Azeroth and Beyond
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Motivation
World of Warcraft (abbr. WoW) is one of the most iconic video games of all time. Like most games in the Warcraft series, World of Warcraft is predominantly set in the fictional world of Azeroth. The game and the world have been continually developed and expanded to this day since WoWs initial release in 2004. Therefore, it comes to no surprise that it probably has the largest handcrafted world of any video game ever made.
Out of all the many video games I have played in my life, World of Warcraft is likely the game I have played the most. Therefore, Azeroth is also the fictional world I have spent the most amount of time in. This comes to no surprise to me, since I immediately fell in love with its beautifully crafted world when I first set foot into the magical forests of Teldrassil.
I have many great memories from exploring this world that I still come to think of it to this day, despite not having set foot into Azeroth for many years. Even though I genuinely enjoyed most of the years I was actively playing WoW, the last ~6 months were plagued by a serious problem. I started playing the game more than the previous years, and way more than what would have been healthy.
Looking back, I think you can classify my mental state at this time as clearly being addicted. I think one of the reasons It came to this point was that I just liked the game too much. Additionally, WoW has so much content available that you never run out of things to do. I was definitely not the first person to become addicted to it, as it actually has kind of a reputation for facilitating a video game addiction. After a few not so fun months, I managed to finally realize that I am actually not playing because I want to, but because I simply cannot stop. After I came to this realization, I managed to finally set myself free, and I have not touched World of Warcraft ever since.
When I occasionally come to think of Azeroth, I am always intrigued to explore that world again, despite the ending of my previous journey through it. Since I do not want to end up where I did all those years ago, I have so far refrained from doing so. However, once I started getting involved with making art, I had the idea to create an artwork based on Azeroth, so I could once again explore this world without actually playing the game. Since I had recently acquired a K40 laser engraver, I decided to put it to use with this project (A laser engraver is a tool that can precisely engrave but also cut materials such as wood).
The Artwork
The artwork consists of three topographic maps that show Azeroth as well as two other worlds from WoW, namely Draenor and Outland (A topographic map is a map that focuses on showing terrain differences and relief features). By the way, Draenor and Outland are actually the same area in two different timelines in the game.
The maps are made of 3 millimeter (~ 1/8 inch) poplar plywood that is laser cut and engraved. The Azeroth map measures 220 by 140 centimeters (86.6 by 55.1 inches). The Draenor and Outland maps measure 60 by 40 centimeters each (23.6 by 15.7 inches). The topographic features are shown by laser cut plywood pieces that are placed on top of each other to achieve an actual physical representation of the terrain. Apart from the terrain, the map includes plenty of additional information. This information is provided by laser engraving text and shapes into the plywood. This includes but is not limited to paths, cities, houses, rivers, lakes, caves, as well as many other special and unique locations and structures.
Technical Details
The map was entirely made with my K40 laser engraver and lots of poplar plywood. To control my machine, I used the open-source software K40 Whisperer. K40 Whisperer takes a vector graphic as an input and transforms it into commands that you can send to your laser engraver. CNC-machines that work in two dimensions are usually controlled based on vector graphics.
In simple terms, vector graphics are images that are made up of lines defined by coordinates instead of pixels that are used in traditional raster graphics. This makes it easier to tell a CNC-machine to move a tool, such as a laser, between specific coordinates. Additionally, by changing the color of lines, you can vary the laser power to switch between cutting or engraving. The following image shows an exemplary vector graphic, that I created for this project with the vector graphic software Adobe Illustrator.
The red lines indicate that the laser engraver should cut. The blue lines tell the laser to engrave a line. All other grayscale colors indicate the laser to use a raster engraving technique. With this technique, the engraver will burn many small dots into the wood. The darker the color in the source graphic, the more dots the engraver will burn into the wood. This allows the machine to engrave grayscale images and shapes. The following images show the full vector graphics created for this project.
Resources
To acquire all the necessary information about Azeroth, Outland, and Draenor I used the following three resources.
In-Game Map
World of Warcraft provides a hand-drawn in game map of almost all areas in the game. This map is a great resource since it includes names of all major settlements, structures and rivers as well as some rough terrain information.
In the game, the fully detailed map is only available in separate pieces for individual areas. However, the Russian artist Eugene Filatov has compiled the individual pieces of the in game map into a full interactive world map that he has made available on his website (Click here to visit the site, but beware of the following disclaimer: The link leads to a Russian website which does not use a secure connection. Visit the site at your own risk.) I referenced this version as I created the vector graphics for this project.
In-Game Mini-Map
In addition to the hand drawn map, World of Warcraft also provides a minimap (In video games, a minimap usually shows the immediate vicinity of the player character.). This map is rendered from the actual 3D environment of the game and, therefore, provides much more accurate terrain information. However, it is missing most annotations the first map provides, such as names of settlements.
Gameplay Screenshots & Footage
In addition to the two maps, I also used screenshots and videos from the game. I acquired most of the footage from my own archives that contain a lot of footage from when I was still actively playing the game. Additionally, I used online resources, such as forums, to acquire more footage.
The Design Process
To illustrate the design process, let us look at the design of a specific area called Drustvar which is part of the archipelago (i.e. island group) Kul Tiras. Whenever I design the vector graphic for a portion of a map, I start by designing the terrain portion first. For this task, I mostly used the minimap data, but I also used the normal map as well as some screenshots to refine the design. The following image shows the minimap data for Drustvar.
To draw the terrain layers, I import the minimap data into the background layer of an Adobe Illustrator project. I then draw the red lines, that mark the topographic layers, on top of it.
Afterward, I would add the details that should be engraved, such as the names of settlements. For this task, I mostly used the normal map. The following image shows the map data for Drustvar.
To draw the engraving details, I would import the map data and put the terrain layers drawn in the first step in front of it. The terrain layers are necessary to position the engraving details so that they do not span multiple layers, if possible.
After drawing the engraving details, the final result looks like this:
The final step for creating the vector graphics consists of splitting the graphic into its different terrain layers so they can be individually cut and engraved. The following image shows the separate layers of Drustvar.
After the vector graphics for all the layers have been created, they can be individually cut and engraved. Finally, the individual parts are glued together using wood glue. The final result for Drustvar looks like this:
The Background Pattern
There is a distinctive pattern on the background layer of the artwork. The K40 laser engraver is probably the cheapest CO2-based laser engraver that you can buy. Therefore, it comes with many limitations. One of the limitations is that It can only engrave an area of 30 by 20 centimeters (11.8 by 7.8 inches). This limitation posed a problem for the background. As you can see in the pictures, there is a pattern created on the background layer by these dimensions. It might not look as good as if I used a large uniform sheet of wood for the background, but I wanted to engrave information on it and I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in this case. Additionally, I think that this pattern gives the artwork a little bit more personality.
Some interesting numbers
- Project Time: It too me around 15 months to complete this project from start to finish.
- Nr. of parts: The artwork contains a total of 2,262 laser cut parts.
- Named areas: There are 1,339 named areas engraved onto the three maps.
- Paths: The vector graphic files contain 18,817 paths that span a distance of 433.3 meters (1421.5 feet) and are made up of 156,879 anchor points. All drawn by hand.
Appendix
Below you can find some more closeup pictures of the artwork.
