Advice/Help Rough Dimensions of this Pic

[Bone2pick]

I'm pretty bad at guesstimating the dimensions of spaces, so I figured I should turn to the forum for help.

Spoiler: cavern pic

Roughly speaking, how tall do imagine the above cavern is, or could reasonably be? How wide might it be, and roughly how long might it take to walk across it? I know the pic doesn't show everything, so feel free to fill in what it doesn't show with your imagination.

 

[Spoiled Bread]

I don't think anyone is good at estimating this kind picture. It lacks any kind of scale reference so no one can compare it with something that they know with, it would be good if there's at least a building somewhere. There's those humans in the bottom right but they're placed in foreground and thus disconnected from the main picture and can't be used as comparison.

In short. Your guess is as good as mine, and as good as everyone else, I think. It surely can be used as adventuring location for quite some time, if that's what you're aiming for.

 

[Simon_Hawk]

Good Lord, that is literally miles and miles of cavern

 

[Bone2pick]

In short. Your guess is as good as mine, and as good as everyone else, I think. It surely can be used as adventuring location for quite some time, if that's what you're aiming for.

It is what I'm aiming for, and much of the game will likely take place there. Because of that I'd like to have an approximate idea of how tall/deep the cavern is and how long it would take someone to cross it on foot. I want it to be expansive, possibly taking 2 days on average to traverse from end to end.

 

[Idea]

I used an online cropping tool to compare the size of the cave to the size of the human siloette, and came up with these numbers:

Original image: 600x400
Cropped Image: 23x37

There is a little over 200 times difference between the original image and the one just containing one of the humans (the biggest one). Assuming a similar that thing in the bottom right and one in the distance, it would appear that about halfway through the distance, something which occupies the space image space as the human silloute occupies in close up almost 50% of the image's height with just a portion of it. As such, I would surmize this is at least a few hundred times to a few thousand times human size.

That honestly these numbers don't mean much, I just wanted to give some kind of advance for your issue. The biggest problem here, apart from the general lack of measurements and the fact that the image doesn't actually show us where things end, is that everything being in perspective, even our human point of reference, makes it very hard to access any numbers.

So, my guess is as good as any number. I just wanted to throw something concrete out there to give a little push if need be.

 

[Spoiled Bread]

It is what I'm aiming for, and much of the game will likely take place there. Because of that I'd like to have an approximate idea of how tall/deep the cavern is and how long it would take someone to cross it on foot. I want it to be expansive, possibly taking 2 days on average to traverse from end to end.

You can use real world site for reference and decide whether that place is as big as what you want. For example, The Grand Canyon is a mile deep, 277 miles long and 18 miles wide. While the park doesn't include the entire canyon, it does measure in at a whopping 1,904 square miles in total.

The average time used to traverse the land can be easily altered by transportation, environmental hazard, facilities, steep curves and monster spawn. So there's no need to think too deeply about it. You want it to be two days in average? Just say it take two days in average!

 

[sullen]

I am by no means an expert on measuring distances or gauging the depth of images, but I made something that might help you out with your guesstimates.

Spoiler: edited image

I cropped out the cliff with the people on it and divided up some parts of the cavern, then pasted and adjusted the silhouettes back on. It might help you to figure out the dimensions of specific areas of the place first, and sort of extrapolate on whatever measurements you give that area onto other places depending on its apparent depth, if that makes sense?

For example, @/Spoiled Bread made a really good suggestion about using real world references, so I took the height of Victoria Falls and applied it to the height of the waterfall on the left. Since the silhouettes down by the waterfall are about 2x smaller than the silhouettes on the landing, I gave an approximate length of that clearing according to the height of the waterfall. These measurements are probably veerrrryyyy inaccurate since I haven't a clue how scaling works, but the general idea is to start with certain areas. Use whatever lengths you see fit for your journey!

Like the others said, the size of the cavern is up to you. However long you want the party to be travelling is however long it takes to travel from one end to the next. I just wanted to suggest a place to maybe start.