[WIP] World of Phantas
ArgoForg
Newcomer
I've been working for a little bit with the new Herwin Wielink additions to CC3+ and have been very happy with them ( had the annual, originally, and reallly liked the look, but never got to working as detailed with it until the CC3+ release), so I decided that I wanted to take on a large project and see how they looked. This is the northern continent of my gaming world, Phantas, and I'm pretty pleased thus far, although this is obviously a big WIP. I haven't much mucked with trees yet, because I'm still trying to figure out a good way to get them to blend well with the forest fills, and I'm still tweaking with effects.
On a side note, CC3+ balked a LOT during renders until I downgraded to 2000 x 1600 alias 25 settings and worked from there. I'm guessing that's the amount of effects and sheets. Constructive criticism is naturally welcome... and I'll add areas as I finish them!
Here's a detail of the area around Eidelstahd, which is probably the area I have most detailed thus far.
On a side note, CC3+ balked a LOT during renders until I downgraded to 2000 x 1600 alias 25 settings and worked from there. I'm guessing that's the amount of effects and sheets. Constructive criticism is naturally welcome... and I'll add areas as I finish them!
Here's a detail of the area around Eidelstahd, which is probably the area I have most detailed thus far.
Comments
For your trees, the annual simply showed a tree fill put down on the map with a few trees around the edge of the fill and just a couple of them inside near the center. That seems to be the way the trees are designed to work in this style.
I do have one question, and it's not necessarily a criticism, more like I'm not sure what I'm seeing, and I'm asking for clarification. Up at your northern point, you have a few glaciers in the ocean, which I think is a really nice touch! But there is something else there. I can't tell whether it's supposed to be a tidal wave, a fog, or something else? If it's a tidal wave, that's really cool! If it's fog, you might want to work on the fill repetition. If it's something else, then I just don't know what I'm looking at.
Thank you very much for the praise! I am really thrilled that it has a 'realistic' feel, and I'm kinda hopeful I can keep that sort of feel up as I continue! By the way, thank you very much for the suggestion on the trees-- between your suggestion, the Wielink example map, and the great map done by lorelei in this style, I'm hopeful I have a decent idea how to make the forests look a little better!
@LadieStorm,
Thank you as well!! I really like the style of this map-- it does seem to have a little more learning curve toward fill styles and sheet effects than I've used on any of my other maps, so I'm excited, but still definitely puttering my way around. The style definitely is forgiving on the eyes, though! ^_^
As far as the stuff in the north, I believe you might be looking at the icefield fill I used around the northern parts of the continent. I like the idea of the ice having a progessive fade as it came inland, so I used an inner edge fade, but rather than tracing, I loosely contoured around the coastline, hoping to offset the fade, with not particularly good results. I may have to go a second sheet of ice or snow for my fade effect to work but still hug the coastline. Anyway, here's a closer look after I've dialed it back and increased the texture scale a little:
I may switch off to one of the snow fills, but I do like how the icefield works with the glaciers. Not entirely sure yet. But tell me if you meant something else entirely!
Of course, this is only a suggestion. You may find something you like better
So I'm wondering what is going on with the temperatures to make it so warm, that close to the ice flow and glaciers. I mean...for glaciers and ice flows, wouldn't it need to be -30 to -40 degrees F? And then in what looks like 20-30 miles inland it's above 32 degrees F? I can't help but wonder what kind of phenomena caused this. I'm avidly curious to know what it is.
Now I could be completely wrong, and I probably am
The way I've envisioned it (and I admittedly could be wrong about the global atmosphere and how it affects, itself!) is that this white area in the far north is the southern tip of the subarctic region, which stretches a couple hundred miles inland at its deepest point before giving way to slightly more forgiving (if still largely cold) subarctic to temperate climes. I plan on having some extended areas of tundra in the northern areas where all you see is pine forests, for instance, before they in turn give way to temperate forests. Phantas does have a polar region, but this area is a ways south and slightly west of it, and I haven't really expanded to include it because it is largely unexplored and has no civilizations to speak of.
I do not know if a more broad picture of the whole western continents might help clear anything up, but if nothing else, you can see how the rest of the world is coming along, too. ^_^
Also, very good suggestion on the white glow. I tried to approximate the Photoshop 'Stroke', where I could use a 1-pixel outline of black just to make the lettering stand out, but wasn't having a whole lot of success. A white glow seems to work much better!
The truth is, I LOVE how you did your rivers. Did you do these in CC3(+) or did you use another image editor to achieve this look?
As far as the rivers, yes, they are definitely all done in CC3, and while it can be a somewhat tedious process, I think the end result feels very natural and real. The short form is that all these rivers are all short multiple segments, rather than a single line, so the line width on each can be changed and give the illusion of a river's growth as it moves further from its source and connects with other tributaries. (The attached picture, for instance, shows a fairly long river on the southern continent; it's composed of 39 separate segments of Default River that have been modified to varying widths.)
If you're interested, I'm looking to throw together a quick new thread with screencaps to demonstrate!
I was fortunate in that I had an old map I had created a long while ago using Fractal Mapper (which does some interesting fractal landmasses) and Photoshop that I could use as a base to figure how my landmasses were laid out, and as I zoomed in and kinda quasi-traced them, I made a lot of nodes (mouse clicks) and varied the lines a lot to try to create realistic-feeling landmasses with inlets and spurs that just 'felt' interesting.
So, I guess, in short, pretty much by zooming in until I was almost blind and clicking the mouse until my hand was screaming to get done with it already, lol. XD
One suggestion (and not to start the river argument again), the rivers around Nertomir look like they should be flowing down from highlands, particularly since their sources are so close to the sea. I'd suggest another mountain range or two in that area.
I love this style. The choice of colors and patterns always makes me think of "cold, windy, and forlorn."
PS: Thaaaaaaaaank you, Profantasy, for the last CC3+ update, which fixed the memory leak during renders! I no longer have had to worry when I do these renders at 7500 x 7500!
Anyway, here's the latest and greatest-- http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss78/argoforg/WoP-Full2a_zpsuylorfje.jpg
(You should be able to zoom in and then right click/open in new tab to get it in its heinous full sized glory)
Full size version is located here (I believe this link works for everyone): World of Phantasie Final WIP (Edit: made the borderlines a little more subtle.)
Yes, excellently done map. I'm very interested in learning how you did your rivers, please. Also, you are using a forest fill I can't seem to find on your southern continent. Could you point me to that in the files? Or did you make it yourself?
thanks in advance and excellent art!
Cal
I actually did up a quick tutorial on how I do my rivers in my overland maps. The link to the PDF should be right HERE. It can admittedly be a little tedious with big rivers, but I really like the results I've gotten with the technique.
As far as the fills on the forests in the southern continent, they're all part of the Herman Wielink (sic?) set that comes standard with the latest updates of CC3+. If you mean the northern half of the southern continents (Haven Wood, around Aeraethel, etc), those are done with one of the standard forest fills, although I'm pretty sure I adjusted the scaling on the fill to about 450-- it was set originally at 720 due to the size of my map, I believe. The more southern rainforests (The T'karran Darkfold, The Yanghae Rainforests, etc) I used one or the other of the jungle fills, at about the same scaling, and used jungle trees and palm symbols to fill out the space. I hope that helps!