WIP: unnamed Earh-like planet

[groovey]

Oh my dear ascanius, if I'm further along than you it's all because of Azelor doing the climate stuff, which was bigger than me. I'm not sure my map will progress much further to be honest. I tried experimenting with terrain and it was terrible, so I think I'll have to settle to finish up the map in private so it can be ugly and naive and purely work as an outline for information purposes. I've given up all hope of producing a decent looking map. It's a bit sad I guess, but well.

[groovey]

Hello again!

Long time with no updates, basically because I got discouraged by the lack of progress with the map. But after a few months the other day a YT video about world-building made me think about this project again, and so I'm working on it again.

I'm working with Azelor's climate map of world as a guideline. He himself has said in the past it'd need revision, especially since I added more mountain areas since then, but as for now I have no other source to work with, so it'll have to do. I don't mind fixing the terrain as needed if I get a new climate map. Hopefully he does indeed manage to automate the process of figuring out climate as he's trying to do (http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...l=1#post271412)




Basically what I've done is:

1) Territorial (simple, I would like to try make them look pretty) borders of the Empire (Municipalities, Counties and Provinces), 6 of each in each since 6 is the magic number in the culture controlling that territory. Still to do: Regions and Hinters +other countries/societies on the rest of the continent.




2) Terrain template using the method the devs of Crusader Kings II/EUIV/Victoria (great games) used to make their terrain maps: http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/691...terrainmap.png (I can't find the original source).

I used Azelor's climate to place the desert, plus to determine when vegetation was as a forest (on temperate climate) or as a jungle (on tropical climate).

I used the terrain code from the above Victoria 2 terrain map.

I still need to figure out where Marsh terrain would happen. I won't differentiate woods from forest, and Farmland, which for me mean specially fertile terrains that's neither plains or forest/jungle, I'll wait until I have the rivers (and for that I need to be sure of the mountains placement first) to place, since I figure they'd be related.




3) With the template as a guide, experiment with terrain using Saderan's famous tutorial, which after many past tries with no success, I finally seem to be getting the hang of it.



I need to work on how to do the mountains because though I use the more simple technique Azhel shared to do them, I'm still not sure of what I'm doing with them.

I also need to figure the best way of painting the desert, since the base color the Saderan tutorial works upon is not right.


So this is what I've done so far since last time (I did work on the Conlang associated to the world A LOT though, so name labels will need corrections when I'm ready to do them again).

I guess I'd like some basic input if anyone is still interested on this project, as in, have I made a big mistake with terrain placement? Am I breaking any golden rule? Any problems you detect in general?


Thanks for reading!

EDIT: I officially don't know what the heck am I doing anymore with the terrain, so I'm stuck and frustrated again.

[Pixie]

I like your idea of turning this map into a kind of Crusader Kings / Europa Universalis map, as I am a fan of those games. I suggest one thing though, so you don't get overwhelmed by your own ambition - go into regional maps now, regional also suits Saderan's style much better.

[groovey]

Glad to hear I'm not the only Paradox nerd around here!

Glad to hear from you again mate.

What you say it's true. For the terrain I'm basically going regional. But to work it actually helps me to see the whole world to have a general perspective and make sure all fits, so I'm conflicted about it.

What I will do is just post a cut out of the continent in work here when I need to, after all, you all don't really need to zoom in much into the continent or the terrain style doesn't look good, it needs a certain distance to be effective.

I'm doing some more work on it at the moment but boy, I'm not good at visual stuff, the result looks so silly to me. I don't know what to do.

I EDITED the terrain work in progress in my previous post. As you can see I have no idea of how to make the desert look good and blend well.

The mountains distribution looks silly too I think?

EDIT: checking out ascanius wonderful work on terrain makes me feel like a 5 years old drawing with Paint.

EDIT 2: Pixie, I think I know what you mean about scale. Working world scale makes the scale of the terrain (mountains and vegetations) too big. The problem is I want both a world map and then regional maps, and I want the terrain of one region to match on the world map, but I wouldn't know how to do that.

[groovey]

Well, I've done a lot of trying and thinking since my last post... and the conclusion I've reached is that I need a different style for the world map.

The scale of the mountains in the Saderan style is too big for the scale of a world map, even a continent map. I tried to work or Arlia since it's a separate smaller continent, but still the scale of the terrain was too big.

By the way, I realized Arlia was waay too big, so I reduced it. I hope I kept it a reasonable position from the rift.



Also, without messing up the general elevation I've already set, so it's not even more conflicting with Azelor's climate map of my world, I'd like to add a little bit more detail to it, like I tried to do with Arlia, which by the way it's not 100% final but closer to what I have in mind.



And so I'm on a quest to decide which style to do for the world map.

[Ilanthar]

I know how you feel. I think it's really a problem to depict the mountains on an entire world map in a "quite realistic" manner. I think contour/color code lines or atlas style with shading may be the best way, but not the simplest one.

[Pixie]

Well, you said it already, a whole world map doesn't add up with "realistic" mountain representation.

But, then again, most maps of Earth will not have the mountains represented. If you label cities and rivers, the mountains and deserts kinda "appear" in there, because they are the large areas without rivers/cities (deserts), and the areas without cities where the rivers start (mountains)... If you then place a single label in that area, say, in italics, with Desert X, or ZY Mountains - it may completely do the trick!

[groovey]

I get what you're both saying (thanks for clearing my thoughts a bit) , I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out: the altitude templates I'm doing would actually be the "final" world map if I managed to add some texture to it, which right now I have no idea of how to (well I could then do another world map for terrain like in this one, with the saderan style, maybe, I'm actually not that skilled to pull that off).

So if I managed to get a 5 years old child drawing in Paint version of maps like this or this I'd be kind of happy.

EDIT:

I'm trying to get the world heightmap done already. I've been experimenting and I've settle for a basic automatic technique mixing the gradient idea with part of this tutorial.

1. Render Cloud
2. Posterize at level 7, when happy with result I merged the posterization layer to the clouds layer and cut out the ocean to leave only the land.
3. From here I tried 3 gradients (I won't add exact leyends until I settle for one):


A: with the color scale from here:

RGB: 199, 184, 157 (Sand)
RGB: 133, 150, 101 (Grass)
RGB: 84, 99, 42 (Forest)
RGB: 117, 100, 93 (Hills)
RGB: 157, 144, 118 (Peaks)

Light brown is the highest, light green the lowest.



B: with color 66,99,66 only. This two are my fab.

darkest green is the highest, lighter green/yellowish is the lower.

OR

C: with colours from here:

12k ft+ = 229,229,179
9k-12k ft =209,209,163
6k-9k ft = 188,188,147
3k-6k ft = 168,168,131
2.5-3k ft = 137,198,137
2k-2.5k ft = 123,178,123
1.5k-2k ft = 109,158,109
1k-1.5k = 95,137,95
500-1k ft = 81,119,81
0-500 ft = 66,99,66

Light brown is the highest, dark green the lower.



Which of the 3 gradients do you prefer?

Does the heightmap in general make any sense?

There are two little areas where I'd have to modify the height a bit to match the tectonic map, but for now I just want to find the right model.

I'd appreciate any input or critique (especially if they come with suggestions to improve the critiqued stuff).

Please have in mind:

1. The south pole obviously needs adjustments to make sense on a globe map but for now I ignore it.

2. Visually, at least from a distance, it does neither look pleasant or realistic, but I'm afraid it's as best as I can manage. I'm very mechanical in thinking and not really artistic.

3. The purpose is mostly for info and a future revision of the climate map.

4. The coast should in general be set to the lowest altitude but with the scale of the map I'm not sure I should even bother.

Thank you for reading.

[Azélor]

I kinda like the last gradient more than the two others but also like this one used by Pixie : http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=27903

As for the heightmap, I don't know if it was intentional but it looks completely random. That should be expected when using a cloud render. It's less problematic if I ignore the south pole because it's too distorted to be representative, but I still like the ancient versions more.

[groovey]

It is 90% random!

The older versions of my heigh-map make me shudder and I had gotten the impression the consensus was that the blobs of color were too uniform, thus why I gave it another try today trying to make it less uniform and more random. So right now I'm a bit confused.

Isn't elevation not determined by tectonics always random (in fictional maps), even if you make up a system for it?