Heghruil - RPG map in the making.

Okay, I said I would begin a WIP for this map and after an hour's worth of work and a couple of restarts this is what I have come up with.

I used some of the techniques I learned from RobA about overlay's and noise. I also utilized his trick of saving a selection to a channel. That came in handy on multiple occasions. I am still a bit weak on using layer masks. I need some more information on why they are used and what they are good for.

I kinda fumbled through the making of the shoreline and I am still not 100& sure I like it but it seems to work for the map for now. I did play around with some emboss filters to get the water the way it is and I actually like the way that came out.

Ascension, your advice to just "wing it" inspired all of this work to continue. Thanks a bunch for the quick kick to the rump.

*EDIT*

Also, I got some heavy pixelation on the edges of the land mass towards the end. Not sure where that came from and have no idea how to get rid of it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I like the texture you've got going, and those are great colors.

A very small (2px or so) gaussian blur should take care of your pixelation and the tiny lines that look like artifacts of your bump map.

Good start!

I tried your suggestion of using a guassian filter. I ranged it from 2-8 and while it does get rid of the pixelation, I lose a lot of crispness from the overall image. Is there some way to just grab the edges of the land mass and apply the filter then?

If not, then I guess I am gonna have to start from the beginning again or deal with it being pixelated/blurry. At this point, I think having a slightly blurry picture at 300% zoom is gonna be worth it.

That's a nice coastline so keep on keepin on.

So do you think the coast line is too pixelated or should I just run with it and not let it bother me (as it is only prevalent when zoomed in)?

I say keep going and when you get completely done...redo it then (if you want) because you will have learned much along the way. Approach every map as an experiment and you will soon want to be making a new map to try out new ideas...like every other week :) S'what I do.

I'm seeing a few coastlines that look a little more straight than one might expect, and a few 90 degree angles in there, I had a map come out similar to that recently, I just grabbed a 3-4 pixel tip and switched between eraser and pencil to make then a tad more natural.

Otherwise, this looks fine to me. Keep on trucking!

I'm with Ascension and Coyotemax, the overall landmass shape is neat, it just needs a few tweaks.

Ok, so I decided to take my work to Photoshop CS4. I am way more familiar with the software and I wanted to see what I could do with it. I found Pasis's tut and textures and started playing around with them.

This is a very preliminary work up. I am not too excited about the ground textures but I like the forest texture alot. I am still playing with the mountain textures and trying to get them right so the ranges look more organic and flowing. I liked the way he makes rivers I just need to find a more suitable texture to go along with it.

I would like the river police to double check my flows and make sure I followed the rules that I found on the forums. Plus if anyone has any good websites for textures, I would be appreciative.

*EDIT*

Updated pic with water added and some semblance of a coast line. Tried to lay down some sort of snow on the northern part of the realm but couldn't really figure out how to do it. I'll scan over some more tut's later.

There's a pretty good selection of links and textures in this thread right on the site.

Looking pretty good though! The forest edges seem to end very suddenly, perhaps you might want to have some of them edge off a bit more sporadically? I find the spatter brushes work well for that, myself, gives it a bit more of a natural feel, especially on the slopes up the mountains.

Nice so far!

Oh, and one of the things I do for snow over the mountain peaks is to add another bevel layer in the style of the mountain peaks, and use straight white. For putting it over the terrain itself, you can just use a texture, and either overlay or use as is. Lots of different ways to get that happening :)

(and i just LOVE the forest texture!)