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Thread: Shadowspring Region

  1. #1
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    Wip Shadowspring Region

    Hello!

    Seeing as I am completely unable to create maps that represent a scale I'm happy with (world-sized), I experimented with smaller scales and came up with these two maps.

    They were both made in a couple of hours, the desert one after the coastal one. That is why, at least I like to think so, the second one looks a lot better than the first one, which, the more I look at it, seems to suck more and more (is that normal? When composing music I like what I've done the first few times but then find it ugly and feel really stupid to be so simple. Yet it seemed good at first. Do we get bored of our own work?).

    It's the first time I attempted cities and I think they are moderately successful. On the second map, the big city HAS a road network but it seems to be nearly invisible. Maybe I should work on this a bit more.

    On the second map, maybe the rivers should be longer, as for their size they couldn't possibly accumulate enough water to be as large as they are, right? (river police?) I tried to make them fit with the hills around. (which, at first, were mountains but I suck so much at creating heightmaps that they are now hills, no question)

    So, I need some advice from all of you out there!
    How to get realistic cities, realistic rivers for such size and varied topography.
    My castles feel... empty, flat. Would other fortifications, like trenches, be visible at that scale?
    Now, things I'm proud of, (I think) are farm fields and forests. I kind of like them. Any suggestions on this?

    Thank you for your help!

    Naming places is great fun also :p

    EDIT: I just reversed all bevel lighting direction because I am a stupid person. The lighting for the bevel was reversed from the lighting effect of the relief. Well at least that explains the "canyon" feel to all of my hills... Will post updated maps tomorow.
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    Last edited by oli_chose123; 08-04-2011 at 12:56 AM.

  2. #2
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    Updated the maps with correct illumination and made a third one, this time using wilbur. My rivers now look like rivers!
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  3. #3

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    Well for starters, your Kammeni region looks like it could be something out of southern Finland along the borders of Russia (which sucked for the Russians), where the glaciers got to play for thousands of years. Google map southern Finland and see if you agree. Northern Canada, like in Manitoba and the NW Territories has some of the same thing going on. This would indicate a sub-polar latitude, though in a fantasy world an ice age could happen anywhere. At any rate, it is a very wet map and more than likely any ground that has that many little lakes and rivers is likely to be swampy and very difficult to get through. Good for goblins.

    Shadowspring: Two things immediately come to mind, first there's a lot of lakes for a desert. Second, there must be some naughty neighbors to the east because that's a well fortified line. That and no roads go out that way. Both factors would contribute to a large city being there. I'm having doubts about all these lakes being independent of one another, especially in a desert. I'd move Whiteash Castle to the north side of the canyon it is on, that way when the punks from the east come through it can be supported by the city easier. As far as castles go, just google "castle floor plan" and you will get hooked up.

    Wellfield: Why did your rivers stop? If Wellfield's going to be a big port town, it should be on a river that goes somewhere. That and I think the rivers run too close in parallel. They are all draining the same spots, and they are all going to run downhill, so eventually they are going to run together instead of running side by side.

  4. #4
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    Thank you for you reply.

    Humm, ok, so my river are too small. Now that I look at them, you're right, at that scale, they should be long and come from somewhere. Wilbur generated them for me, my intended scale might not fit. I'll try something with only one or two rivers next time that have no beginning, that should be more realistic for that scale.

    So, I should go with longer rivers, with varying size (I completely forgot that, all rivers are the same width...). I tried placing some villages and castles logically, and this seems to have worked. I also completely forgot any externally-connected roads in any of my maps...

    About tree placement, I've been using an extremely complicated algorithm where I simply place then where I feed trees would grow. I mostly follow rivers, but can trees grow pretty much anywhere? Where I live, it's pretty much only forest and farm fields, would a map at that scale, like wellfield, actually be completely covered in forest?

    Thank you again for your post, now I see clearly that scales do not match, and I'll study the terrain type for my next map.

  5. #5
    Guild Expert eViLe_eAgLe's Avatar
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    I love the maps I think they look lovely.

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