The Aralor Empire and the lands to the north-west

[Caenwyr]

Yes, I am also not sure, that is why it is called alpha-version. Still experimenting. Probably I should use just an outline of a tree as a brush instead of a whole tree silhouette... I'll try something like this:
Attachment 60753

Iisn't "Alpha" the finished product, while "Beta" is the in-development version? ;-)

About those forests: why don't you try putting them closer together? They could even be overlapping for a more 3D-ish feeling (which you already have in your mountains). Personally I kinda liked the full-black versions even better than the white-in-the-middle ones, but that's purely me!


Apart from that I'd like to say: I only just stumbled on this map, and I must admit I was pretty amazed! Beautiful land shapes you have there, Gallien!!

[Midgardsormr]

In software development, Alpha refers to in-house testing in a controlled hardware environment. Beta is an external test. Thus, Alpha is even earlier in the development cycle.

When the software is actually released for manufacturing, it's referred to as "Gold."

[Gallien]

First, I want to thank everybody for your attention! I have not visited the forum for a long time and I've just read the last comments.
Now I do not have much time for mapmaking, because I'm finishing my last year at the university - that is why I visit the site very rarely.
But it definetly does not mean that I'm not working on this map

As for the forests...
Ilanthar and Caenwyr - my first idea was to make "tolkien-style" forests. That is what you reccomend, if I understand you correctly. (3D-style, overlapping trees.) Probably this would be the best choice. But it proved to be too hard for me: you have to clean all the mess, that comes from overlapping tree brushes. I avoided the same problem with the mountains by just drawing them all by hand. I also tried to draw the forests by hand and I won't ever try it again At least in the nearest future. I'm no artist.

I decided to use the first version (the black trees). As Max said the trees looked good zoomed out, but not so good zoomed in. That is why i made them much smaller - now even zoomed in they look like the first version zoomed out. In fact a single tree now has the same width as the lines of the mountains and rivers.



Now I have to finish placing the forests - and then the naming and labelling comes, I believe. The countries and cities etc.
I hope I'll finish the map in the end of April or in May (I don't think I'm going to have much free time until then).

P.S. I don't want to call the last version of the forests the Gold version. I'd rather call it Gamma version

[Gallien]

So this is the last version. And I think I'll stop here for now. The map is not finished, of course, still I don't think I wasted my time doing it. And I'm very grateful for the help I got from all of you!
I realised that my concept of this world is too vague now so I have to make a systematic history of the world before finishing the map. And I will probably need some basics of a conlang (for geographical names). The process of namemaking is worse than hell...

As for now, I will probably try to make a global map of the same world in another style. If (or when) I really begin to do something, I'll start another thread.

[Ilanthar]

Truly a good map already. I'm very surprised and have mixed feelings about your forests. It looks awesome and works very well with the rest when zoomed out, but feels very different when zoomed, imo.

[Freodin]

That turned out very fine! I like the final (?) version of your forests, and the mountains are pretty well done and fit this map style a lot better than some of the more elaborate brushes.

I would like to know how you did the paper texture though... I like it very much and I am always looking for new inspirations on that point.

[Gallien]

About the paper texture.
I used Adobe PS functions

1. I chose the main color - R 193 G 185 B 147 (you can change that of course).

2. Then I use the options of the Filter menu.

A) Filter/Texture/Texturiser
You need some texture to work with, something you will adjust later. There are 4 textures uploaded in PS by default (in my version) - brick, sandstone, canvas and sackcloth (I hope these are the right words, for I use the russian version). I used the sackcloth, but even the brick texture can be used, I think.
The only thing that matters now is the scaling and the relief. They define the final contrast of the paper, the size of grain.

B) Filter/Brush Strokes/Spatter
This step creates the texture itself. You have to adjust the spray radius and smoothness. The contrast of the result depends not only on these parametrs but also on the initial texture relief.

C) I blurred the result with Gausian blur (Filter/Blur/...). Later I thought that the texture is too blurred, so I went back to the Texturizer tool and used the Canvas texture with relief set to 1 (minimum). (You can compare the last map with the previous one.)

You can play with the settings on all the steps, depending on the size of the picture and on the contrast you want to have. You can also try to Spatter the texture twice for a more smooth paper texture. There are many different ways to use the PS Filter tools.

3. And the last point. I used 2 layers with black&white clouds. (Filter/Render/Clouds) (One layer for small-grained clouds and one for much bigger ones.) I set both layers to Multiply and turned the Opacity down to 5% or 10%.

[kirkspencer]

Cool. Like Freodin I was hoping you'd share that, so thank you.

[Raptori]

Really like this map, sad that you're not going to carry on with it

Completely agree that name making is a lot of effort, definitely not my favourite thing.

[Gallien]

Just experimenting.
I used Wind-Blur-Sharpen on the Mountain and Forest layers, and I used Diffuse-Blur-Sharpen on the Names, Rivers and Coastline layers.
I thought the result is funny and can be interesting for somebody.