That looks really good so far, what software do you use?
Just wanting some feedback on the progress on my world map. This view is from about the equator to 80 degrees south at an oblique angle on a globe. I haven't gotten all the rivers done yet, just the ones in the southwest. Also, the large grey/tan area in the middle is supposed to be a large dessicated sea, similar to the Mediterranean Messinian Salinity Crisis, and the large mass in the south is a continental glacier.
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That looks really good so far, what software do you use?
That's looking so fantastic that it's beyond words. Very realistic looking and detailed, right down to tectonic features and even spreading ridges, well rendered.
My curiosity is the size of the file, and what method you use for rendering topography on a sphere. Do you follow worldbuilding pasta, and project to the Hammer oblique projection for each continent?
I can't wait to see this work completed.
Peter
I use Photoshop with the Flexify 2 and Geographic Imager addons, and GIMP with GMIC, along with GPlates.
And hello Peter! I am a huge fan of your work on here, a lot of your tests and posts have inspired my work. The base file that I use is 30k by 15k pixels, with a reference map of earth at the same scale. I planned out the tectonics in GPlates, transferred the final tectonic map into Photoshop, and then it was just a lot of copy/paste/adjustments to transfer real world data into my own map. I don't actually render the topography on a sphere, instead I occasionally export the full image as a png and check it on GPlates to make sure the polar distortion isn't too bad. For the rendering of the elevation and such, I use a combination of bump mapping, gradient norms, and laplacian/curvature maps overlaid on top of each other to get a crisp look that doesn't take away from the elevation colors too much.
Hello all, back with an update. Added bump mapping and finished three continents with the Central-American-like isthmus.
SaltDesert.jpg
WesternContinent.jpg
Isthmus.jpg
Tehrama.jpegOrcarra.jpegMisthan.jpeg
A major update, I'm almost done with the terrain, and did some testing on a satellite-style color scheme. I'd love some feedback/critique/opinions!
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/turambar91
That's some very cool mapping!
KorethSmallContinents.jpg
Here is a full world map with some continent/ocean names for reference.