I'm still scratching my head a bit about this, Wyvern. I doubt the first, second, or third idea will be the final one. It's a case of which bits to make into symbols - individual ridges... mountains with ridges extending that can then be extended again if desired... or something else.
In some respects it's a little like the options for the Fantasy Realms style, which has both symbols for hills and mountains, and drawing tools that were used to create those symbols, so you can draw exactly what you need, as well as scattering some symbols about, should you choose. Personally, I find it preferable to draw everything I need using the tools, though I'm sure more folks would appreciate the symbol options than me!
On the left is an actual tracing of a section of the Himalayan watersheds. That's the ridges separating the rivers.
In yellow in the middle was a sketch I did of a grossly simplified idea - the central ridge with side spurs. About the only thing it has in common with the Himalayas is that the nodes (where the ridges join) are only ever 3-way. This would be relatively easy to create a set of symbols to emulate, but it doesn't look very realistic.
In white on the right is something that will probably look better, but which is horrendously complicated to create as a 'lego set' of individual symbols that can be used interchangeably for infinite variety.
So of course I'm going to try and do something that will work like the white pattern without being too complicated to use.
I think it might just work, though, if I take each section of the main spine with a single spur, like this.
Yea if you could pull off anything close to the red one that would be amazing. The yellow does certainly look off. I do like the white one as it looks kind of like a slow moving lazy river with loopbacks.
You'll probably also need some longer sections of the main spine, and the lesser side-shoots too, to get something closer to the Himalayan "red" version - to give segments of both types that are lengthened without having turnouts along them.
It's all a bit like trying to design a river system symbol tool as well - and if you crack it for the mountain ridges, it could perhaps be reworked to do that for rivers. Added complication is that the river channels aren't fixed-width along themselves, of course. Although neither are mountain ranges necessarily. So that's you designing Annual issues to cover all these possibilities every month now till what, 2027, Sue? 😉
Work continues. I'm still trying to work out whether to make complete ridge segments, or bits of ridges. The bitmap is incomplete, but with my circle map testing I've accidentally worked out how to make a vast crater.
Bits of ridges will be more flexible as to what can be drawn, although that likely means a lot more symbols overall. Thinking of how mountain ranges are often presented in various style packages, individual mountains plus ranges, or range sections, together in a style are fairly common, so some of each seems likely the compromise option, Sue.
@Wyvern - I forgot how many points a snowflake had ;)
This particular symbol is a complete ridge, starting with a mountain and extended into a ridge from one of it's 3 buttresses. I think 3 seems to be the magic number of butresses (or maybe in tight folds only 2 buttresses). All the Himalayan watershed lines join at 3-way nodes. 4 would be rare, I guess. Even Mt Everest only seems to have 3 main butresses. There's probably a really simple geomorphological reason for this, but I can't think why it might be.
Incidentally, I rather like the Nepalese(?) name for Everest - Arkhale. I wonder how it's pronounced.
The pattern formed by the river valleys (and it dual, the ridgelines) is dependent on the underlying geology. For relatively soft, uniform rocks, you'll get what's called a dendritic pattern and it tends to get joins roughly at 120 degree angles for both the rivers and ridgelines. For some extremely patterned geology, you'll get river networks that end up being much closer to a trellis in appearance, which junctions at roughly right angles. This behavior is all scale-dependent, of course, with which pattern you get turning up depending on how hard the local rock is (trellises are likely to have locally dendritic drainages, especially where the valleys get fairly flat). Dendritic patterns are typically indicate of significant downcutting and you'll find them in young mountains like the Himalayas, European Alps, Andes, and so on. Trellis drainage tends to occur in places where there are bands of hard rocks and soft rocks interleaved, such as often happens on the stumps of old mountain ranges such as the Appalalchians or young, folded rocks.
I love geology. Did a short course on it at college, but I didn't have the memory to be able to take it further. You've got to be able to recall so many complicated names for things at the drop of a hat.
EDIT: Shortly after I started reading the link Joe gave above, I realised that the names of things also vary between two countries that share a common language. What I know in the UK as a watershed is known as a divide in the US.
EDIT: Shortly after I started reading the link Joe gave above, I realised that the names of things also vary between two countries that share a common language. What I know in the UK as a watershed is known as a divide in the US.
Hence the old expression, "The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue."
@Don Anderson Jr. - I did biology at school as well. I sort of had to because both my parents were science teachers. I did quite a lot better than I would have done if I hadn't grown up with dinner conversations about all kinds of degree level cutting edge biology.
Thanks - though it's more a case of getting stuck not knowing how to draw something that's easy to use in CC, but still looks reasonably like the way it is in the real world.
I've had approximately this conversation in a similar context at one point ( https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=33087&page=2 ) and the observation that mountains and rivers are directly related seems to be one that doesn't quite gel with folks at first glance. Putting the rivers in the right place when working from ridgelines can be difficult, as can getting ridgelines from rivers because it's hard to get a plausible level of detail for each at the same time.
Love the mountain ridge bitmaps. That is what I could definitely use. And a snowflake has 6 points - no such thing as an octagonal snowflake - in the real world.
Perfect ridges - I really love that Sue. And it allows for different terrain types to be shown as you have got here. So, grassy, rocky, volcanic terrain will also show through. I really love that.
And sure, if you draw 8 sided snowflakes, then your drawn snowflakes have 8 sides - someone should tell the real snowflakes to get with it and advance to 8 pointed flakes - lazy things.
Just popping by to say that it's super cool to get a glimpse of the sauce being made, so to speak, for a mapping style! And the geology lesson was pretty neat too - some useful info in there for all of us who make maps @jslayton.
The map style itself is looking nice so far, the level of detail is really impressive. I can't wait to see it when it's all done. Keep up the good work @Loopysue!
Comments
I'm still scratching my head a bit about this, Wyvern. I doubt the first, second, or third idea will be the final one. It's a case of which bits to make into symbols - individual ridges... mountains with ridges extending that can then be extended again if desired... or something else.
In some respects it's a little like the options for the Fantasy Realms style, which has both symbols for hills and mountains, and drawing tools that were used to create those symbols, so you can draw exactly what you need, as well as scattering some symbols about, should you choose. Personally, I find it preferable to draw everything I need using the tools, though I'm sure more folks would appreciate the symbol options than me!
I'm hoping the symbols will make the bevel hills and mountains unnecessary, except for those who prefer them.
Here is the design quandry in a nutshell.
On the left is an actual tracing of a section of the Himalayan watersheds. That's the ridges separating the rivers.
In yellow in the middle was a sketch I did of a grossly simplified idea - the central ridge with side spurs. About the only thing it has in common with the Himalayas is that the nodes (where the ridges join) are only ever 3-way. This would be relatively easy to create a set of symbols to emulate, but it doesn't look very realistic.
In white on the right is something that will probably look better, but which is horrendously complicated to create as a 'lego set' of individual symbols that can be used interchangeably for infinite variety.
So of course I'm going to try and do something that will work like the white pattern without being too complicated to use.
I think it might just work, though, if I take each section of the main spine with a single spur, like this.
Yea if you could pull off anything close to the red one that would be amazing. The yellow does certainly look off. I do like the white one as it looks kind of like a slow moving lazy river with loopbacks.
In modular sections - maybe.
You'll probably also need some longer sections of the main spine, and the lesser side-shoots too, to get something closer to the Himalayan "red" version - to give segments of both types that are lengthened without having turnouts along them.
It's all a bit like trying to design a river system symbol tool as well - and if you crack it for the mountain ridges, it could perhaps be reworked to do that for rivers. Added complication is that the river channels aren't fixed-width along themselves, of course. Although neither are mountain ranges necessarily. So that's you designing Annual issues to cover all these possibilities every month now till what, 2027, Sue? 😉
And I thought you were kidding me in the live stream chat! LOL!
Rivers aside, I've been doing some work on the appearance of these mountain lego bits.
The shape leaves a lot to be desired at the moment, but I think I've got a workable style.
This is a ring of the same test symbol - testing the map file shades correctly.
Ah, the Star Trek mountains (well, they're shaped a bit like the arrowhead badges anyway!) 😎
LMAO!
And now I can't unsee it!
Hahaha nice pick-up, I didn't even notice.
So, Star Trek badges aside: I really do like how that fill works with those slopes and ridge lines.
Thank you :)
Work continues. I'm still trying to work out whether to make complete ridge segments, or bits of ridges. The bitmap is incomplete, but with my circle map testing I've accidentally worked out how to make a vast crater.
Ooh, Giant Octagonal Snowflake Mountains now!
Bits of ridges will be more flexible as to what can be drawn, although that likely means a lot more symbols overall. Thinking of how mountain ranges are often presented in various style packages, individual mountains plus ranges, or range sections, together in a style are fairly common, so some of each seems likely the compromise option, Sue.
What you have currently looks really good here.
This looks great. I am very much looking forward to March.
@Wyvern - I forgot how many points a snowflake had ;)
This particular symbol is a complete ridge, starting with a mountain and extended into a ridge from one of it's 3 buttresses. I think 3 seems to be the magic number of butresses (or maybe in tight folds only 2 buttresses). All the Himalayan watershed lines join at 3-way nodes. 4 would be rare, I guess. Even Mt Everest only seems to have 3 main butresses. There's probably a really simple geomorphological reason for this, but I can't think why it might be.
Incidentally, I rather like the Nepalese(?) name for Everest - Arkhale. I wonder how it's pronounced.
@Royal Scribe - Thank you :)
The pattern formed by the river valleys (and it dual, the ridgelines) is dependent on the underlying geology. For relatively soft, uniform rocks, you'll get what's called a dendritic pattern and it tends to get joins roughly at 120 degree angles for both the rivers and ridgelines. For some extremely patterned geology, you'll get river networks that end up being much closer to a trellis in appearance, which junctions at roughly right angles. This behavior is all scale-dependent, of course, with which pattern you get turning up depending on how hard the local rock is (trellises are likely to have locally dendritic drainages, especially where the valleys get fairly flat). Dendritic patterns are typically indicate of significant downcutting and you'll find them in young mountains like the Himalayas, European Alps, Andes, and so on. Trellis drainage tends to occur in places where there are bands of hard rocks and soft rocks interleaved, such as often happens on the stumps of old mountain ranges such as the Appalalchians or young, folded rocks.
https://geo.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Geography_(Physical)/The_Environment_of_the_Earth's_Surface_(Southard)/05%3A_Rivers/5.10%3A_Drainage_Networks has some nice diagrams for some of the basic types of drainages. You can often get an idea of the associated mountains by doing the equivalent of a bevel, lighted effect on (calculating the distance from) a pattern of rivers.
Thanks Joe. That explains it really well :)
Came to see and new map style and got a geology lesson.
I love geology. Did a short course on it at college, but I didn't have the memory to be able to take it further. You've got to be able to recall so many complicated names for things at the drop of a hat.
EDIT: Shortly after I started reading the link Joe gave above, I realised that the names of things also vary between two countries that share a common language. What I know in the UK as a watershed is known as a divide in the US.
That is the reason I never took Biology in High School.
Then on the other hand I went into drama and memorized whole plays. One was a two person play. That was more memorization than all of Biology lmao.
Can't believe the amount of care and detail you take to make your style.
EDIT: Shortly after I started reading the link Joe gave above, I realised that the names of things also vary between two countries that share a common language. What I know in the UK as a watershed is known as a divide in the US.
Hence the old expression, "The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue."
@Don Anderson Jr. - I did biology at school as well. I sort of had to because both my parents were science teachers. I did quite a lot better than I would have done if I hadn't grown up with dinner conversations about all kinds of degree level cutting edge biology.
Thanks - though it's more a case of getting stuck not knowing how to draw something that's easy to use in CC, but still looks reasonably like the way it is in the real world.
@Royal Scribe - Are we ever! LOL!
I've had approximately this conversation in a similar context at one point ( https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=33087&page=2 ) and the observation that mountains and rivers are directly related seems to be one that doesn't quite gel with folks at first glance. Putting the rivers in the right place when working from ridgelines can be difficult, as can getting ridgelines from rivers because it's hard to get a plausible level of detail for each at the same time.
Love the mountain ridge bitmaps. That is what I could definitely use. And a snowflake has 6 points - no such thing as an octagonal snowflake - in the real world.
Snowflakes have 8 points if I draw them :)
Arctic version of the same symbol.
Perfect ridges - I really love that Sue. And it allows for different terrain types to be shown as you have got here. So, grassy, rocky, volcanic terrain will also show through. I really love that.
And sure, if you draw 8 sided snowflakes, then your drawn snowflakes have 8 sides - someone should tell the real snowflakes to get with it and advance to 8 pointed flakes - lazy things.
Just popping by to say that it's super cool to get a glimpse of the sauce being made, so to speak, for a mapping style! And the geology lesson was pretty neat too - some useful info in there for all of us who make maps @jslayton.
The map style itself is looking nice so far, the level of detail is really impressive. I can't wait to see it when it's all done. Keep up the good work @Loopysue!