I thought I'd share how the tutorials are affecting my mapmaking skills :)

[NeonKnight]

with regards to CC3 crashing, you have updated it haven't you?

[Mordizer]

Yes I have NeonKnight, before that it wouldn't start at all! I like what CC3 offers but I just don't trust it - I don't think I've ever got more than an hour before a crash and when I work on a map in Photoshop I tend to stay at it the whole day and it'd be soul destroying to lose that much work

Ascension - I'll take your advice about the mountains on board, I was happy with the mountains in the middle of the continents but now you mention it that isn't really true to real-world geography. I'm going to have another crack at that map at the weekend - there are a few mountain tutorials around here that I plan to work through and I think I need another dozen attempts to get the river system right at least! I'm thoroughly enjoying this learning process though, every pass through seems to bring out a result that I previously would have thought beyond my ability so although it's a steep learning curve you really do see results as you work through it. One thing that's obvious already though is that you don't just "knock up" a map, you really have to inject your consciousness into it and feel the make up of the different regions to make them hang together logically as well as visually don't you?

[Aval Penworth]

Do you run a powerful computer setup? Some of the CC3 enthusiasts are running quad core proceesors with 12+meg of ram etc etc.

[Mordizer]

Yup - without going into all the funny words it's a ridiculously powerful machine. I do run a 64bit OS though and I'm wondering if that's what's making it throw a shoe? I bought the Dell top-of-the-line gaming rig last year, it's almost a waste that I very rarely do any gaming with it but I'm a .Net developer and the development studio runs like a dog unless you have a powerful machine.

[Mordizer]

Here's another go with the same atlas - this time I used the file straight out of the Fractal Terrains package to see if I could use the actual raw terrain image but I don't really think it worked. I kinda like the way the water came out on this one though