Aurellia - Regional campaign map

[Robbie]

This is a photoshop workup of one region of my new campaign setting. I will be starting off the campaign as I mentioned before by running the "Keep on the Shadowfell" Module...instead of "Winterhaven" I'll be running the game from Northwynd Village on this map.

I of course used the output from FT to create the terrain. BUT...I exported various different aspects that I can use as layers in photoshop.

Basically its the waldronate image climate shader as the base layer for color

Then I have an all white altitude map exported with shading turned on, set to multiply on top of the climate shader map.

Then the latlong lines are exported separately (and will soon become path traces)

The rivers were exported from FT as blue overlay on white background (altitude map again all set to white, no shading) traced using the photoshop's pen tool...then I stroked the path using a brush with fade set up for brush size controller (to make the river shrink as it goes upstream)...

Then of course, the labels and towns and whatnot.

I still have a LOT of detail to add, such as forests, many more towns, lakes, roads, ruins, etc.

Redrobes is also possibly going to give me a better cleaned up tersys calculated overlay to replace the wilbur ridged multifractal overlay...Good times

I'm sooo excited to be mapping again.

[waldronate]

I'm wounded that you didn't want to use the erosion features in Wilbur.

[ravells]

Looking really good, Robbie! Can't wait to see the rest taking shape!

[Robbie]

I'm wounded that you didn't want to use the erosion features in Wilbur.

I tried it, but it didn't clean up the noise from the multifractal, and I didn't care too much for the rivers it cut through the terrain. Got any pointers for good results? I'm not opposed to using it thats for sure!

[Redrobes]

You asked for a push through GTS so here are the results.

I have let it go watery but I could dry it up if you want. The main issue is that from the original height map the terrain is very flat in places. I am attaching a color grad plot also. Where its black its very near completely flat. Then it goes through the spectrum so red is pretty flat also then green has a little grad to it going up into blue and purple which is steep and then white is very steep - clifflike.

In general areas that are black or red are not good for water flow. Greens and blues are fine and where steep it will erode a lot.

Another thing I forgot to ask is what the max height of the tallest mountain is and what is the base temperature. So this is with about a 3000m mountain and 15deg C temp - thats giving a little snow on the top of it.

To correct for the water needs either making the land take on a little gradient in the current flat areas or I can up the evaporation which will dry them out in the low lands. If you like it the way it is then I can dump the texture & height maps.

[waldronate]

Here are some examples of ways to play with the precipiton erosion feature in Wilbur.

[Robbie]

Highest peak is 3315 ft. So only 1010 meters.
Average temperature is a steamy 50-75 F yearly average...
Rainfall is about 48 in. per year average

Northern portion of the region is Temperate, while the southern and coastal portion is tropical deciduous.

As for applying slight gradient, and getting rid of the flatter areas, I'm not sure...

I'd like to keep the coastlines as much in tact as possible...I don't know how much rain you dropped on it, but given the scale of the map those rivers are like 20 miles wide in your eroded version Bleh hehehe...I dunno...Maybe I picked a bad area to start with? See if those numbers help things or worsen things.

waldronate, I'll play a bit with wilbur too and see what I come up with...maybe I'll come up with a more useable heightmap even that I can send to redrobes and get the best of both applications.

[Robbie]

Whats a good way to do lakes in FT? I tried painting raised water levels, but the result didnt make much sense to me.

[ravells]

No worries Robbie. You don't need a heightmap to get that lettering effect. Just convert your underlying map to greyscale and blur it a bit. Then save it as a separate file. Put down your lettering on a new layer and choose filter/distort/displacement and load the blurred greyscale as your selection and that should do it.

[jfrazierjr]

The (predominant) water effect is REALLY nice. I am not to keen on the few dark bits in the bay and the dark parts past the large island sheltering the bay though....They just look to dark and splotchy to me...