Argentia Topographica | The World of Naos

[Impractical Cartographer]

If I may interject:
When there is a geographic coordinate grid on the map, the town names should be aligned with the parallels.

For example:conic-names.jpeg

Also, the coordinate grid looks weird, like it's a fragment of another map. The tangent meridian should be in the center, but it is shifted to the east.
For this map, the tangent meridian should be 28 E, not 26 E. A small detail, but always.

What projection did you use for this map?

Also, the place names should be on the same side of the river/lake as the signature of that town.
names-rivers.jpeg

Besides that, it's a very cool map.

[The Colonel]

Absolutely, the color palette is great!
What software did you use?

[morne]

I welcome any and all advice and criticisms!

My primary inspiration/visual reference is the Pergamon World Atlas so hopefully that gives some context to what style I'm shooting for.

When there is a geographic coordinate grid on the map, the town names should be aligned with the parallels.
.

Wow, this is such a subtle thing and it makes a world of a difference. Did not even realize. Thank you!

Also, the coordinate grid looks weird, like it's a fragment of another map. The tangent meridian should be in the center, but it is shifted to the east.
For this map, the tangent meridian should be 28 E, not 26 E. A small detail, but always..

That's fair. I created a Equidistant Conic projection for the entire island (laziness), but all my data is properly georeferenced so it's easy to change the projection on the fly, and it does look better. That aside, I don't know why the central meridian of the projection was set to 26.. thought it had been 30!

Also, the place names should be on the same side of the river/lake as the signature of that town.
.

Yeah, this one's tough. The Maplex labelling engine is fantastic a lot of the time, but it does sometimes feel like I'm fighting against it. I'm not placing labels by hand so it comes down to tweaking the settings and feature weights to get the optimal output. But at a certain point I'll probably just have to except that not every label will be perfect.

post_process_test copy.jpg

[rbnvgl]

Wow, design wise this is one of the best maps I saw here in the last time. Shows how much there is still to learn, also in the technical aspects.

I saw you made a underlying shaded relief. May I ask how you did this?
Also, is there some kind of backstory to this place you show on the map?

[morne]

Wow, design wise this is one of the best maps I saw here in the last time. Shows how much there is still to learn, also in the technical aspects.

I saw you made a underlying shaded relief. May I ask how you did this?
Also, is there some kind of backstory to this place you show on the map?

Thank you!

The shaded relief is made by generating a hillshade layer from the source heightmap that my topography is made from. It's set to overlay at a lower opacity to give the shaded effect.

I do have some backstory---this world will be used for a ttrpg I'm making, which is a fantasy world set with early industrial era technology and magic. I haven't really compiled my notes too much on Aljieudum in particular, but it is one of the more advanced nations in this particular region of the world, being a large mercantile power on the sea. The Basentia Omnia is located in Meripol, Aljieudum's capital, which is one of the more prestigious universities that trains Acronists, this world's version of wizards, which gives them a ton of power in a variety of industries. For instance, Air Acronists use Gravity to power the Aerostats and Railways, and Space to control the Prismagates that allow for instantaneous travel to other major cities.