Cantebury World Map, WIP, need help!
LadieStorm
🖼️ 50 images Surveyor
This is a map I'm making of the planet Cantebury, for the Mech Warrior game I'm running. As you can see, it's not even half finished. I'm working on the island that's smack dab in the middle of the map. It's the one with the tiny island to the immediate south west of it.
Now, I know what most people are going to say about the island. The mountain region is wrong.... Mountains don't form circular ranges. My response would be that the mountain range you see USED to be a massive crater.... something along the lines of a meteor hitting the planet a couple millenia ago... That's not my issue.
My issue is a very deep ravine that is SUPPOSED to be running somewhat parallel to that northern mountain range. A ravine that is about half the depth of the Grand Canyon, and wide enough to build a city the size of New York in. Well, maybe not quite that big... but close. A bit of an explanation. This is the sight of a Inner Sphere War Ship crashed about 400 years prior.... in fact about a quarter of the crashed ship is still there. Where it crashed it left it's own 'crater' that ended up becoming cliffs on either side, then eventually vegetation grew up and over.
The problem is... I can't get a realistic looking ravine.... not one that's wide enough to suit my needs. I tried using cliff symbols, then turning those symbols up side down to represent the south side of the crater. It looked horrible. Plus, I need something that LOOKS like it's not a natural formation of cracks in the ground. The ravine needs to be very straight, as if it was carved out of the landscape.... which of course, it was.
I look forward to any suggestions! Just understand one thing. I don't know the first thing about creating my own symbols!
Now, I know what most people are going to say about the island. The mountain region is wrong.... Mountains don't form circular ranges. My response would be that the mountain range you see USED to be a massive crater.... something along the lines of a meteor hitting the planet a couple millenia ago... That's not my issue.
My issue is a very deep ravine that is SUPPOSED to be running somewhat parallel to that northern mountain range. A ravine that is about half the depth of the Grand Canyon, and wide enough to build a city the size of New York in. Well, maybe not quite that big... but close. A bit of an explanation. This is the sight of a Inner Sphere War Ship crashed about 400 years prior.... in fact about a quarter of the crashed ship is still there. Where it crashed it left it's own 'crater' that ended up becoming cliffs on either side, then eventually vegetation grew up and over.
The problem is... I can't get a realistic looking ravine.... not one that's wide enough to suit my needs. I tried using cliff symbols, then turning those symbols up side down to represent the south side of the crater. It looked horrible. Plus, I need something that LOOKS like it's not a natural formation of cracks in the ground. The ravine needs to be very straight, as if it was carved out of the landscape.... which of course, it was.
I look forward to any suggestions! Just understand one thing. I don't know the first thing about creating my own symbols!
Comments
The ones on the circular crater should work just fine.
Crater on Earth:
Lunar crater, Copernicus
I think my issue, is that all of the cliff symbols we have, you can make a cliff face south on a map, you can make one face east, or west. But you can't make a cliff in cc3+ that faces north. I need to make my cliffs face each other, to form a ravine.... but the only way to do that... is to turn the symbols upside down... and that just doesn't look right. Let me show you an example of what I'm 'trying' to do.
Here is a side-view of part of that valley.
Valles Marineris Perspective from Mars Express
I tried to find some other photos from that European Space Agency but I was unsuccessful in that most sites had adverts on them.
The front edge of such a construction in an isometric map like this would only be a line. Its incredibly difficult to get right unless you are actually drawing the thing like a landscape painting and can use a bit of Bob Ross mist to make it stand out.
Why not just mark the position of the city with a standard city symbol (it's the map of the entire world, so you wouldn't normally be able to see more than a dot anyway), and when you do the city map (which I presume you are going to do) things will be easier because its a top view map.
You can use an inverted bevel effect on the city map - like this:
Its still not perfect, however, because you have to add another level of the land sheet above that bevel sheet to open the end up by hiding some of the wall, and since the houses have to be on top of that second land sheet, they can't actually fall into the shade of the northern cliff or the human eye refuses to believe the illusion.
It may seem a little chaotic when you take a look at the way I'm mapping this world. Usually, I start with my land masses, set up my sea contours, then my land contours. Then I set my mountain ranges, set up my lakes and rivers, then my forests. I decide where other terrain is, such as deserts, arid areas, jungles and such, then I place my inhabited areas, starting with my ports, and working inland. I finish up with any details I've missed, then put up my labels, compass and what not, set my title and be done with it.
But this was a game I started on the fly. Meaning I came up with the basic story line in two hours, when I was put on the spot one weekend. In fact, this game was only supposed to last THAT weekend... but my players liked it so much they begged me to continue it!
So this map wasn't even started until after I had run the game for about 3 weeks, and my players were starting to get confused as to where they were, and all. Which means I'm playing catch up. So I'm focusing on those areas where the main play is right now. The island continent with the weird canyon, and the really large continent in the upper right: Sparta and Compton, respectively.
I've actually finished Sparta. All that's really there, for now, is a military base, and two towns that literally sprang up almost overnight. So now I'm turning my attentions to Compton. Compton has been the poorest of the Dukedoms for the past 30-40 years. The previous Duke has literally been running the whole continent to the ground... and it's population right along with it. But there's a new Duke in town, (one of the players) and he's in the middle of reconstruction... in the true sense of the word. He's rebuilding.
So, to that end, this map has progressed... it's not complete yet... but it is progressing. Here it is.
Is there a reason the trees in the west are bigger than the trees in the east?
Maybe the people are bigger too (or smaller, depending from which side you are looking from)
That would be neat
How about Gulliver's DARK Travels :P
This is what happens when you try to fill a night of insomnia with something constructive! Ugh, which means I'm going to have to go back in and fix that... the question is, do I make the west side smaller, or the east side bigger?
I'll fix the east side... there's less to do. Grrrrrrrrr …….
Thumbs up!