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Thread: [WIP] The Emric Coast

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    Guild Novice Dndungeoneer's Avatar
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    Wip [WIP] The Emric Coast

    Hi everyone. This is my first map, and I made it using CC3. I feel like it's "done" but obviously I don't have the expertise or experience of many of the cartographers on this site. Any suggestions would be welcome, no matter what it is. Enjoy!

    Dndungeoneer
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    Guild Apprentice jazzon's Avatar
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    Excellent first piece. Technical trick.. Explode all of your text when you are sure teh map is FINISHED. It will make several printing and zooming issues go away. Unless you wanted to add more shadowing or terrain blending around the mountain or forest bases, it looks good to me.
    Unless specifically stated otherwise in a post body, all work uploaded here by me may be used for any purpose commercial or otherwise.
    We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colours....
    but they all exist very nicely in the same box.

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    Guild Novice Dndungeoneer's Avatar
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    Thanks for the encouragement and the advice. I tried exploding my text but it made the text clump together due to the font I'm using. I'll most certainly be using that trick in the future, but due to wanting a quick fix, and since my text is in a whole bunch of different layers I've noticed, I've decided to just set up a black glow, which I think does the job nicely. Obviously exploding would have been a better option but due to my own mistake it was too much of a hassle to redo it.
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    My only potential criticism is that, given the way the Mountains are set up, unless there is some other source of Water to the West, the Mountains should probably result in a large Rain Shadow, thus the forest should probably be a desert.

    That said, this looks like a very small area of a vastly larger map, so it is entirely possible there is some other source of water-vapor rich incoming air on the Forested Side of the Mountains. After all, both sides of the Alps have forests. So my criticism is less a criticism and more a 'keep this in mind'. There are plenty of ways you could justify the Mountains without resorting to wizardry. Actually, if there is a large body of water to the west that sends Water-Rich air heading east, the Forests make a lot of sense because that air would crash into the mountains, creating a lot of precipitation, instead causing a Rain Shadow to the East. This would especially be true if this is at a Latitudinal Range where Easterly Winds prevail, generally around the Temperate and Polar Zones (which is, incidentally, where you tend to get deep thick non-rain forests).

    So again, less a 'Criticism' and more a 'Keep this in Mind'. Overall, I like it.

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    Community Leader Lukc's Avatar
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    It looks good for a first work . Another trick that really helps the colourblind population is not to use thin red elements (like the invisible road) on green backgrounds.

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    Guild Novice Dndungeoneer's Avatar
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    That's a great suggestion, Lukc, I hadn't even thought of that. I changed the roads to a much darker brown color to help with that issue.
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    The one visually unusual piece to me is the lake behind the mountains that then runs to the coast while passing that close to the mountains. Like a lack of any rain shadow effect it could be explained but it is jarring to my eyes.

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    Guild Journeyer Guild Sponsor Klaus van der Kroft's Avatar
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    Looking good, Dndungeoneer! May your players earn bountiful EXP while traversing those lands, or at least give you the pleasure of crushing them with giant rocks thrown by mutant geese.

    A couple of suggestions:

    -Add some more randomness to the edges of the forest, by placing more sparce trees around it. It'll help it look more natural and blend with the surroundings.

    -Maybe put some of the mountains protruding into the forest too, to give it a more transitional feel. Unless they are supposed to be very clear-cut, of course.


    Keep up the good work!

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    Guild Novice Dndungeoneer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sinphanius View Post
    There are plenty of ways you could justify the Mountains without resorting to wizardry. Actually, if there is a large body of water to the west that sends Water-Rich air heading east, the Forests make a lot of sense because that air would crash into the mountains, creating a lot of precipitation, instead causing a Rain Shadow to the East.
    I've actually decided to have the capital of the kingdom directly to the west be centered near a large body of water, so perhaps that would help explain the forests in a more meteorological sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by Klaus van der Kroft View Post
    A couple of suggestions:

    -Add some more randomness to the edges of the forest, by placing more sparce trees around it. It'll help it look more natural and blend with the surroundings.

    -Maybe put some of the mountains protruding into the forest too, to give it a more transitional feel. Unless they are supposed to be very clear-cut, of course.


    Keep up the good work!
    Thanks for the suggestions Klaus, I was thinking of those as well but wanted some feedback first. I've uploaded a map with all the suggestion in mind.
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    Last edited by Dndungeoneer; 03-10-2012 at 01:36 AM.

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