Another attempt at a world map

[AlexSchacher]

Hello. Some of you might remember that I was working on the shape of the continents to base my world in a few months ago. I scrapped my previous map, to go for something that could technically fit on a globe rather than just a square. Right now I'm just curious what others think of the world shape (again). I have avoided the poles so far, I am not sure if I want polar caps on either or both or neither poles yet, although I am definately missing some snowy lands (unless I just moved the "snowy" part closer to the equator). My problem is that I don't want to overcomplicate and crowd the map with more land masses (maybe?). Anyways! Any feedback is appreciated! The map is in Equirectangular projection and Ill post a couple of globe views as well.

Also I should mention that the biome coloring is just a gradient to show approximate temperature zones, not actual biomes. Mountains are also just a base idea, very subject to change.

newworld2014small.png

Round-World2.jpg

Round-World22.jpg

[Caenwyr]

I really like your continent shapes. They look very stretched, as if I'm looking at them through a fish-eye lens, but projected onto a globe they look marvelous! Which reminds me: if you want polar / subpolar regions, you could just move your north and southpole around a bit - see what happens then!

[Falconius]

I love it, those landforms are right up my alley.

[Domino44]

I love the landforms! I'm looking forward to what you do with this!

[AlexSchacher]

*3 months later*

So I was trying to add some land on the north polar region by converting my map into a stereographic projection. Below are pictures of what I did to it. My problem is, Im using G.Projector to change projections, but it only accepts equirectangular as an input, so now Im stuck not knowing how to bring this back into my equirectangular map to see how it looks. I wish trying to map this was as simple as drawing vectors on a 3d globe and being able to export to an equirectangular map. I wonder now, how the experts here map a globe? In any case, if I could atleast figure a way to convert this back to equirectangular I could deal with that.


test1.png

test1post.png

[Rwexler]

Well I you own photoshop ( CS6 ) You can put you map on a globe in the 3d section. this helps me quite a lot whenever I want to check if all the borders merge correctly.
Another option would be the programm/simulation game called "Universe Sandbox". with this tool you can not only put onw textures on a globe but create whole solar systems on your own.
You might try that...

[Pixie]

g.projector can use other projections as input. U need to change that in the options, after starting the program.

[AlexSchacher]

From the G.Projector website:

"But if you apply an input map at the start and if you select a bitmap image, then (1) it must be in equirectangular form, and (2) it must have no border or margin. After you select a map image, a dialog will appear requiring you to enter the lines of longitudes and latitudes that define the edges of the image."

From what I was able to tell, G.Projector is not able to import anything other than Equirectangular. Fortunately the ReprojectImage program does what I needed.

[AlexSchacher]

So I finally was able to figure out mapping the polar regions. I used G.Projector to grab the a polar stereographic projection from my equirectangular map, draw on that, and figured out how to correctly use ReprojectImage to bring it back into equirectangular.

Here is an updated version of where I am now:
8voqa.jpg

And a globe view (orthographic technically, I guess) of how the north pole looks in relation to the land nearby without all the distortion.
8vkT7.jpg

I also was trying to figure out which projection I wanted to start making a nice looking map in, and I kind of came up with an interesting idea using the Gnomonic cube, and after a bit of searching I wasnt able to find anything like this out there in the wild internets. Basically just used the north and south polar sections, and tiled them on top of each of the 4 equator regions rather than just 1. Not sure of what the usage would be, but its kind of cool being able to see decent shapes all around the globe, and how they connect together. The strange part is obviously the lines that seperate the 4 north poles from each other, as theres no correlation there:
8vkzf.jpg

[AlexSchacher]

8ScVv.jpg

Another update. Still messing around with the landmasses. Trying to figure out when to say when, or I'll never come to a finishing point :/