Still Struggling to Create a World Map (for my novel)

This is my latest (unfinished) attempt at creating a map for my world. I started out in Schley and then moved the map into 13th Age and just tweaked here and there like a mad woman. The main purpose of the map right now is to gauge travel times and get a feel for the landscape when I am creating scenes. I want to work from the world map to general regions and then local maps. Of course, this could all just be a way to avoid writing. I also want my map to be pretty as well as practical (therein lies the challenge for me).

Comments

  • Hi

    This looks really good so far. One can see that a great amount of work went into this map.

    Here are a few tips for further improvement:
    -The scale of the mountain texture is not optimal. The texture should be a bit smaller, so one can see the elevations properly. But the 13th Age texture is in my opinion generally not the best choice, because the mountains are quite different in their size. What you could try instead is changing the fill to the standard mountain brown light texture and add a lighted bevel effect. You'd may have to tweak a few of the mountains (most likely the large ones in the north west). If you are not sure on how this works, here's a tutorial on how to do it: http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=7345&page=1#Item_16

    -The very long river running threw Erynbesque and Calandry does not look realistic. Rivers always take the easiest route to the coast, which is not necessarily the shortest. But it is not really plausible for a river to cross a land strait and then cross an entire continent.

    -As far as I see, you use the Mike Schley Land fill instead of the one from 13th Age, which is a good choice. In my opinion the look of this fill can be improved even further, by adding an adjust hue/saturation effect and setting the lightness to ~ -20%.

    -Talking Fills, I would recommend exchanging the desert fill with the one from Mike Schley.

    BTW: I too try to write a novel, but spend in fact more time creating the relevant map.:P
  • I really like this style. Very calming.
  • HadrianVI,

    Thanks for the advice. Since, I work full time I usually only have the weekend to work on the map so I hope to work on it again this weekend. I am really struggling to get my map to meet the specific needs of my story.

    Yeah I knew the river was pushing it, but I have it in my head that there is a joke that Balidor sends all its piss to Calandry. It's almost a ritual to urinate in the river in Balidor to send your regards to Calandry. Is there any way of making this work?

    I have learned the program mostly by trial and error (even though I have the mapping guide and all the annual tutorials). I can pull symbols from other styles but I don't know how to add terrains so I will have to try and figure that out to get Schley's desert.

    I have some pretty maps with a different landmass shape in Wielink, but I obsessed with redrawing the world until I get it perfect. *sigh*

    I have to get to work or I would ramble on some more.

    Best regards,
    Kathy
  • Hey Kathy :)

    This is looking really good so far! I like the way you beveled your land mass, that looks really cool!

    If you want to use a different fill style, the best way to do that, is to import it. It's actually really easy to do. Click on the Tools menu on the top left, then scroll down to 'import bitmap fill styles' and click on that. This will bring up a window. Click the browse button right there at the top left, then click on bitmaps, then tiles.

    This will open up to all of the fill styles you have. Look for the Overland folder, then for Mike Schley folder. Click on it, then hit open, then at the bottom right, click okay. This will import all of Schley's bitmap fills into your map. Now you can access them as you normally would!

    Hope that helps you!
  • Hi Kathy

    If you want to import fills from other styles go to Tools>Import Bitmap Fill Styles, as LadieStorm already mentioned. This is the easiest way. You can also import them one by one, but I would not recommend that.

    Regarding making the joke work, it is difficult to give any advice since I do not know the needs of your story. One option would be changing the shape of your landmass and look at some of the large rivers in our world.

    The other would be to explain the joke a bit differently. If the river ran into the Sea of Silt and the Sea of Silt into the Ocean that may have a current leading to Calandry, then the joke would still work. It would then be of course a bit far fetched to even have the joke. But the historic origin of the joke could be different than 'today's' joke, which is a mere metaphor for an actual historic event. Let's say for example that the river that goes threw Calandry originates in the mountains south of Urul instead of Balidor. Then there could have been an event, in which Balidor invaded the northern parts of Calandry and besieged a City whose (is that the correct pronoun?) only water supply was this river... And then the soldiers of Balidors sent them all of their piss. And based on this event the people of Balinor today still pass water into rivers to metaphorically "send their piss to Calandry".

    BTW: If there was trade between Calandry and Balidor, there could be a counter joke in Calandry, when they get beer from Balidor: "Well, Balinor is still sending all his piss to Calandry...", Carwulf said and took a sip.

    Cheers:D
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