First attempt FT + Photoshop

[arsheesh]

Haven't really tried FT or Pasis tut (since I don't have Photoshop) so afraid I can't offer much in the way of advice. Overall I think the full scale regional maps look really nice. The shape of the land-masses looks good and the colors are well chosen. Great job!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[feanaaro]

Here there is another attempt with an increased resolution. The fractal pattern starts to show, but is not very noticeable yet. I tried a more sparse forest (hopefully less blobby).
I also toned down a little bit the glow in the water, but not by much, I like it vivid. Also, the stark shadow outline for the river was caused by the forest, now should be less pronounced.

Of course the cities are still out of scale, albeit less so than before, but that is unavoidable for a regional map of this resolution. A city of, say, 5 km of radius (quite big for a fantasy setting) would be a few pixel on the map. Perhaps I should turn to symbols, but I don't have any idea of something that could blend with the rest.

I have not understood Redrobes remarks about the road network and the structure of cities; there is no structure is just a lump of, very tiny, blocks photographed from above ("parma tiling blocks", I took it from the textures' thread I think). The field are squared just to be more recognisable, not to imply that they are a 1:1 representation of the actual field, this would be, again, way off-scale obviously. The only roads depicted are those tiny grey lines that run from city to city.

Polar distortion is not a big problem, the area is not that near to the pole (the northern point on the regional map is roughly the latitude of London). I include also a small pic of the whole planet in FT so you can have a better idea of positions and proportions.

[Master TMO]

Pretty!! I like the trees much better now!

Question: how did you do the rivers? Are they from FT, or did you draw them yourself?

[Midgardsormr]

I think that at this scale symbolic cities would be far better. A simple dot, no brighter than the mountains' snowcaps, and maybe with just a bit of drop shadow, or perhaps a barely perceptible stroke.

If you want something a bit more ornate than just a dot, check out your wingdings fonts for some easily placed symbols.

[feanaaro]

Yes, I will probably yield to symbols in the end. Do you think a symbolic representation would be better for cultivated fields too? That could be more difficult to pull off. Or should I ditch fields completely?

The major rivers are produced by FT, but I re-traced them in PS to widen them and to ease the "straightness" of some tracts. I do 2 px hard brush for regular river and 3 or 4px (depending on scale) for the bigger ones. Minor rivers are not from FT, I add them in PS with 1px brush trying to follow the orography. Both are in the same layer as the sea, so they have the same effects as the shoreline.

Edit: sorry for my english :-/

[feanaaro]

Here, names are still mostly placeholders.

[Diamond]

I love love love those landmass shapes. Those are some of the coolest-looking continents I've ever seen.

[eViLe_eAgLe]

Dang, Already got more rep then me and your new! That proves your good! Repped and nice work.

[feanaaro]

I love love love those landmass shapes. Those are some of the coolest-looking continents I've ever seen.

Thanks. In fact, work was much longer in FT than in Photoshop. The (unforeseen) problem is that Wilbur Ridged Multifractal fuction does not support more than 12 octaves, therefore I cannot do all the scales I would have liked to because the fractal pattern invariably shows.
I was thinking of trying to replicate, more or less, the shape of the mountains range starting from a flat surface, using Pasi's tecnique (taking only the costal line from FT, which works good even at higher levels of zoom), but that is well beyond my capabilities at the moment.

eViLe_eAgle, I sense that the "rep" is a good thing, so thank you. But what exactly is and how does it work? I did not find it in the FAQs.

[Redrobes]

I think the new fade is much better. For the fields I think you need to either go all out for a satellite view in which case the fields should represent the shapes and scale of the fields your trying to display or go for the symbolic approach in which case make them a symbolic patch of lines without the field shapes and colouring. The map so far looks a lot like a satellite view so the new version without the fields and smaller town / city images look better to me.

Rep is reputation. Its just a little thing on this guild forum and other web site forums where as you post a lot of stuff which people like then they can click on the little star icon at the bottom of your post and enter a line in about why they like it. Over time it builds up so you can see who has been on the guild longer, who posts good advice and who has made good work or contributions. You can hover your mouse over the green pips under to your name in any post to see your current rating. Its not all that important, just a hint about your overall effect on the guild.

Your English is just great by the way. Its a good idea that you have put up Rome as a location since I might cut down on using local slang and abbreviations (example 'by the way' at the start of this line is often 'BTW') for non native English speakers.