Fallout Map Locations on Google Maps

Salvatoor

Salvatoor

First time out of the vault
Hi! I've been lurking the forum for a while but I recently joined to show you guys this that I made. It's a map from google maps that includes all locations from all games in Fallout, with marked map borders showing what areas the different games covered, and some faction areas at different points in the time-line. What I wasn't able to do is to overlap the images of the maps from the games. I was able to do that on google earth, but not in google maps.
I hope that you like it! Tell me what you think, and if you have any suggestions or corrections, please tell me!

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zE0J-rh_jxZM.krtd6lSJXrSw
 
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Good job, though since I'm working on a raster map of my own (using proper mapping software for a change :)), I have to offer a few points of criticism:

1. The oil rig is located at 37° 17' N, -124° 23' 24" W (investigated it a while back)

2. The Hub is Barstow, while Necropolis is Bakersfield. The locations were moved around after the lore was written for gameplay balance and games have since been designed disregarding the gameplay-affected moves (the Hub lies on the I-15 for instance, like Barstow; It's impossible with Fo1 locations).

3. The Glow can't be next to Anza-Borrego, if the latter is to have human settlers.

4. Malpais doesn't refer to a city in New Mexico, it's the title of Joshua Graham.

5. Given the location, Canyon City is corrupted Canon City, south-west of Cheyenne.

That's about it. Would you be open to collaborating? I'd definitely love to feature your work on NMA and The Vault, perhaps help you improve it as well. :)
 
Wow! That's great! A lot of job you have done. This really amazes me that Fallout NV has so much content in such a small area especially comparing to FO1 and FO2
 
Very nice! If you are a Google Earth user, I made something like this back in 2008 that runs in GE, mainly for the Core area. It's in the Downloads-Misc. section, here.

Also see this forum thread.

Feel free to use anything in that you find useful. I've wanted to make a Google Maps implementation, but never got to it.

I found the FO1 and FO2 map overlap area (Maripose Base, V13, V15, Shady Sands/NCR) contradicted between the two games. The normal solution would be to use FO1 as canon and disregard FO2, however I thought the FO2 locations made more sense. For instance, the FO1 Vault 15 is in the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, and even if the timeline didn't put the test site there, it's a pretty bleak area for a settlement.
 
Hardboiled Android said:
You got Raven Rock wrong. It's in Liberty, PA.
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If you want to use actual locations, Raven Rock is at Lat 39.734306 Lon -77.419914, about 5.3 miles W-NW of Emmitsburg, Maryland. Also known as Site R, or the Alternate Joint Command Center, or (possibly) the First (Damage?) Estimating Station. Built in the 50s as a backup Pentagon.
 
Aligning the FO1 and 2 maps is hard. The grid lines are not aligned with the compass, and the maps supposedly overlap, but don't really match each other.

One folder of my atlas is called "FO 1 and 2 Cartography". It has a long description of how I did it:

This folder contains details of the assumptions used to align the game Worldmaps to the globe. It is presented to further three important goals:
1. to encourage others to try their hand at refining the work I have started, or modders to use Google Earth for planning;
2. to encourage the full array of quiet, scholarly inquiry expected of Fallout fans;
3. to encourage what Chris Avellone called "flame, debate, and flame-debate".

The tools required are almost universally available. I used Google Earth, Notepad (to edit .kml files), Excel (to generate large blocks of .kml formatted data), Photoshop, and Autocad. Any image editing software that includes the ability to measure distances and angles could be substituted for Photoshop and Autocad. For that matter, a printer, straightedge, ruler, and some basic math could be used. The techniques should become fairly clear as you read on. A full-fledged tutorial might appear someday.


For each map, three "Map Alignment Points" were selected on the game map that were (roughly) recognizable point features. Three "Map Alignment Lines" were drawn over the game map connecting the three points. Since the longitude and latitude of each Map Alignment Point is known, each Map Alignment Line can be measured proportionally, to determine where each degree of longitude and latitude crosses the line. This provides two points for each degree of longitude and latitude that crosses the Map Alignment Lines. With two points, it is possible to draw the longitude and latitude lines over the game map. Using three widely separated Map Alignment Points captures the largest possible number of degrees of longitude and latitude, and helps to minimize measurement errors.


The selection of these Map Alignment Points is the most subjective element in the entire project. The inland areas of the maps appear to have been heavily "processed", making fixed points very hard to pin down. This creates a temptation to use points along the coast, however the game maps have taken extensive liberties with the coastline. The Points I arrived at were chosen after a good deal of trial and error. They still merit further attention. Of particular interest is the Fallout 1 map, which seems to line up well on the points I have chosen, but is substantially misaligned at the two capes near Latitude 34.5 Longitude 120.5. Software capable of orthographic correction may be able to better resolve the maps. Then again, that is the location of Vandenberg Air Force Base, which the Soviets were predicted to hit twice in a first strike, so maybe it's exactly where it should be after Fallout's war.
The longitude and latitude lines that result do not form squares or rectangles, but parallelograms. This is probably due to the game maps being based on a source that suffered distortion due to map projection. I believe that at the time the games came out, the US Geographic Survey was making substantial amounts of digital data available online, but there was not much in the way of freely available software to view it, and what there was may have assumed the user had pretty detailed knowledge of mapping applications.


Autocad was used to adjust for the distortion separately for longitude and latitude. In Autocad, two copies of each map were made. One was rotated to set the longitude lines perfectly vertical, and this was used for measuring in the horizontal direction only. The other was rotated to set the latitude lines to be horizontal, so vertical measurements could be made. Then the map corners were measured from the longitude and latitude lines. Some additional measurement was done with Autocad to locate settlement circles from the game that are not centered in a grid square. As noted above, other methods could work just as well. One benefit of Autocad was the ability to precisely check that the longitude and latitude lines generated were nearly parallel, out to 1/10,000 of a degree (not perfect, but the subjectivity noted above is a bigger factor in any inaccuracies).


A set of Excel spreadsheets was then used to transform the map corner coordinates into the map outlines, grids, and location circles. This allows the entire geometry generated for Google Earth to be altered fairly rapidly, only requiring the input of revised longitude and latitude values for the map corners. The .kml output from the spreadsheet is almost automatic. Although the description of this part is short, it took the longest amount of time, and was well worth it. Without this automation, it would have been much more difficult to adjust the map position and try again.


After that, I assigned colors and lineweights to the various features to approximate the look of the game map, added some annotation, and called it "Version 1".


I have included a set of additional placemarks, lines, and shapes that I thought might be of interest. They note things like nearby military bases, towns, mines (lots of mines), and pointers to other related real-world locations. Some of them make elements of the canonical geography problematic (the Brotherhood is not at Lost Hills, Necropolis is not near Bakersfield, New Reno is in the middle of nowhere, San Franciso is more like San Mateo, etc. etc.).


 
Hi everybody! Sorry I disappeared for so long!
Thank you very much for the compliments and for all the suggestions! I've now updated the map to feature locations from Fallout 4, and I consulted every suggestion you made.
I'll try to answer everyone now!

Tagaziel:
1. Oil Rig Location: I've updated the coordinates. Nice research you did there!
2. I know they should be on those locations, but changing them messes up the whole fallout 1 map. I've given myself the artistic license :P of putting them where the map locates them. But really, changing them messes up NCR territory, puts Necropolis too close to Lost Hills, etc. On top of this, The fallout 1 map is the one that best fits the real map, so it's hard for me to not put the locations where the map locates them.
3. I have now moved the glow further north-west. Though maybe it's still a little close. Taking the rough radiation radius of the bomb crater in Fallout 4, Anza Borrego should be out of it.
4. Malpais is featured as a settlement in the Fallout wikia here.
5. I have now moved Canyon City to Cañon City.

Rob Stark:
Why is it off? I based the areas on the NCR territory, first on the 5 first cities to take part in it, and next on all the locations featured here.

Vault Maker:
I can't access the .kmz file, the link expired. What I did with the FO1/FO2 locations was to put each one kind of in the middle of its two locations.

Hardboiled Android:
How do you know Raven Rock's location is in Liberty, PA? Is there a file or something that says so?

Vault Maker again:
Hehe, I like your specificity with coordinates. But again, what do you base yourself on to say that it's there?

The Time Master:
Yeah, I know there are a lot of maps out there. But I wasn't going to miss the fun of making one =)
Arroyo is kind of difficult to locate, because there is no info of it's real-life location. Those locations could certainly be right. Since there is no info on it, and it seemed to me that the town was formed from scratch, I just located it where the overlayed FO2 map put it.

Vault Maker yet again:
Wow! That seems a lot of hard work, and I kind of don't understand much of it :P It seems a lot of coding was needed. I'd love to see your map, but I can't access it =(
I also think they must have used a proyected map and it got distorted, or maybe they just altered it to better fit good gameplay. FO2's map was the hardest to fit. Anyway, my map fits where made manually and by trial and error. I could upload the .kmz file, that has all the map overlays. I don't know how to overlay a map in Google Maps.


Again, thank you very much for all the coments! And sorry I took like a year to answer!
 
I've actually taken a N-America map and overlapped all game "area's" ... because I could. I've done only a rough job of it but there are simply too many small distance related issues with the individual locations that prevent 100% overlay accuracy, even with curvature effect taken into measure.

I've not detailed each 'location' however so I like what you're doing!

I'll upload it once I get back to my PC.
 
But really, changing them messes up NCR territory, puts Necropolis too close to Lost Hills,
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Erm, not really. It fixes NCR territory, not mess it. Thats the point of accepting lore logic > over gameplay reasons.
And necropolis being on road from Mariposa to LA makes perfect sense, otherwise Muties would have to cross Hub territory, to have their army in Necro, so they couldnt stay THAT hidden, like it was in story.
(and its also explain, why BoS had contact with Masters Army)

4. Malpais is featured as a settlement in the Fallout wikia here.
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Youre using wrong wiki.
Here you are:
http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Fallout_Wiki

And basically, it was just Joshua Graham camp, not really a settlement, so its kinda hard to place anywhere.
 
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hi, how can i do a map like that on google map myself,with locations and colours?
do i need to download a program?
 
Languorous_Maiar said:
Youre using wrong wiki.
Here you are:
http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Fallout_Wiki

And basically, it was just Joshua Graham camp, not really a settlement, so its kinda hard to place anywhere.
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Hehe, I know the other wiki, I use both of them. I dind't ever see or hear about Malpais personally in the game, but I use what I can. If you say it's just a camp, I could just delete it. I'll think about the Necropolis/Hub issue. In the end it's just a matter of personal preference, but maybe you are right.

Mishmash said:
hi, how can i do a map like that on google map myself,with locations and colours?
do i need to download a program?
Click to expand...
I made it in Google Earth and then imported it in Google Maps, but you can make one easily from scratch using Google Maps here. It's easy to put markers and move them arround (too easy I say, I accidentally move the map areas all the time).
 
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