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Thread: Help with a certain style map

  1. #1
    Guild Novice Thegn Ansgar's Avatar
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    Question Help with a certain style map

    For a little bit of background, I'm creating a map that is meant for my home brew Role Playing campaign set in a fantasy universe. I'm not entirely new to cartography, as I've dabbled in it sporadically, with the help of tutorials. However currently I just want a simple and easy to use map to show the placement of cities and other important landmarks, as well as roads. The style of map I'm looking to do is essentially based on this:



    It's simple and clean, the problem is that none of the tutorials I've used have maps like this, and I have no idea of how to go about doing it (or even know the proper style of this map that could make for searching for a tutorial a bit easier). For a bit more information, I have Photoshop CS3, and I do know some functions in it (but I am an amateur at best).

    If anyone can help or point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

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    Software Dev/Rep Hai-Etlik's Avatar
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    That doesn't look all that complex graphically. It's just a simple coloured contour map with flat coloured forest features on top, and rivers, lakes, roads, and cities on top of that. Just about any graphics software, vector or raster, could do it fairly easily. It's mostly just a matter of doing the work to put in the details.

    it's hard to see the details but the rivers look really improbable. In one place a river starts int he mountains in the middle, flows toward the coast, splits into two rivers half way there, and one of those runs along the middle of an isthmus, and right through the middle of the expanded promontory at the end of it. Rivers run downhill, and splits are short, both in length (they don't go very far) and duration (one fills in or dries out).

    The contours also look a bit odd in that the style is clearly that of a precise hypsographic map, but it looks like it's more just an indication of "mountains" vs "not mountains" regardless of actual elevation.

  3. #3
    Guild Novice Thegn Ansgar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hai-Etlik View Post
    That doesn't look all that complex graphically. It's just a simple coloured contour map with flat coloured forest features on top, and rivers, lakes, roads, and cities on top of that. Just about any graphics software, vector or raster, could do it fairly easily. It's mostly just a matter of doing the work to put in the details.

    it's hard to see the details but the rivers look really improbable. In one place a river starts int he mountains in the middle, flows toward the coast, splits into two rivers half way there, and one of those runs along the middle of an isthmus, and right through the middle of the expanded promontory at the end of it. Rivers run downhill, and splits are short, both in length (they don't go very far) and duration (one fills in or dries out).

    The contours also look a bit odd in that the style is clearly that of a precise hypsographic map, but it looks like it's more just an indication of "mountains" vs "not mountains" regardless of actual elevation.
    Thank you for the information, that was quite helpful. I suppose making something along the same lines of this map would be okay if I'm simply looking to use it as a basic guide to determine where everything is? Or would I perhaps be better served by a more artistic map in that regards? Since accuracy is not entirely important for my needs in this case.

    Thanks again for your help.

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected tilt's Avatar
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    the "difficult" part is always the layout/idea - after you got that down, this style is easy to replicate. Start of by making a layer in photoshop for the outline of the land - then draw the outline with a pencil or hard brush. Then you can use the magic wand to select the insides (or just the fill bucket) - fill in the color for land (if you want it really pretty make a new layer for the fill and place that below the outline, this will make sure the color don't "eat" the outline) and then make a new layer, and start drawing in the shapes for mountains, repeat for high points of mountains, forests, lakes. Draw in rivers (remember they don't split, only come together, always take the easy route and move towards the sea (or a lake)). Then add cities and towns and put in roads good luck, and remember if you want help while you work - make a WIP thread inhere and post your progress
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