Building a World (once the Terrain is done)

[ravells]

Looks much better at the large size.

I agree with the comment about the lake color. I didn't notice it at first, but now I find it jarring.

Me too, but I *love* the mountains.

Ravs

[Revivalofhonor]

The last post of the countries has an temporary scale in the north part of the map, the first number appears to be a 7 but is actually a 2, making the planet about half the size of earth. this may be subject to change though

[pyrandon]

This map is looking (to quote that philosopher & statesman Tony the Tiger) Grrrrrreat!

One thing about this map is odd to me: I really like the color scheme, but for some reason to my eye the water looks higher in elevation than the land. I can't explain it & can't think of a reason for it. May just be an odd optical illusion based upon the colors or layout. Does anyone else notice that effect?

Anyway, great work & keep it up!

PS: I would move the text for Mountains of Tribulation outside the mountains themselves; they are both hard to spot & hard to read.

[Robbie]

I must say this map is coming along nicely and congrats on a 2 page thread pretty quickly too Hot subject I guess.

I'm guessing by the fact that you have now rotated the world, and also consider it a warmer tropical world you may want to consider having the poles different? I notice there is no land where the poles would be considered, and most of the land is now concentrated near what would normally considered colder climates. Does this mean that you're considering the strip of water at the equator as really hot, and the closer to the poles are moderate to temperate, possibly due to the planets proximity to the sun or perhaps a different atmospheric makeup?

I know this may be thinking kinda overkill, but it often helps to have its planetary physics in mind when throwing down land because of the way climates form...You could almost explain any climate pattern on different planetary physics, for example, multiple poles or multiple axes of rotation.

The mapping STYLE is awesome though, and I LOVE the color scheme.

To address what Pyrandon mentioned about the water appearing higher in elevation...a good way to change that is to add more color to the water...the deeper the ocean, the darker the blue for example. I often use that trick even in closeups of land with water to show depth. Also don't forget your continental shelf when considering that.

[Revivalofhonor]

haha, the thinking isn't overkill at all in fact i've been trying to figure out how to incorporate it, i had it figured out before although now that I've rotated it, I'm having to go back and rethink everything haha, I'll post up some new steps later tonight

[RobA]

Historically speaking, most nation's borders followed some sort of natural landmark.

...which can lead to really funny things if the landmark moves (as in the case of a river) like this area at the the Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas border.

[Revivalofhonor]

haha thats awesome

[Revivalofhonor]

Alrighty, So I've added some of what i hope looks like water depth as well as dropped a slight shadow on the land mass to cause the continents to "pop" a little more. As for the poles, I've decide to leave them the way they are, opting instead for the idea that the landmasses have overtime collided and then moved apart in a way similar to pangea did millions of years ago. as for the temperature, as I had said, it's fairly equalized world wide, however, along the central equator temperatures will reach into high 80's 90's during summer months, while at the pole rarely will the temperature exceed the low 80's, yet because much of the world is near the ocean, it works as an equalizing agent, minimizing the max highs and lows of temperature around the world.

The planet is also located a tad closer to it's star than earth is, as well as only being around half it's size.

Next post we start on the internal country work, it'll come later tonight



** Edit ** I still don't know if i like the water, I'm just gonna have to play around with it more. suggestions?

[Revivalofhonor]

Alright, I've started playing around with Cities/Towns in this image here, notice that all of the cities are close/along waterways. This has a tendency to happen simply because waterways allow the best forms of trade, and trade is needed for a city to flourish. Most towns are this way to, however trade paths from city to city, or large town to city, will often cause towns to grow up on interesections of road. If a country has a large export of some sort, generally near the source of that product there will be some larger towns. Borders, while, sometimes the location of conflict, make excellent places for towns, as both countries will enjoy the easy trading that closely linked towns allow.

The one town the far south also marks an important location for a town, the entry to a mountain pass, which is sure to be an important hub with countries on the far side of the mountains.

One thing I always like to remember is it's not necessarily the biggest of towns that need to be on your map, instead pick them for their importance. you also can't ever put all the towns in a country on the map. most will simply be small towns, farming communities, etc that are passed along the way but have little significance, it's the same way for roads, back country roads can always be taken, however its the major routes that need to be on the map.


Suggestions, comments etc, as always, welcome!
thanks a bunch for all the feedback already guys

[Revivalofhonor]

I'm trying to find,
A: a better way to make the borders pop, but not cover up important features like rivers, that they run along, and/or
B: Make the roads pop more so they can be seen while zoomed out more



**EDIT**
>.< I kind of wish i had done the map at a higher resolution, even though its already around 7500 x 5000 pixels, and I'm not sure my computer, even though it's outfitted pretty well, could handle it.... maybe next time i decide to show people how to do something liek this I'll do it with a smaller area instead of the whole world