Mapping Hyrule for fun (Zelda)

Langford

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 5, 2006
Messages
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Just for fun, I thought I would attempt to align some maps from different versions of Zelda. While in truth meaningful alignments between the games maps are probably coincidental, they oddly enough made sense in a lot of places. Making them line up required that Hyrule pretty much rotate gradually as time passed, but they lined up surprisingly well. I even threw in MM, even though it is debatable whether it is supposed to be geographically connected. I'm sure there are probably other ways they could have been aligned, but like I said, they did line up surprisingly well in some places.

This is a rudimentary location mapping, without illustrations (yet):
http://mysticpaint.com/img/temp/zelda_maps.png

If you let your imagination run wild, you can almost invent little histories behind certain areas of the map, such as new structures being built over old ones, or the thought of areas always being there even though they were inaccessible in a particular game.

Items of contention may be that the lake seems to move, the castle is rebuilt in new locations, and generations of Deku trees are in different locations.

Creepy unintentional coincidences exist, such as the Abandoned Mansion being in the location of Windfall Island, the Forsaken Fortress being near the Twinrova clones in Woodfall, Ordon Ranch being on Outset Island, and three mirror related locations being near to one another in what might be imagined as a larger unexplored complex of ruins.


Edit:
Slightly updated.
http://mysticpaint.com/img/temp/zelda_maps2.png
 
You are just using relative positioning right? You have no way measure actual distance between any of these landmarks...
 
You are just using relative positioning right? You have no way measure actual distance between any of these landmarks...

My method basically meant finding two somewhat reliable landmarks and lining them up, then letting the others fall where they may. I tried to use Death Mountain whenever possible, and then lined up from there. Each line-up presented it's own challenge. I'm sure where they conflict most is going to be scale, because the size of the maps seem to change dramatically between games while landmarks remained occasionally consistent.
 
Oh I see, thats what I had guessed. So are you doing this to try to see if the games creators intentionally kept these things in mind while making the various games?
 
Oh I see, thats what I had guessed. So are you doing this to try to see if the games creators intentionally kept these things in mind while making the various games?

I know they reuse landmarks, but I don't really think they intended the maps to align well. The thought of using the plethora data for a nice detailed map seems kinda fun to me, especially seeing how they seem to leave out access to areas of geography that are not "needed" in the current quest.
 
The picture isn't loading for me. Just text. Makes me sad.:(

Thats all there is so far, I just haven't drawn the stuff yet. If and when I do draw the map, I will probably omit the labeling that is shown here.
 
Why are you mapping stuff from Majora's Mask? That's not Hyrule. :I
 
Why are you mapping stuff from Majora's Mask? That's not Hyrule. :I

Well, they don't conclusively establish whether Termina was a different dimension, or merely distant from Hyrule. I can't map into other dimensions, so I thought I would see how well it lined up. The eastern side of the map of Termina seemed to line up well with the western side of OOT Hyrule, so I plopped it down to size it up. It fit kinda good, and even had mirror shield locations adjacent to one another. I then raised the WW and TP maps to see if it conflicted. Not only did it not conflict, it lined up with eerily compatible landmarks. After that, I decided it should stay.
 
Ah gotcha. I thought it would be a bunch of maps stitched together.

I've got a bunch of maps crudely layered over each other in inkscape for comparison. I just didn't output them when I exported the labels.
 
Just did a google search and found this in:
Link

Yours looks and has much more detail in locations, but this should help in making sure you are 100% exact. :)
 
Just did a google search and found this in:
Link

Yours looks and has much more detail in locations, but this should help in making sure you are 100% exact. :)

Thanks, thats a nice map. I can always use more reference material. I think I'm going to let the TP material trump the OOT material, but since TP leaves so much of the map unknown, the OOT maps are incredibly valuable.

Somehing I really wish I had, was some maps from stuff like the comics and tv show, that way I can fill in some of the unknown areas with something other than random hills and trees. Right now the lost woods are looking huge.

Thinking of maps, I wish I knew of a definitive way to determine where I might attempt to put Koholint Island on the map. I'm thinking out in the ocean to the southwest of Termina (Ballad of the Windfish), but I'm not certain.
 
Pretty sick man, my roomate and I are thinking about turning this into a poster for our livingroom.
 
Pretty sick man, my roomate and I are thinking about turning this into a poster for our livingroom.

Really? I'll try to make the final form big then. I was going to use SVG anyways, so I guess I'll spend some time zoomed way in.
 
Step 1: Make a map of hyrule
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!

Problem is that with each release of Zelda the map is altered slightly, though it still looks like the most accurate of the new Hyrule by any degree.
 
Minor Update.
I've now split the thing into a grid of 10x6 sheets of landscape aligned letter sized paper. I intend to draw each one with pencil and ink, scan them, trace them, stitch them together into a single map, and color it. Now it seems I must begin a long walking tour of Hyrule. It's the only way to get it right. I'm starting to wish I hadn't erased some of my saved games. It may be a while before I have any new news on my progress. I think I may have finally found a use for Epona in Twilight Princess.
 
Another quick thing that might help would be to, if you can, record while you are riding around so you have a video file and do not have to boot up the game every time to look a X place to verify it is correct. Might make it go quicker.
 
Another quick thing that might help would be to, if you can, record while you are riding around so you have a video file and do not have to boot up the game every time to look a X place to verify it is correct. Might make it go quicker.

I'll have to think about that idea. On one hand I dread rewiring my video stuff, but on the other hand I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not creatures were going to constantly attack me as I try to stand around.
 
Yeah, depending on your setup that may be way more work than it is worth.
Another option would be, for pure mapping purposes, is to just enable a cheat code or something (if there are any?? :confused: ), and then not worry about dying if that is possible, like god mode or something.
 
Yeah, depending on your setup that may be way more work than it is worth.
Another option would be, for pure mapping purposes, is to just enable a cheat code or something (if there are any?? :confused: ), and then not worry about dying if that is possible, like god mode or something.

I don't know of any cheat codes for Zelda. I guess if I were using a Nintendo64 and if I owned a Gameshark, I could have cheated a little on OOT and MM, but I don't have that setup. There is another way, but I guess I shouldn't discuss it here.
 
Though im one of those that believes that each Zelda game is an independent timeline/reality unless otherwise stated (Zelda 1-2 and OoT-MM) I still applaud your effort.
This might help Zelda 1 and 2 in one map. Scanned from the Zelda 2 Manual.
maph2nt3.jpg
 
Though im one of those that believes that each Zelda game is an independent timeline/reality unless otherwise stated (Zelda 1-2 and OoT-MM) I still applaud your effort.
This might help Zelda 1 and 2 in one map. Scanned from the Zelda 2 Manual.
<IMG>

Thank you. I had a version of that map, but I think yours may be nicer. It's kinda funny how in that map, Death mountain runs horizontally, while in the newer games it runs almost vertically. Getting it to line up with the others was a bit of a compromise, in that it required that things rotate somewhat. I felt bad rotating it, but it turned out that a few other landmarks happened to align conveniently. I've been a little undecided about what to do about the Deku Tree, since it seems to be absent from Twilight Princess. It would be easy to use the OOT location, but since the Zelda-II has a whithered old human-faced tree location that comes pretty close to the WW Deku Tree location, and both are effectively off-map in TP and OOT, I think I might put it on the Zelda-II tree location.
 
Seriously PM me or something when you get this thing done, I really think my apartment would love this kind of thing, we are all Zelda junkies. I'm not sure How I would go about printing it, but I would find a way. Good luck man.
 
Seriously PM me or something when you get this thing done, I really think my apartment would love this kind of thing, we are all Zelda junkies. I'm not sure How I would go about printing it, but I would find a way. Good luck man.

I'll try to bump this thread up when it's done, which may be quite a while from now. I guess I can PM you to make sure you see it.

I think I will probably try to provide a few different formats for the final version. I may be limited by the size of the files, but I was thinking of providing a normal view of the whole thing (PNG), along with a version or two that have been spread onto several pages to be taped together (PDF). I was also thinking that maybe I would upload it to deviantart too, just so I could order a big print of it for myself. I've never ordered a print from them before, but I'm sure their printers are way bigger and better than mine.
 
Hehe. Yea deviantart is a fine choice. I'll try to keep an eye on this thread for sure. It would be painfully nerdy to have in my place, but I'd still want it. There are no girls coming over anyways hah. :(
 
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