What in-game maps can teach us
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00:00
MappingLevel (video gaming)Limit (category theory)CuboidMultiplication signGame theoryAxiom of choiceDampingPolygonHypermediaOnline helpComputer animationJSONXMLUML
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DeterminismVideo gameLevel (video gaming)Computer animation
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Level (video gaming)Similarity (geometry)SoftwareMultiplication signLine (geometry)WindowAreaPlug-in (computing)Game theoryMechatronicsProgram flowchart
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Level (video gaming)Game theoryIntegrated development environmentEndliche ModelltheorieBridging (networking)MappingWind tunnelPoint cloudPoint (geometry)
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Cheat <Computerspiel>Level (video gaming)Network topologyComputer animation
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AreaLevel (video gaming)Game theoryDifferent (Kate Ryan album)MereologyMappingAxiom of choiceDuality (mathematics)State of matterReal numberDialectRight angleLine (geometry)Point (geometry)Regular graphComputer animationEngineering drawing
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Right angleHydraulic jumpGame theoryReal numberMappingSymbol table
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Symbol tableLevel (video gaming)Game theoryHydraulic jumpEngineering drawing
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Game theoryPlotterRouting
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MappingGame theoryMobile appLevel (video gaming)Real numberRaster graphicsLine (geometry)Vector space
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Level (video gaming)MappingGame theoryGreen computingPixelMassBand matrixTwitterKey (cryptography)Image resolutionComputer animationLecture/ConferencePanel painting
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Level (video gaming)InformationGame theoryMonster groupSimilarity (geometry)BuildingNetwork topologyComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Level (video gaming)MappingNetwork topologyZoom lensTouchscreenDependent and independent variablesRectangleEntire functionUniform resource locatorWater vaporComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Game theoryLevel (video gaming)Graph coloringForm (programming)Symbol tableDirection (geometry)Uniform resource locatorHeegaard splittingAreaNavigationRepresentation (politics)Computer animation
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Symbol tableRing (mathematics)BuildingMappingLevel (video gaming)Theory of relativityContrast (vision)Event horizonAreaImage registrationChromosomal crossoverLine (geometry)Entire functionMereology
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SubsetGame theoryGroup actionComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Computer animation
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Water vaporForestRight angleLevel (video gaming)1 (number)Moment (mathematics)Computer animation
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Asynchronous Transfer ModeMappingGame theoryLevel (video gaming)Element (mathematics)Bus (computing)Monster groupReading (process)Sign (mathematics)Touch typingMusical ensembleMultiplication signMereologyUniform resource locatorOcean currentNumberDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Process (computing)Message passingRight anglePoint (geometry)Axiom of choiceSource codeQuicksort
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Computer animationJSONXMLUML
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:08
Hello everyone, I'm Ilya and I'm a cartographer among other things. People who make maps, they usually have a lot of maps at home.
00:22
So I think you know this, like at home I got atlases, books, maps on the walls, I have a box of maps. Who here has a box of maps at home? That's, yeah, we make maps. Like last time I moved I waited and it was 25 kilograms.
00:42
I measure maps in kilograms now. Why do I need all that? Because when you make a map you might want a reference. Like to make a movie you first need to watch a thousand other movies. Because to write a book you must read a thousand books, so you know what's possible,
01:04
you know the limits and you know how to break them. The same with maps. We collect maps because it makes our knowledge of mapping conventions better. And just being in this conference it really doesn't help, because at this conference
01:23
in the past two days I saw a lot of the same map done like the same ways. Dark or light background with some markers or polygons or heat maps or something on top. Really standard. So we need to turn to other media, like books.
01:44
I'm currently reading Tales of the Earth by Ursula Le Guin and it starts with a map which is completely invented from scratch. And that makes it more interesting because you can see which choices did she make for
02:04
making this map, how she draws the islands, how she positions them, like a book in itself. The same with games. I play games not just to relax but also to learn. And some games have maps, we don't pay much attention to them, but they can teach us something
02:26
because they are like unmoved from reality. They create an entire new world and try to present it so that we can understand it. Because maps are totally about understanding things.
02:43
So yeah, I will just be cloudy. Yeah, and I'll start with like one of the first games with maps. You must know this. It turned 30 this year.
03:01
And it's a 3D game happening indoors. It's Doom. If you didn't play it, I don't know your age. You basically navigate yourself around a facility and it had a map which shows its age, actually.
03:24
You know, it's really simple, it's vector, just some lines. Red lines for walls, yellow lines for windows and possible things, and white for doors. And it's really hard to read.
03:43
And you couldn't move it, you could just zoom in and out. This map almost doesn't teach us anything except its age, like times of Ghost in the Shell movie with its wireframe city, times of Tron movie with similar graphics.
04:01
What is interesting about this map? It's a wireframe map. We don't do much of wireframe. Like in Ivan's talk about GLiO, his gel map, he showed like a wireframe plugin and told that's just about the debugging.
04:22
Like we mappers don't do wireframe, we fill areas. Maybe we shouldn't always do that. Like look at the toner map from Stemmon. Basically wireframe map, but it looks so well. So wireframe is important, but this shows its age.
04:43
And it's an indoor map from basically a 2D game. A few years later, ID Software published a new game, Quake. And it was very dark, it was completely 3D. Like very 3D with lots of stairs, lots of levels, tunnels, bridges, and stuff like that.
05:04
They did not put a map in this game, because mapping 3D environments is hard. Like sometimes you can do it, for example floor plans in shopping malls. Sometimes you just can't. So at this conference again, I see a lot of leader data, point cloud, 3D models.
05:23
These are not maps. They just represent reality without making it understandable. For real 3D, you can't make a map. It just so happens. But these are like early games.
05:42
What I want to show you is something that's closer to reality. And for closer, you might think Grand Theft Auto, right? With Imagine a city that resembles the real one. I don't have it on Switch. I have the next best thing, Lego City Undercover.
06:01
Which is the same, but in Lego. And it has a city that looks like the real one. It has roads, it has trees, it has everything we are used to. And how do they represent it on map? Well, of course it has map.
06:20
Mini one and the real one. And if you look at it, it looks just the real thing. A city with roads, with waterways. And to a person living in the United States, it must be very familiar.
06:41
Why do I say United States? You see, there is a railway that's showing dashed line. I haven't seen it on European maps. So these are choices that you can make when living in the States. Again, interesting regional differences.
07:01
Roads are very prominent. And the dual carriageways, roundabouts, stuff like you can see in American cities. So this is very representative. What's different? Well, the city is very small. You can drive from one part to another in like five minutes or ten minutes.
07:22
But they have different areas and they are very, very small. So really, you don't need all these interchanges in such a small city. But they edit it to make it feel more real. Like every choice in this map was made to feel like a regular city map.
07:44
And this being a game, it obviously misses something or has something extra, which you cannot see when you're overviewing it. For example, if you look closer, some roads just start and end in random points.
08:00
Like, what is that? It's not a real thing, right? That's not normal. And if you look at this in game... Let me just show you. This is the end of the road. Why not play a game where I'm making a talk, right? So in reality, this is a jump.
08:26
And on the real world maps, we don't have symbols for jumps. Because we usually don't do that. And if they added a symbol to that, it won't be a real map.
08:44
It would surprise and puzzle us. It will show that it's a game map. So they chose not to do that. Yeah. And one other thing I want to show you is that it has routing.
09:01
But since we're on an island, it doesn't have routing. Let me try going back. I don't know if this will work. No, it didn't. Yeah. Yeah. But basically, this game plots a route when you need to go somewhere.
09:25
And it also follows it. Like, ah, I just... Yeah, it doesn't work. So most of this game, you're following the green line on the map.
09:42
And routing in the city is one of the most important things. But also, it makes the game, makes the navigation harder. Which is controversial. But that's like in the real world. If you use your navigation app for driving around the city, you don't learn the city.
10:03
That's why games like Zelda or Elden Ring, they don't have routing. They have just the map. So you walk around and you learn the map, learn the terrain, learn the city. That's why I don't use navigation apps in the city, so I can learn it.
10:22
So routing can be disruptive. That has to be remembered. So again, a vector map of the city, really common. What about raster maps in games? Let me show you. Yeah, we won't be needing this.
10:43
Like, completely opposite map. This is a map from the game Tax and Fanny, which is not known, despite it being the best indie game ever. And it has a pixel map of 100x100 pixels.
11:02
And I'd say it must be really hard to make a map of this resolution. So what do they do? They use common cartographic conventions. You see blue and you immediately know there's a river or a lake. You see dark green, it's obviously a forest.
11:23
Like, without any legend, without anything, we immediately know what these things mean. They did it by following cartographic conventions, by using our knowledge of how maps work. And you must have seen these artistic maps on Twitter, like,
11:41
our world in a style of Mario maps, or ASCII maps of our world. It's like the other way around. Without our knowledge, these are just a mass of sprites and letters, but we know how our world looks, and that makes that into maps.
12:03
So maps always use something we already know, and relying on that helps us save bandwidth. Sometimes it's harder. Like, sometimes there are artistic maps. For example, when you're a tourist and you're, like,
12:24
you are in a new city and you want some memorabilia, and you being a mapper, cartographer, you want a map. So you go to tourist information center and you buy an artistic map, but it's something an artist made, not a cartographer.
12:42
So it's really fancy. There are 3D buildings and trees and everything happens at once. There are monsters, I don't know. And it's pretty, but it's not usable for navigation. Nobody will use a picture to navigate around the city. Similar things happen in games.
13:01
Like, this is Tokitori. It's a Metroidvania about a creature that can't even jump. It can just move and sing. And it has a map that is not even interactive. You cannot move it.
13:20
You cannot zoom it. It doesn't respond to anything. And it's not usable. Like, you can barely see the road there. Like, but it's very pretty. Smoke is rising. Trees are shaking. Water is flowing. There's a volcano with lava. Like, it's pretty to look at, but it's not functional.
13:43
Why did they do this? Why do you make a map that you cannot use? Because you don't need to use it. All the things you should know from this map is you are here.
14:02
And that's, like, very prominent. You are there. You need to go there. All the things you know. And your, like, relative location. Like, that's the entire purpose of Metroidvania. You just need to know where have you been, where you haven't been. Like, in other Metroidvania, Shippo, the map was basically rectangles for screens.
14:26
You have seen these screens. You didn't have seen these screens. All the purpose. So you should consider the purpose of your map. Maybe you don't need it to be interactive or zoomable or even make sense.
14:42
For a better example of artistic maps that usually even make sense, this is a map from a game I spent 500 hours on called Sky Children of Light multiplayer game,
15:01
which you basically don't do anything besides, like, flying around and talking to people. And its world is not like our world. In our world, you turn to any direction, and you go for a couple hours, and you end up in another location. This one is just very small islands connected with teleports.
15:26
And split in six realms. So there is no direction. No south, no north. So if you want to make a map of that, you are not bound by cartographic conventions of things being relative to each other or having directions.
15:42
So artists could make anything out of that, and they chose to do this. And you can see this forms a symbol, and this gives a feeling. Colors are all really contrasted, and locations are understandable,
16:02
but also it just shows the road from the start, where I am, through all the realms up until the end. This map is really simple on the outside, but it's navigable. It's understandable.
16:20
And even if you look closer, every single symbol of that map is also kind of a small map in itself, representative of its area. So let me just... I made more screenshots. So all these symbols are like a separate island, and you can see,
16:41
you can understand what happens there. This kind of arena, this kind of icing ring kind of islands, understandable. What does it teach us? Event, the new maps, like the one you have seen at the registration building.
17:01
Right now, it's a part of the map. You can extend that map to all sides to cover the entire Kosovo. And I'm not sure you want that for an event map. These are meant to be stylized. These are meant to be detached from the real world, because we're now in an enclosed
17:22
area, which we usually don't live if you live in the barracks. So we could go to town on that, like stylize buildings, stylize the relations to each other, make it prettier, increase contrast, make it more understandable by using our
17:41
experience of being here. That's what artists map to us. And finally, one more example from a game about death and acceptance and stuff like
18:02
that, helping people transition. But mostly, technically, it's about manning a boat and swimming in an ocean. So you just have an entirely imaginary world that's not real.
18:21
It's like what comes after, I think. So it doesn't just have to follow our cartographic conventions. It doesn't even need to have things we're used to. Not forests, the water is something else.
18:43
It's all metaphorical, right? So how did they do this? And it's really interesting. Just a moment. It's really cute.
19:01
I recommend one of the best ones. Yeah, so here's the boat. Let's just open the map. And the first thing you see on the map is that it has coordinates.
19:21
Not exactly latitude and longitude, more like Cartesian coordinates, but still. And the map grid. And I believe it being a nautical map, these are a must. So you can plan things. That you can know where you're traveling. And it's useful in-game. Sometimes you get messages in bottles like,
19:41
come to this location, and two numbers. So your location, your coordinates, are usually hidden from our maps. I can remember military maps having coordinates, but not general public maps. Well, when was the last time you saw latitude and longitude on a map?
20:02
You don't have that. But sometimes you might want that. And yeah, this is completely imaginary. These things don't happen in the real world. Like, I can't even start explaining what happens here. But there are some familiar things.
20:24
Like, you see a bus stop with little bus sign. It's an ocean. There is not really a bus. There's some sea monster that helps you. But it's familiar. So this is the land of unfamiliar.
20:41
What happens after? All the things are not what they seem. But this is an element, a familiar element, that helps you understand things. That, like, anchors you to reality. Like, even if your map has all the unusual cartographic choices, having even a little
21:06
detail familiar helps, like, sort of like a starting point to learning all the other maps, to seeing everything else that is there.
21:21
And yeah, that's, like, the best thing about this. Like, it is imaginary, but it has coordinates, it has familiar things, and you can see why they did this. It's very pretty. So, yeah. These are games.
21:42
These are not real. And of course, we won't make a map at our job that has all that, right? We still operate in the real world. But it helps to know, like, what other people are doing. Like, we were talking with Craig yesterday, and he mentioned how children learn both science
22:07
and music simultaneously at school. And you might think, like, these are two completely different things, science and music. But actually, practicing arts, playing games, reading books, it improves parts of your
22:23
brain that science doesn't touch. And you can use it to do science. You have to learn music to do science better. You have to see movies, read books, play games to make your maps better.
22:41
And so do. And thank you.