New Work in Progress
Ithril
Traveler
As I had promised, my last 'wip' didn't last too long before it was abandoned. This new one shows a lot more promise, it's been less frustrating, and less time consuming, and more rewarding as well. I may actually flesh this one out to completion.
It started with a FT world. Once I got that to something I liked, I exported it to CC3+, and used the Ancient Realms template. Using FT gave me a lot of advantages. Once I got it in to CC3+, I retraced the coastline with the default tool, customized a bit for a more jagged look. Retracing the coast by hand gave me the advantage of having a more natural looking coast, and it also allowed me to make changes on the fly if I found something I didn't like. When that was done, I used the techniques from 2008 Annual Style Pack "Shaded Relief" to make my mountains stand up. Again FT made this much easier than it might have been. I put each contour onto a separate sheet, and gave them each a unique shaded bevel. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all similar contours were grouped, so any changes I made were consistent throughout the drawing. There are a few I still need to edit; one is extended into the ocean on the West side of the map, and there is also a few 'thick' mountain peaks that need attention, but I have found editing these is not overly difficult. When that is done, I have to retrace the rivers. This will be much easier because, again, FT has already shown me where the rivers will likely flow. I don't have to worry if they reach the ocean or not, and I don't have to worry about the unusually straight river courses that occasionally occur, as these will all be corrected when I retrace them into the Ancient Realms style.
Thank you Joe Slayton for making Fractal Terrains.
There are several admonitions in the tutorials about not making a map that's too big. Unfortunately, I have a really bad sense of scale, and I think I've transgressed all of them with abandon. This map measures 14,400 miles East to West. Greyhawk, for example would fit nicely into the sea on the southern coast.
There is one thing that concerns me a little. The Eastern edge of the map has a lighter 'grassland' pattern than the larger part of the rendered image, it doesn't appear in native CC3, just when it's exported; I was just wondering if anyone knew why this might be.
I look forward to your comments. Pic posted below.
I
It started with a FT world. Once I got that to something I liked, I exported it to CC3+, and used the Ancient Realms template. Using FT gave me a lot of advantages. Once I got it in to CC3+, I retraced the coastline with the default tool, customized a bit for a more jagged look. Retracing the coast by hand gave me the advantage of having a more natural looking coast, and it also allowed me to make changes on the fly if I found something I didn't like. When that was done, I used the techniques from 2008 Annual Style Pack "Shaded Relief" to make my mountains stand up. Again FT made this much easier than it might have been. I put each contour onto a separate sheet, and gave them each a unique shaded bevel. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all similar contours were grouped, so any changes I made were consistent throughout the drawing. There are a few I still need to edit; one is extended into the ocean on the West side of the map, and there is also a few 'thick' mountain peaks that need attention, but I have found editing these is not overly difficult. When that is done, I have to retrace the rivers. This will be much easier because, again, FT has already shown me where the rivers will likely flow. I don't have to worry if they reach the ocean or not, and I don't have to worry about the unusually straight river courses that occasionally occur, as these will all be corrected when I retrace them into the Ancient Realms style.
Thank you Joe Slayton for making Fractal Terrains.
There are several admonitions in the tutorials about not making a map that's too big. Unfortunately, I have a really bad sense of scale, and I think I've transgressed all of them with abandon. This map measures 14,400 miles East to West. Greyhawk, for example would fit nicely into the sea on the southern coast.
There is one thing that concerns me a little. The Eastern edge of the map has a lighter 'grassland' pattern than the larger part of the rendered image, it doesn't appear in native CC3, just when it's exported; I was just wondering if anyone knew why this might be.
I look forward to your comments. Pic posted below.
I
Comments
I keep getting an error:
"Some problems were encountered
The file you attempted to upload (Ancient realms.png) was empty.
You are not allowed to upload (Ancient realms.png) the requested file type: "
I've even resampled the image down to about 36% of the original size making it a 2.2 meg file.
I
OKAY! I got it to work by reducing it to 25% of the original size. Thanks for your patience.
Different file formats store the image in different ways, causing the size to be substantially different even in a small file. This is why bmps are huge but easy to process, and jpgs are smaller, but less 'friendly'
I
Like I said - this is a beautiful map for the colour alone, and even though you haven't added any particular detail in terms of roads or settlements just yet. The sea is just so beautiful, never mind the land.
As for the grassland, it looks like you have a different fill texture on that side of the map. You can change the properties of the offending area using the change properties button - the one that looks like a tipping paint pot. As to why this has happened, I have no idea.
The original size, but stil lthe reduced picture depth, is what I put on my web site.
The shape of your land masses are fantastic! I wish I could get my land masses to look that good! I think the color scheme is a little too pale, especially with the hues of the oceans and the mountains.
Realize, of course, this is just my opinion. This is still a really good start to a really great map! I hope you continue with it!
I
I do, however agree just a little bit with Ladiestorm about possibly adding a tiny amount of Edge Fade Inner to the land contours to soften the lines - to make it more of a gradation between the colours of the land... if that's possible with the particular technique you are using to emulate the relief.
Try it and see if it looks any better to you.
Really nice work here!
I suppose I'll be the lone dissenter and say that, at that continental scale, I don't think an edge fade on the snow caps/glaciers is necessary. Just my two cents.
Gorgeous map so far. I look forward to seeing more.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Ithril - so us ladies can hope to see something similar to what you have there (which is actually more lovely than the Errispa coastlines) would you be gracious enough to let us know what general settings you used to get such a gorgeously appealing shape?
You see, Ithril. This is what you have done to us. We're all here having a veritable tea party discussion about your map! LOL
There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that if you try to add minute details to a global map the resulting file will be massive and, among other things, difficult to share. Other reasons to avoid too much detail on a global map include things like symbol scale aesthetics and readability, line thickness, text labels, and so on.
~Dogtag
I don't know. Over to you, Dogtag?
Alright, the thumbnail works, click on it to load a larger version. That's the latest version. I'm not going to do a lot more developing on it at this scale; but I'll use it as a basis for regional maps.
I agree. The edge fade is integral to making it look right. For some reason I thought it was included in the presets for that style, but they aren't. It looks much more realistic with them. It causes the mountains to appear to have peaks at different levels, and that is very nice.
The settings I used for the fractal lines for the continents is: Strength 65%, depth 8, line segment lengths minimum 0.05, maximum 3, with the 'Values as a percentage of map border" option checked. Remember though, I used this tool to trace the landmasses generated in Fractal Terrains. It was surprising how often the fractal line seemed to want to follow the preset coast lines.
I also discovered I actually had two copies of the main landmass; probably made when I was trying to trace the original. I've deleted one, hoping that would solve my texture problem on the right side of the map, but that anomaly still persists. I'm sure it will clear up eventually.
Now I just need to decide what style to do the regional maps in.
Thanks for the pointers.
I
By the way - to anyone else clicking the icon: Coming back from where the thumbnail takes you sets the PF screen off-kilter (it becomes huge itself). If this happens to you just click your browser refresh and then use CTRL + mousewheel to resize to something like normal.
so I see the link I had before died, it doesn't really matter anymore because I have a new link.
Larger map
I discovered why the bitmap was cutting off half-way across the map. I was rendering the map larger than the bitmap would scale. to overcome this limitation, i rendered the map in 3 pieces, and stitched them together in paint.
I think I'm pleased with the results. Now I'll work on maps of smaller areas, though I'm sure I'll return to add and tweak details now & again.
I
and a local map
Of course there will always be more for me to do as I go along.
Let me know what you think.
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