World Map WIP in GIMP

[Midgardsormr]

(I've also read a great PDF from a few years back - a freely distributed section of a larger for-sale e-book - about the basics of developing a realistic geography for a fantasy world. Alas, it is one of many things lost when my harddrive crashed a couple years back, and my google-fu is too weak to find it again.)

You have come to the right place. The pdf you seek is here: http://e23.sjgames.com/credits.html?...etreat%20Press

Scroll down to A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping.

[Ascension]

Awesome link Mid, wish I knew about it last week so I could have that week back spent on research and brainstorming shop ideas Well worth a read.

[Karro]

You have come to the right place. The pdf you seek is here: http://e23.sjgames.com/credits.html?...etreat%20Press

Scroll down to A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping.

That's the very thing! Thanks! I think I might love you

[Karro]

Okay, I've been doing some cursory studying of the climate data and info, done some quick research on wind and ocean currents, and have a couple maps to show the results of that on this world.

The first shows the basic wind currents (the whitish arrows) assuming a world with a roughly similar axial tilt to that of Earth. In the faint blue arrows on the oceans, we see a general look at ocean currents. Warm water flowing away from the equator, cold water flowing back toward it.



This second map now shows, based on this data, where the wet and dry regions ought to appear, roughly. Toward the equator is the wetest region, as two wet warm-air currents merge together. Above (and below) that we have the driest regions, where air is being pulled away from this by the divergent warm air currents. Then a big swath of transitional area mid between cool wet and warm dry. Above that is a cool wet area (which will eventually be arboreal forest, primarily), and above that the arctic (tundra and arctic) regions which are also cold and dry.



These should help me place my actual biomes and climates... if I can understand what it all means.

It does suggest that where I placed deserts and some rainforests previously is somewhat incorrect. This will also all be influenced by rivers and lakes, which have yet to be placed. I'm anticipating a few large lakes to shake things up a bit and provide some needed wetness in a few areas.

The major problems for me are that on the western continent pair, I had anticipated a very large sahara-like region on the isthmus and most of the norther part of the southern continent and had thoughts in my head for the development of desert-centric civilizations in that region. Expecting much of this to suddenly become tropical rainforest changes things up a bit. I don't know if this will require me to redo the continents a little bit in order to get things in the zones I want them, and how much time that will take, considering it took me forever to get this far...

Additionally, I intentionally have a desert on the northern region of the center-right continent north of the large range there. Most of that should be tundra and some arctic, but the desert is (or will be, since I hid all the deserts and forests on this version) an intentional abberation.

So... any thoughts or suggestions as I progress on these maps? My goal is to make these as believable as possible before I'm done, given a few excpected caveats.

[Karro]

Okay...

Given what the last post seemed to indicate about the layout of the world, I have made a few changes. There are no fancy artistic GIMP effects in these yet... It took me forever just to make these few changes.

First... I shifted the left/western two continents northward a little, and had to redraw the plate boundaries as a result:



Now, here's the new world with wind and ocean currents. The ocean currents are slightly off because I forgot to redraw them after moving the western continents, but you can probably see where they would actually lie.



Next, the bands of alternating wet, dry, and moderate climate zones (with the air currents turned on). I'm also showing the mountains and my new Lakes & Rivers, because these things will all interact to influence the local climate patterns.



This will help me accurately place my deserts, forests, jungles, etc., which we now have on the next map:



There are still a few climatological anomolies, I think, but by and large I believe this is a believable and relatively realistic world. Most of the anomolies are intentional anyway, typically the result of human influence on the environment and world.

Next (very big) step is to take this information and GIMP it up with all the pretty bells and whistles... Unless you guys have some major concerns with anything you see here.

Comments, criticism, feedback most welcome!

Thanks!

[Karro]

Okay... so I started a better job (better paying, but the company has more restrictive web policies and an aggressive website blocker) and then a week and a half ago I got married, which means for the past month or two I've been virtually incommunicado, especially with regards to leisure activities like this.

I'm still likely to be low on the radar for a while (I start evening grad classes in a couple weeks), but I'll try to post updates every once in a while as I work on this map. I just wanted to show everyone the (limited) progress I've made so far. (I wish I had more time to work on this, but life has other demands as the moment.) My previous posts have had some reduced size images (about 50% of full size), and I tried to upload a full-size image here, but even though it's only about 1460K JPG, the system won't upload it, so here's a 75% image.

So far, no forests, mountains or other features (I know where the mountains are going, which is what gives me the ability to draw in the rivers at this stage).



There's still a chance I'll want to work more on the coastlines to get them more interesting looking, or try to add in more barrier islands (adding barrier islands is a lot easier said than done!). Let me know what you think!

[ravells]

The general style looks fantastic, but to me the islands look a bit too uniformly round and blobby (technical term) - I'm not sure if it was intentional, but they somehow don't look right.