newbie from germany

[kerk]

hi

I am from germany and started drawing maps long ago because of roleplaying. 20 years ago I wrote some REXX scripts to produce "realistic" topographical data which were later shown as maps by a programm called XACT. We played Traveller and I needed many planetary maps on hand if you know Traveller you know what I mean.
In 2000 I switched to play my own rpg system which takes place on a world called Elum.

In recent time I had some spare hours to redraw my old maps. On the way I changed the work order. Old way were some 4000x4000px maps. The full planetary map consisted of about 20x40 of those detailed maps. A project to fail. As I drawed all maps by hand.

Jan 2012 I decided to recreate the planetary map as one single file. You can find some impressions here on my homepage.

The Chronicle of Elum/Die Chronik von Elum

kind regards
kerk

[Gidde]

Welcome to the Guild!

[Mark Oliva]

A' schee's Grüßla aus'm Steigerwald!

[Sapiento]

Willkommen!

[Lukc]

Impressive stuff. So how did you generate your world in the end?

[kerk]

Thank you for the welcome,

world mapping in short (skipping transformation of the old maps and lots of fine tuning):

1. I absolutly don't like fractal maps. So i always try to simulate some "real" tectonics.
2. I draw some raw supercontinent in inkscape.
3. I draw enough tectonic plates. Keeping in mind the vectors of tectonic movement.
4. I break the supercontinent in nice parts. Move the parts around the map.
5. Export 2 layers (tectonic borders and flat continents)
6. Import those layers in GIMP
5. Increase or decrease hights (all simple greyscale) inline with tectonic movement. (mountains, etc.)
6. Add some old plateus.
7. Add some random textures.
8. If needed increase/decrease some details in different ways as needed. (small island, very big river beds etc.)
9. create a relief map.
10. add a climat layer and move climate zones to fit wind directions, rain etc.
11. create a cloud layer.
12. export and project on sphere.

I dont use bitmap graphics if I go into more details: Roads, cities, landmarks, notations, swamps, rivers, ice are all added on different layers inside Inkscape.

[tilt]

welcome to the guild

[kerk]

oh, finally I can reply