Thread: July / August 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Wanenjo

Originally Posted by Thurlor

Any suggestions on a quick way to label every forth contour?

Nothing comes to mind except the observation that with over 1600 meters of change in elevation, labeling every 100 meters on the flat parts (like near the coast) and every 500 meters on the mountain should be adequate. Just tag a few 'peaks' that might fall between the 500 meter contours - since that might be important data for a map.

Originally Posted by Thurlor

Any suggestions on a quick way to label every forth contour?

I don't know as it's quick, but maybe creating paths from each of the contour lines you want to label and stroking them with the type tool (a lot of copy/paste would help speed that part up).

This is shaping up beautifully! =)

Also, is there a very easy, quick way you could create a lower res image of this in 3d, from an angle? I'm really curious to see what it looks like in 'reality'. I don't know if the programs you use can do that or not, though.

The contours -- wow. If Atpollard hadn't asked how on earth you'd done that, I'd've.

@ Chashio

Do you mean a 3D view of the terrain? That's so easy to render out I'll do it now.


The vertical range isn't quite right (too much vertical exaggeration) but this gives a general idea of what the island looks like.
The ugly shore-line is due to me never intending to render this and thus I didn't create it properly.

I really love working with Cinema 4D. Making this mock-up took a whole of 5 mins. I'm pretty sure Blender would allow scenes like this to be easily setup as well.

I've been looking into using sculptris to model some 3D terrain.

=D That's exactly what I meant! Thank you!

Here's another small update.
I've added;
* Spot Heights - I think they're all done.
* Relief Shading - This was a bit difficult due to the limited colour palette but eventually I figured it out.
* River & Lake test.

### Latest WIP ###

Here's the latest update;

### Latest WIP ###


* Added some more spot heights (there's still some more to go).
* Started laying in rivers and lakes which takes a long time.
* Added labels to the contours representing 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 500m and 1000m. At higher altitudes it becomes too crowded to add them all.

I keep 'discovering' new things to add or change so this is taking longer than it probably should. Also, because I'm learning as I go along I find myself staring at nothing thinking of various techniques.

After looking at some real maps I've decided to also add a 'Provincial Boundaries' panel and a 'Historical Notes' panel. I really like creating the back story, even for a silly world like this. Actually if I were to change some of the names I could probably make this into a decent campaign thingy.

Any comment and criticism welcome (if that's not against the challenge rules). I could really use another's perspective as I've been staring at this thing for so long now.

Originally Posted by Thurlor

@ atpollard

Thanks. I was under the impression the contours weren't very good. They seem somewhat 'wonky' to me. Either way, they too so long to do. The process is as follows;

• Create hieghtfield in Wilbur.
• Select from height range for every 25 m.
• Save each selection
• Trace each image in Inkscape.

excuse any ignorance on my part, as ive never used wilbur before, though couldnt you save each selection as a bmp and open them all separate layers on a single image in photoshop and then select each layer and stroke it? seems a lot easier than manually tracing each one...

anyway, this map has really got me itching to try out wilbur as those contours are lovely. not just those but the map itself. great work on this one!

@ vorropohaiah

That is pretty much what I did. Each selection was saved as a bmp from within wilbur (I'd love it if wilbur exported vector viles).

The only graphics software I have is Inkscape and GIMP. Inkscape allows tracing of bitmaps but it would die a horrible death if I tried to load 89x95MB bitmaps into it in one go. In fact just making this map slows it down so much that I have had to find work arounds.