The North Lands or the Waste

[Gamerprinter]

Another great map Gamerprinter. I love the way you do mountains in Xara. They look very realistic with their snowy peaks. I don't care too much for your realistic forest textures, like you used in your map in Celanta. But in this map those realistic vegetation images are barely noticeable. So I like this map better than Celanta.

I do like the ice that Morkhdull added in that bay. That might be something you want to add yourself. The transparent white sheet doesn't do it for me.

That's strange, because I didn't place a transparent white sheet on this map, see the broken ice in the bay - I placed those, the water around is supposed to be dark blue like the bottom.

Even after export I brought this into PS to increase the JPG compression and this "white transparent sheet" was not there. So I don't know what happened, I will fix and upload again.

There is supposed to be a lightened shallow area near the coast, that's not transparent ice, theres also a white halo for surf - there is no intended frozen sea in this image.

GP

[Gandwarf]

That's strange, because I didn't place a transparent white sheet on this map, see the broken ice in the bay - I placed those, the water around is supposed to be dark blue like the bottom.

Even after export I brought this into PS to increase the JPG compression and this "white transparent sheet" was not there. So I don't know what happened, I will fix and upload again.

There is supposed to be a lightened shallow area near the coast, that's not transparent ice, theres also a white halo for surf - there is no intended frozen sea in this image.

GP

Eh, you are losing me here. The transparent white sheet I was talking about is in Morkhdull's version of your map. Are we talking about the same thing?

Also, I only just now noticed you have placed broken ice as well. Cool. It's just so small I didn't notice it at first. I think the large pieces of broken ice in Morkhdulls version look a bit better. That can be just taste of course.

[Gamerprinter]

Sorry, I now see that Morkdhull made the transparent ice sheet, I thought that was something my file did - I was confused.

Regarding the "Ice Age" north - it is the land that is locked in the last vestiges of an ice age, not the planet. The Winter Hag is the goddess that maintains the Ice Age, she had been the power in force when the Ice Age was active and did cap the northern hemisphere.

So I don't want the sea to be frozen here. Should the Winter Hag get her way, then the whole northern hemisphere would again be covered in ice, but as of this map, this has not come to pass.

For the north, think of Alaska, then make it colder longer with heavier winters and you've got the Pictish Northlands.

GP

PS: the forest texture I used was just a bumpy green texture, from I don't know where - had it in my tile collection forever. Its not a photo of forest, rather just a bumpy green texture.

PPS: I didn't want to cover that entire bay with ice. If you notice a glacier is ending from that valley and the ice I placed is being shorn off the glacier, that whole bay shouldn't be frozen. But I might do it just the same, those larger ice pieces do look good.

[Gamerprinter]

OK, I made some changes to the map. I added the larger ice chunks in the bay beneath the glacier's mouth. I does look better, I think. I added a couple more rivers on the north and eastern coast from the mountains in the far north.

And just for SG, I changed the font in the title graphics, though it might be just as overly complex as the previous, however I am trying to denote the culture in the font. This one is more Celtic whereas the previous one is rather too Anglo Saxon in style.

GP

[Steel General]

And just for SG, I changed the font in the title graphics, though it might be just as overly complex as the previous, however I am trying to denote the culture in the font. This one is more Celtic whereas the previous one is rather too Anglo Saxon in style.

GP

Awww GP, you shouldn't have...

I do like this font better though

[Morkhdull]

beeg you pardon for all this confusion, Gamerprinter...

All is my fault...

I apologyse

[Gamerprinter]

No problem, I should read my own thread, I just saw the image with the transparent ice sheet layer, and thought, hey, something went wrong! Silly me, you were just showing me what you'd do with my map - I hadn't read it until after I posted my confusion!

No apologizing necessary.

@SG, glad you like the new font!

GP

PS: I'm still thinking of doing a hand-drawn version of this map, but no decision on that yet...

[Hoel]

I like the feel of the map, but up close I noticed some small things.
-The islands of the coast have a much sharper bevel than the coast.
-I think the rivers is the wrong color and there's some parts where they're shetchy (the delta right beside "stuart"), i assume that's a WIP.
-The coast inner glow, or what that is seem to lie over the forests instead of the other way around. I think it's because the rounding at the corners are the wrong way round.

I really like the ice-flows concept, I'm poaching that for my map of Altheim in my campaign. The mountain texture works nice
The change of font for the title was good. If you want to go celtic or norse or aglosaxson you have a wide variety of fonts to use, I've collected a few and if you'd like i could look through my files and see if I find something that fits, but I'd need some more 'keywords'...

/Hoel -Wannabe nit-picker.

[Gamerprinter]

Hoel, its definitely a work-in-progress. The rivers are more placeholders for the time being, the delta a poorly constructed experiment (I don't need a delta), I'll check that bevel thing on the forests. Sometimes after I do a bevel effect and a shadow, I convert it to an editable shape (which then loses its editable bevel/shadow properties) so I can cut it off clean. That sometimes causes anomalous problems - like the one you're describing. I'll have to check.

The islands suck, it quick afterthought. I do need islands, I just need to spend some more time on them. I had the line smoothing set way too high when I traced those islands - and beveled too much!

Regarding the river colors, I have no current decision on that yet. Usually, I create my first river, then start changing the colors to see what makes it best stand-out from the background and still have a "river" color. What would you suggest?

I always need a source for great fonts - beyond Anglo Saxon, Norse, Celtic - Viking, Teutonic, Old English, any medieval font or script. I will use unreadable text for fun and color, but most has to be readable in English anyway. I have some gaelic fonts that are half unreadable because weird textual uses or different letters altogether. Fun, but useless mostly.

GP