First Map, wanting to Get some input [WIP]

I have begun fleshing out my fantasy world for a while now, and recently decided to map it out. I chose Campaign Cartographer, and really love this tool, It has begun to feel very natural to me. I have two maps I would like some comment on, both are a work in progress atm.

The first map is a world view. I have only done one land mass so far, that of Krava. I debated for a long while the use of contours, but was inspired by the eberron campaign manual's world map. It just has the major bodies of water and rivers. I think it makes it clear when named. I am unhappy with the font and effects though, it is the middle ages font from the February 2009 Annual.

ArillianWorld

Below is the actual Continental Map of Krava, up close. Same issue with fonts, they seem to be odd to me.

KravaContinental

I welcome any comments :)
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Comments

  • edited August 2009
    Very nice. I love that style so much!
    You do seem to have some river issues. Rivers generally start in the mountains and don't split along the way as water tends to take the way of least resistance. It looks like you have lots of splitting rivers, which would be unnatural. Just remember, this is your map and you can do anything you want with it.

    As for the labeling: I kinda gave up labeling in CC3 itself. I always label in another program. The labeling I used to do in CC3 ended up a bit crude, maybe because the software doesn't do anti-aliasing. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
  • Hmm, good points Gandwarf. Ill try a second pass at the rivers. I think I have come to the same concluson on labeling as well, I can easily do magic in Photoshop with text. I appreciate the feedback, Ill post up a rework later when I get the rivers and text sorted.
  • Beautiful maps.
    I found over the years that what really makes a world map is the quality of the coast line and here you have something very reallistic.
    Just one detail on the first map : the island below the N of the Southern Ocean has not the same contour as the other outlines. Wrong sheet, perhaps ?
    What's wrong with the labelling ? Looks fine to me even if I'm more used to curved text where characters rotate with the line. If it's a lack of anti-aliasing it doesn't really show at that scale. However, a small blur effect might correct uneven lines, or maybe a very light glow effect the same color as the text.
    What color do you use for the text ? I've experienced troubles with pure black (color 0). Using color 240 instead will correct it.
  • Can you tell me what sheet effect you used for the coastline? I really like it!
  • edited August 2009
    Thanks for the feedback guys, it is appreciated.

    @Joachim

    Good observation, I have cleaned up the little island :) It was on the text sheet. I sometimes forget to watch what layer I place things on, which sometimes causes issues :( I tried the blur, oddly enough, it seems to make the text a lot better looking. I will investigate some other effects as well, but so far the midlde ages font at height of 15 with just glow and blur seems to look pretty decent.

    @Gnomish Mustard

    I use two glows, one for the outside, and one for the inside. I played around with the effects until I found something I liked. I know there are other effects I could have used, but I liked the look of these two. I also used a 50% transparency on the forests, deserts, and grassland, so as to soften the distinction between them.

    LandGlow
  • Hiyas all, I just updated my continental map with a middle ages font, size 15, a blur effect, and font color of 240, and it seems to stand out pretty good. I also added a mantle, map border, and a compass rose, as well as reworking the rivers to have a more natural feel to them.

    Krava2
  • Good looking maps skaryn.
    Very nice effects.

    I still have a bit of a problem with the way the rivers flow.
    Doesn't look natural to me.
    But like Gandwarf said. Its your world and your rivers.
  • I am testing the waters with the Political boundaries. In my Persistent Browser Based Game (PBBG) I am working on, users will be able to goto an atlas, click on a hotspot on the world map, which takes them to a continental map. Once on the continental map, they will be able to click on these bounded areas I am thinking as well as other hotspots on the map (like whispering woods). I have not seen too many examples of political boundary maps, so am kind of shooting in the dark.


    KravaPolitical
  • edited August 2009
    @Henrie61

    Thanks for the feedback Henrie61. I thought I got rid of those splitting rivers :) I was using the Gandwarfs suggestion that all rivers start from the mountains and flow down. Any specific area on the map I should look at in regards to the rivers? I am kinda new to cartography in general (unless you count heroes of might and magic map making :) ) and am always looking for techniques or tips to improve my maps skill.
  • edited August 2009
    Rivers look a lot better, especially to the south.
    To the north there's still some weird stuff happening. The river near the Whispering Woods label doesn't seem to have an outlet to the sea? And near the Skyhaven Islands you seem to have a lot of rivers that start in the lake and end in the ocean. These could be considered straits of course, but they look like rivers at the moment.
    (A lake would normally have only one outlet to sea as well).

    Looking at the map again, you seem to have some lakes not connected to the ocean. A lake not having an outlet is quite rare, although it does happen in the real world.

    Splitting rivers mostly only happen when there's humans involved (when they build canals or other connections for example, but those need constant upkeep). There's the river delta of course. Sometimes near the ocean a river does split. The most famous delta being the Nile delta I guess.
  • Great feedback! Would it be normal for a river coming from a mountain to go to a lake, which has one outlet to the sea/ocean? I have refactored out most of the straits in the northeast, in the northwest, I may have to break those out as those are actual islands in the form of a ring.
  • Yes, rivers do flow to lakes. There could even be multiple rivers (inlets) feeding a lake. Just remember that most of the time there will be only one outlet to the ocean.
  • Taking the river feedback to heart, I reworked the rivers so each one has an outlet to the sea. I also redrew my landmass around the northern ring such that they are distinct landmasses that are close by , but not rivers per se. Also had to rework the vegetation and plains around there since the edit cut into those. I removed some rivers that looked out of place, I think it is looking much better overall. I appreciate the feedback, I have learned quite a bit so far here :)

    KravaRework
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    Excellent! I love the map, and the river edits are just what it needed.
  • Yep, rivers look all in order now.
    You can still see were you deleted some rivers though. There are now empty corridors in some forests :-)
  • Henrie61Henrie61 Traveler
    edited August 2009
    Map looks a lot better now in my opinion.

    For a nice example on how rivers flow look here.
    http://www.euratlas.com/Atlasphys/hydrography.htm
  • Thanks for feedback all :) I will refactor the forests into a more coherent pattern tonight. I like that link Henrie61 , I was not aware there was a field of study called Hydrography. I noticed in some of those areas, especially Russia, there are some rivers that start at different locations in one chain, some in two different chains, and then converge at a lower point (I assume the lighter the color he lower the altitude). I may use that technique tonight as well.

    Any thoughts on the political border map I put up a few posts back? I was thinking when the map is being shown, under it I can have a clean list of what each place is ,with more information. I can also add tooltip like popups as the person hovers over the numbers. I did not try to put the names on there, as I think it would make the map very cramped. I need to rework it with the new base map of Krava, but wanted to get some second opinions before committing to it. Although I may do the location texts in photoshop still, the numbers seem to be really nice.
  • I was able to rework the forests, and realized the final export of my previous images did not show the font correctly (at least as compared to what I saw in CC3). Below is the forest rework, I think it is ready for the political boundary treatment now :)

    Krava
  • And it's looking better and better :-)
  • Good map now in my opinion.

    And its just the first continent.
    Looking forward to more maps of this world.

    As for the political borders.
    I really like the style (ever since I saw the annual).
  • Thanks for the feedback guys :) Here is an update, Taking the above map, I reapplied my political borders here:

    KravaPoliticalRework1

    Then, I did a map of Corica, #1 on the politcial map above:

    Corica
  • Again, very good job!

    I like that idea of putting villages and cities on a hill.
    There's just an adjustment to be done with Denor. With the mountains behind it sort of looks floating in the air.
    What about raising the range of the white glow effect, perhaps less strong... Just a suggestion...
  • Good Catch Joachim! I repositioned Denor, and lowered the glow and increased the radius. Looks pretty neat.

    CoricaRework1
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    Beautiful stuff! I like how you managed to combine symbols from at leasrt 3 different styles into a coherent whole. That's definitely map of the month material.
  • kmunozkmunoz Newcomer
    This is fantastic stuff. One question: how did you set up the Corica map? Did you use the continental map as a starting point (by grabbing the Corsica section and creating a new map)? I ask because this is something I want to do, but haven't yet found a way to pull it off that doesn't get mangled by my in-progress understanding of CC3's more fiddly bits. (What I've been doing up to now is starting from a FT map, zooming into the section I want, then converting that to a CC map.)
  • @ralf

    Thanks! I love the default CC3 and SS1 bitmaps. I hated the SS1 trees, but loved the fantasy worlds contour trees.

    @Kmunoz

    I first did a "save as" with my Krava Continental map as Corica.fcw. Once that was saved , I deleted everything except the corica island. I then scaled it up to its current size, then fractalised the coastline, to make it look more detailed. I approximated the two islands around it, though, I could have done the same process. This is the exact same process I used for taking Krava on the world map, and making it into its own continental map. Even resized the lakes, and it was good to go.

    If I was doing a specific area that is part of a larger landmass, I am thinking you could edit the landmass outside the window you want (use the draw land tool, then hit E for edit), delete everything outside the area you want, then scale and fractalise. At least thats how I think I would do it, I will find out here shortly, as I will be doing #14 - Kromgor tonight to test this exact process. I am still new to CC3, so I am trying to nail down the processes,this will be a good test :)
  • Well, I just tested the option of editing the landmass, that didnt go so well.I then tried explode, and tried to line/path to path/poly route with no luck. Multi poly failed me too (It did create a poly, but it could not be filled). Fortunately for me, Since I have the color from my political border, I can just delete everythign on the map except the border, then create a new landmass around it. One feature that I think would be really great, is to have a feature that allows you to crop using a window, that would either do a copy or put it on a new map.
  • edited August 2009
    I went ahead and used the political border as a guide to draw in my land mass, after scaling it to the full size of the window. I present Kromgor, #14 on the political map. The goal of this was to see if I could pull out a section attached to a landmass and flush it out. It looks like I can use the political border technique, even if it is just for a hotspot area. It may not be 100% accurate, but I think a very close approximation will work for what I want to do.


    KromgorRework1
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