WIP - Pelor - Shaded Relief

[wynn]

Hey Everyone... Been years since I've posted anything here, but I've been getting back into drawing maps, so I figured I might as well show my wips.

I've been messing around with doing a map with shaded relief for quite a while, and I think i've sort of settled on a workflow that I'm starting to like.

This is an area in my world building project called Pelor. It features mountains, valleys, coastline etc., so I think it works great as a showcase and testing grounds for doing this. If I can nail down the look, I'll start extending this outwards to the rest of the world.

Basically, I'm handpainting a height map in photoshop, applying a gradient map onto the map to color it, and then using lighting effects to shade it.

J

[waldronate]

I tried that sort of thing a while back but my painting abilities weren't quite up to snuff. You're doing a nice job with this. What's the scale.

https://cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=33087 had a similar sort of project going a while back. I'm always impressed that you folks can manage to do so well by hand-painting things.

[wynn]

Hey thanks, man. Yeah... it's a very slow tedious process so far hah!

Here's a shot with a scale bar, and also a shot of the height map in case there's interest.

[Redrobes]

Yeah thats nice. Its really hard to paint height maps that have proper hydraulic flow but you seem to have done an admirable job on this one.

[Robulous]

That's amazing, yes very impressive.

[wynn]

Glad you all like it so far.

Here's a small update for today. I was toying around with adding the relief of the ocean floor. Probably going to have to mess around with it a bit more before I'm happy with it.

[Robulous]

Hm, the sea's a bit luminous for my taste. And is that oceanic ridge fractures? They look a bit close to the shore.

[wynn]

Yeah, a bit bright now that I've taken another look. I'll try another gradient on my next update.

A bit close and I'm not liking the look on the ridges. I may just concentrate on the land for now and take another stab at it later.

[Robulous]

Yeah, a bit bright now that I've taken another look. I'll try another gradient on my next update.

A bit close and I'm not liking the look on the ridges. I may just concentrate on the land for now and take another stab at it later.

Well that's a... relief. (*tish*, I'm here all week)

[flailx]

I really love the look you have going - the elevation is very readable and the colors are nice. I look forward to seeing more!