Holy Crap...What have I got myself into?!

[dlaporte7271]

Here's the work in progress....mid stage...about to start cutting and pasting mountains...using Arsheesh's Eriond tut:

sofar.PNG

[dlaporte7271]

here's a look at the base map created using Plantegen...thanks Gidde

myPlanet_climate.PNG

[arsheesh]

Hi there Diplorte, I can't tell for sure based on your screen shots, but it looks as if the cloud patterns might be stretched along the horizontal axis. If this is so, then it's going to cause problems for your map. For one thing, the mountains will appear stretched as well. In my tutorial I say that when creating a square map, when you get to the Render Clouds step, set the X and Y size to 8. However, what I meant to put in (but must have forgot) was that when dealing with a rectangular may you will have to adjust the X size so that the cloud patterns are even, not stretched. So for instance, with the size you are working with, you might want to try placing the X size to 16 and the Y size to 8. I hope that helps.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[dlaporte7271]

Thanks Arsheesh...I thought my clouds looked a little different than yours. Thanks for the tip...I'll adjust and repost...if you notice anything else I'm missing I'll appreciate the feedback...

Dave

[dlaporte7271]

Look better?

update.PNG

[arsheesh]

Yes, that looks about right.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[dlaporte7271]

Here's a peak at some progress...I'm at the "Blobby Mountain" stage...At the bottom is the planetgen relief map I'm using as a reference:

progress.PNG

[arsheesh]

I have a question for you Dlaporte, what is your intention for the Plantegen map? Were you just using it as a basic reference for figuring out where to place higher elevations, or are you actually planning on incorporating into your finished map some how (e.g. substituting it for the gradient map)? If the latter, I don't think you are going to be able to achieve a high degree of consistence between the height map you are currently working on, and the Plantegen color map (or at least, not without spending a ton of work on height map). However, if the former, then that's a pretty smart way to plan out your map.

As to the mountain blobs, I noticed that there is a really big size difference between some of the cut and pasted mountains. Just so you know, this will result in some mountains (the ones that you have not resized, or have decreased in size) containing a fair amount of texture, while others (those whose size you have increased) will look fairly flat an untextured by contrast. Based on your screencapture, it looks like what you are attempting to achieve with these larger mountain sections is continuity with the Plantegen map. However, you might be able to achieve the desired effect without having to increase the size of your mountains. What you can do instead is look for a bunch of mountain clouds that are packed pretty close together so that rather than forming 1 single long mountain range, they seem to form a tight cluster of mountain ranges. Unfortunately the only example of what I'm talking about that I have on hand is a picture of ranged that have already been sculpted and run through Wilbur, but it might serve to give you a general idea of what I mean.

Mt. Height Map 1.jpg

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[dlaporte7271]

Well, I would have no idea how I would incorporate the planetgen map even if I wanted to...I just noticed that it produced a pretty cool relief map so I'm using it as a frame of reference for placing my mountain clouds.

As to the cloud 'blobs' I've been selecting: I'm looking for regions in the clouds that look like mountain ridges with roughly similar shapes to the planetgen mountains. I guess I am looking for 'single' mountain ranges as you noted.

If I understand your suggestion correctly you would have me grab much larger chunks of clouds than I had been...and then resizing/rotating. Is that about right?

for reference...here's a screenshot...the smaller circle represents the kind of areas I had been selecting...sort or resembling a mountain ridge running north to south...

The larger circle is what I THINK you are suggesting.
cloudlayer.PNG

Dave

[arsheesh]

That's more or less right, although in the large mt selection you chose, the mt ranges are not connected together. What I had in mind was something more like this (shown in blue):

cloudlayer.PNG