Results 1 to 10 of 19

Thread: A map or two from a new member

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1

    Post A map or two from a new member

    Hi all,

    I've been reading the forums here for a while and decided to finally register and post a map or two that I'm working on. Adulation is nice; constructive criticism is good, too!

    The first is a major island I'm working on for an RPG campaign. The island will probably be the center of the campaign. There are a lot of things yet to work on, but it's at least very close to what the final map will look like. The full-size map is too big for an attachment here, so I've also included the second map, which is a thumbnail showing what the full-sized map's details look like: settlements, roads, ruins, etc.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Morensia_detail_via_Inkscape_2p_1000x666.png 
Views:	91 
Size:	636.2 KB 
ID:	3509   Click image for larger version. 

Name:	M_d_2i3t.png 
Views:	96 
Size:	125.9 KB 
ID:	3510  

  2. #2
    Community Leader jfrazierjr's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Apex, NC USA
    Posts
    3,057

    Post

    Looks nice, but would like to see higher size/res versions to be able to a more detailed view.
    My Finished Maps
    Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
    My Tutorials:
    Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
    How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

  3. #3

    Post

    Okay, here's a crop of the center-south of the island, including the thumbnail above. (As I mentioned, I can't post the entire map at native resolution, because it's too large for an attachment here and I don't really want to post it anywhere else.)
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Morensia_detail_2p_fully_labeled_section24x16.png 
Views:	131 
Size:	2.95 MB 
ID:	3511  

  4. #4
    Guild Member Sirith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Western Europe
    Posts
    98

    Default

    Great map, I rather like the look of it, like it's a satellite image.

    I do think all those settlements seem to be distributed a bit too regular on the available land. It seems they all have roughly the same distance to the neighbouring villages, which looks a bit unrealistic. IMHO. I'm wondering if you did so intentional?

    The mountainrange is awesome, btw, great work

  5. #5

    Post

    Thanks for the comments!

    I'm aiming for the feel of a satellite image (at least for terrain), so your first comment is great to hear.

    I think the settlements aren't all that regularly distributed. They lie a certain average away from each other, true, but the actual distances vary by quite a bit. I suppose I should increase the density in the more central regions, though.

    I think what may make it look too regular is the roads. I've been thinking that maybe I should make the road connections a bit more chaotic, but I can't really think of a rationale to do so. It seems like almost every medieval village is going to have roads to its nearby neighbors, right? But maybe the roads are too straight -- maybe I should introduce more twisty roads and paths to indicate unseen small streams, hills, etc.

    The mountains are hard to do right. It's hard to remember how small the valleys get -- in other words, how much fractalization to put in.

    Thanks again.

  6. #6

    Post

    Great mountains

    The villages are laid out in too regular a grid. Even if the distance between them varies, they are still essentially on a grid pattern, and this is reinforced by the grid pattern of the roads.

    In reality the villages would be more scattered around than this, and the road network would be optimised rather than laid out, ie a compromise would be made between the best connectivity (often an almost pure grid as seen in big newish cities like New York which have been designed rather than grown) and a system which uses the least amount of road necessary to include all villages (this usually large roads running through the landscape connecting large settlements, with smaller roads connecting smaller settlements to the trunk roads). Either extreme looks artificial, but for a medieval landscape you definitely want to avoid the 'designed' look, unless the area's history says otherwise. Keep in mind that many of the villages would have sprung up along the roads between larger settlements, with more outlying villages being less densely packed. Add in variation for landscape features (even in the lowlands not all land is desirable or usable, for a multitude of reasons) and hopefully you can create a layout that looks evolved and lived-in rather than designed.

    Unless of course your fluff decrees that the current inhabitants only arrived 50 years ago and their pantheon is ruled by a god of geometry, in which case ignore everything I said.


    But apart from that minor point, a lovely map, and even just the scale of the thing is impressive

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •