and Red Faction guerilla). Plus conflicts in my train of thought and plans for my scenario are kinda wearing away at my motivation to keep going when theres so many towns to include and decide which ones from life get in and which ones are skipped (I still added a few abandoned settlements as 0 population towns, this way eventually the town will build a few buildings or you can fund growth there again)

Also I find that even at the scale of 4096x4096 there still isn't enough space to put in most places I would like to. It would have been really nice to add all the cities and towns serviced by Go Transit, like the Lakeshore East Line that goes from Toronto Union Station, Scarborough, Richmond HIll, PIckering, Ajax, Whitby, and Oshawa (but I can't fit that all in the space between Oshawa and Toronto)

I will definitely share the scenario with you. I am nowhere near done yet, but you can take a look at the terrain I added for Vancouver Island, Southern Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, etc and take a look at it. I will be sure to upload it on Bananas when it's done with full credit to the maker of the heightmap in the description.

I'm just gonna get that done tomorrow though, because it's 11pm here and I gotta go to sleep.

I like the scenario with ECS idea and I can relate to being very busy - with all the schoolwork and stuff today I only got the Avalon Peninsula done . I think adding the abandoned settlements will be very cool, because this will definitely change things up in Northern Ontario, Territories, Greenland, etc because you have no idea how difficult it is to find a populated settlement in certain parts of the country.

I also ran into that problem...I live on the Lakeshore West Line and I was able to get most of the towns in - Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls. However areas on the East Line are just very difficult because there's just not enough space. I had no trouble with Vancouver though because I noticed you made the Vancouver "peninsula-thing" a little bigger and that worked just fine. My technique for right now has been to build the cities, blow them up completely so the buildings don't affect the distance between the two cities, place down a new city / town and repeat. I believe the distance between two cities is something like 10 blocks, 12 blocks and it is affected by the outermost building in cities to a point. From there I expand on and on which is why if you took a quick look at my Screenshot #1 you would see relatively close towns in the GTA that seem to almost merge together.

I added the idea of "metropolitian areas" where much infrastructure has already been built for you and connecting roads to suburbs exist. Currently, I have:

Victoria - VICTORIA, Saanich
Vancouver - VANCOUVER, Richmond, Coquitlam, Surrey, Abbotsford, Chiliwack
Toronto - TORONTO, Markham, Vaughan, Oshawa, Mississauga, Brampton, Milton
Kitchener-Waterloo - KITCHENER-WATERLOO, Cambridge, Guelph
Hamilton - HAMILTON, Brantford, Burlington, Oakville, I can't remember if Simcoe was in that region or not
Niagara Falls - NIAGARA FALLS, St. Catharines
Windsor - WINDSOR, Amherstburg
Halifax - HALIFAX, Dartmouth, Lower Sackville
St. John's - ST. JOHN'S, Conception Bay

I am considering adding this to many more "major cities" like Sudbury, Thunder Bay - long story short metro areas have good infrastructure.

Anyways that's it for now.