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Thread: [WIP] Home-brew Campaign Setting Map

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    Guild Journeyer wthrasherb's Avatar
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    Wip [WIP] Home-brew Campaign Setting Map

    Howdy folks! Typically on the weekends I try to work on fun/rpg related material... something leisurely at any rate. Friday night I decided to try to create a new map in the style of my World of Aerdlon map (found here).

    The first part is fairly easy since I'm just doing the initial "shaping" in Fractal Terrains 3 and Wilbur. I actually spend more time waiting on the computer to render/process stuff at this stage more than anything else, but it is still a lengthy process, and takes me about 12-16 hours (including waiting on rendering and such).

    Then comes the fun stuff! Once I've shaped and generated various outputs from FT and Wilbur, I dump everything into Photoshop and start making the computer generated stuff look good Here's where I was a little lost when I started trying to recreate my previous style. I had all my previous versions saved at various stages so I could retrace my steps, but as "non-destructive" as I tried to be, there were still lots of "trial and error" type changes that I failed to notate during my process.

    For the most part, it was a lot easier than I thought. I struggled with the ocean again, but I finally got it. Apparently I had blurred a few layers and merged them and such, but failed to make a note of what I did exactly. After feeling satisfied that I had recreated "my style" close enough (I didn't spend a lot of time on touch ups and such), I started working on a different look in the same basic style....... which brings us to now!

    This map is going to be my campaign setting for a new D&D group. This is totally for fun and non-commercial use. I'm actually creating a long term campaign based off of the AD&D 2nd edition boxed set adventure "The Rod of Seven Parts" and Monte Cook's "Night of Dissolution" adventure from the "Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire" campaign setting. This map is actually being tailored to those two adventures (and maybe a few choice side adventures). Most of the action (I think) will take place in just a tiny portion of the world.... which I will proceed to map later. For those of you that may be familiar with Ptolus, no, I do not plan on remapping that city. I MAY map choice portions/buildings and of course some of the "dungeons" under the city, but not the entire thing (I'm not there yet with my city mapping).

    I'll stop rambling now... comment, curse, or click away!

    Click image for larger version. 

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    More to come later...

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    Guild Journeyer wthrasherb's Avatar
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    Oh, I wanted to clarify that the land is not all desert or whatever. I just wanted something a little more subdued. The land is just supposed to have a 'parchmenty' type look. And after looking at my post, I still can't get the colors to behave. On one monitor the highlights around the land look a little more golden. On my tv/monitor, the continent edge highlights look more reddish-brown (at least on the version I just posted).

    All feedback and comments are welcome...

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    Love the ocean texture and color!!

    There is IMHO too much bevel on the land edges. Also they have fringe look, like ragged pixilation. Not sure if those are related, but at least try cutting the bevel down a little bit and see if that helps

    Nice job on the land shapes and projection

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    Very good start, I like the colors.

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    Guild Journeyer wthrasherb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chick View Post
    Love the ocean texture and color!!

    There is IMHO too much bevel on the land edges. Also they have fringe look, like ragged pixilation. Not sure if those are related, but at least try cutting the bevel down a little bit and see if that helps

    Nice job on the land shapes and projection
    Chick, thank you so much for your feedback. It's always exciting to hear from the pros! And you brought up one of my pet peeves because I haven't figured out how to fix it yet. The edges of the continents are supposed to be kinda "snowflake-ish" and a little ragged looking, but NOT pixelated. I haven't been able to "smooth" it out. That's where the heavier bevel comes in. I was trying to compensate. The bevel WAS heavier before I ended up at the current result, and I realized it was too much. I didn't think it was too strong now though, but I'll take a look at dialing down the bevel some.

    Do you have any suggestions for fixing the shorelines as far as pixelation? I'm all ears! Also, the rivers are a little too jagged/pixelated for my tastes. I'm going to try applying some kind of blur and blending combos and see if that smoothes them out without washing them out.

    Thanks!

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    Guild Journeyer wthrasherb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ilanthar View Post
    Very good start, I like the colors.
    Thanks Ilanthar! I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

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    If you are in Photoshop, try selecting the land area, then use the Select>Smooth to smooth the selection. Then fill that selection area in a new layer. The new layer should look just like the old one, but with smoother edges. Play around with the smoothing parameters until you get something better

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    I LOVE this map! The colors are great. Its like a cross between a topographical/satellite map and an old style overland map. Freaking awesome! If you could do your other terrain... forests and what-not the same way, Sweet. Very cool.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RevGunn View Post
    I LOVE this map! The colors are great. Its like a cross between a topographical/satellite map and an old style overland map. Freaking awesome! If you could do your other terrain... forests and what-not the same way, Sweet. Very cool.
    Thanks dude! That means a lot to a beginner!

    That's kinda the look I was going for. I'm not totally sure where I'm going with this map exactly. The basic idea (visually speaking) was INSPIRED BY those old antique-ish looking globes that have more brown colors, so that's what I'm going to stick with until the Creativity Monster changes my mind and forces me to try something else

    What do you mean about doing the other terrain, like forests and such, in the same way? Typically when I do a world map I keep the terrain kinda vague with the exceptions of mountains, major rivers and large deserts. While I don't always go for the "satellite" look, I genreally go for that sort of terrain scale when doing world maps. This specific map isn't going to have much more on it than it already has. It is supposed to be a map just to label/layout the continents and give the feel that there is more to the world than where the campaign is going to take place. So I plan on adding names and maybe some kind of decor (that's one of my weaker points right now in my map making), maybe a border of some sort.... ooooooo! I'm going to try some kind of pseudo-navigation lines I think...

    Anyway, thanks for the comments! I really appreciate you taking the time to say a few words.

    If you have some thoughts on the terrain like you mentioned, please share!

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    Guild Journeyer wthrasherb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chick View Post
    If you are in Photoshop, try selecting the land area, then use the Select>Smooth to smooth the selection. Then fill that selection area in a new layer. The new layer should look just like the old one, but with smoother edges. Play around with the smoothing parameters until you get something better
    Hey Chick, not sure if I did EXACTLY what you were talking about, but I did start playing around with smoothing the selection. Basically, I just modified the selection of the land and made a new mask and applied the new mask as needed. I lost a few of the tiniest islands in the process, but I'll touch those up later.

    I also adjusted the bevel. I knocked it down from 100% depth, to 50% and changed the size from 5 px to something like 2 px.

    Better? Worse? Thoughts???

    Bueller.... Bueller...


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