Summerlands Before the Breaking

[del337er]

Wow this is looking incredible!

[Gidde]

Thanks Del!

[aimlessgun]

Looks awesome, pretty interested in seeing how the other side of it gets worked out.

If the torches are decently high up, radius from the hub should be a snap based on elevation angle? As for your angle on the circle, if the torches all light up in a specific order every day that should be able to give you a fairly good indication depending on how distinct each torch is (you'd have some problems if torches farther away weren't distinguishable from those closer).

[Gidde]

Thanks, aimlessgun, and welcome to the Guild!

Yes, the torches are 24miles up, which makes distance a simple trig function from the nearest edge of the ring (which I believe would show up as the highest point). I have it in a spreadsheet, but I want to check my math without the influence of painkillers before I start the math side of the astrolabe So now I'm working on the (fairly large) paper companion map.

I was kinda stressing about the angle determination until I realized I was being a dolt. That's what compasses are for! So I decided to just make all lodestones point to the center of the divine ring.

As far as the distinctness of the torches, they're colored (the colored gems on the inset of the back plate represent them fairly accurately). So definitely distinct. Also, I did up an illustration of the 15 hours of daylight and which torches are lit when.

[narogi]

I really like the whole idea of this Plane.
This thing is going to be something very exciting and new, although some parts of it are not really original, as the flat world concept itself.
I will keep an eye on the progress.

Keep up with the good work.

[Gidde]

Thanks for the kind words, narogi!

[Gidde]

And a new update; I'm trying out the style for the bump map here. I wanted to take what I did with the Belgariad map's mountains and apply that type of sculpting to the whole thing. I think I like where the topography is going here.

The colors are just thrown together from the same map palette used in RobA's regional map tut -- I'm planning on coming up with a more individualized and detailed color scheme. Ditto for the ocean, just thrown in. I'm not sure how I'm going to do rivers yet, there are a couple of obvious river valleys in there but my first try (with rivers cut out of the land) looked horrid. So that's a major to-do.

And .... this made such a fantastic topo piece for the astrolabe back plate I'm going to end up having to do those in topo.

So ... style tryout at 5 px/mi at the "correct" orientation (oriented so the divine ring would be top center if the map extended that far - hence the lighting at top center), and a clip of the astrolabe with the topo mapped island.

Do the elevation bumps look ok in the zoomed-in map?

[Gidde]

And another style tryout, using the same height map for the mountains but toned down the hilly areas on the other side of the island. Also a more understated style overall. Not really sure if the simple gradient sea works, but I think I like this better than the last one.

[tilt]

great idea Gidde, look really good ... I definitly like the second land style better, but I'd go for a little more dynamic sea since it is a swashbuckling world

[Diamond]

I like the second version much better, but I think you could do with tapering your rivers some more. Of course since this is only a test, I'm sure you're already aware of that.