Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: [WIP] Antillia: Island for RPG campaign

  1. #1

    Default [WIP] Antillia: Island for RPG campaign

    Been lurking a while, only posted a few things so far. Been drawing maps away myself for a good while but deciding to get my teeth really into this one.
    I changed machines while drawing this map, and some of my old brushes were lost in the transition. I'm using this as an excuse to get more ambitious.
    I'm using GIMP. Full map is 5088 x 3708.

    Step 1)
    Copy a load of bits of the real world, and paste them as layers. Move them around, flip them, rotate them, etc, until they look nice.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	topo.png 
Views:	110 
Size:	1.80 MB 
ID:	67100

    Step 2)
    Now in the old version what I would do was select the transparent area, invert, fill the land, grow by one, fill the coast, select the land, and cut that from the coast giving the coastline.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	land.png 
Views:	70 
Size:	225.3 KB 
ID:	67101

    This gave a very jagged coastline when you zoom in (to 100% here):
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom1.png 
Views:	68 
Size:	26.1 KB 
ID:	67102

    The new method is to instead select with feathered edges, then do selection to path, then do stroke path for the coast. For the land fill, do path to selection and do bucket fill. This gives a smother coastline, which does loose some detail, but I probably had too much bitty detail before:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom2.png 
Views:	62 
Size:	123.5 KB 
ID:	67103

    This is where I get a little fancy. I did repeated "select from path, grow by 6, path from selection, stroke path", with ever lighter strokes, to give a ripple effect on the water. Then I stole the parchment texture from Fantastic Maps | Maps of real and fantasy worlds. Using my coastal path, I cut a land and sea from it. I coloured the sea a little blue, made them both a bit transparent. I made my ripples a bit transparent and blurred them up a bit. Here's the result!
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom3.png 
Views:	64 
Size:	1.73 MB 
ID:	67104
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	topo.png 
Views:	49 
Size:	1.79 MB 
ID:	67099  

  2. #2

    Default

    Step 3) Mountains

    Here's the old version, where I used my own hill and mountain brushes to draw in the mountains based on the topo map:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom4.png 
Views:	67 
Size:	1.41 MB 
ID:	67105

    Then take the topo layer away again to see it better:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom5.png 
Views:	53 
Size:	796.0 KB 
ID:	67106

    With the loss of my hill and mountain brushes I looked around for something a little nicer looking, and borrowed the ones from this thread:
    http://www.cartographersguild.com/ma...html#post85399

    Now mine had the advantage of being opaque, so I could draw them on top of each other without too much hassle. These were transparent however. What I did was make each element a layer in another picture, copy them and paste them as layers, possition them just so (which I was unable to do with my brushes), then edit out all the overlaps. I did this with about 120 layers at a time. It took *ages* but it looks pretty good!
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom6.png 
Views:	53 
Size:	2.29 MB 
ID:	67107

    Step 4) Rivers
    Now here I do not yet have a "new way". These rivers are drawn with the pencil tool because I wanted accuracy. They're a bit ragged towards the coast because they've been cropped to the old coastline. Ideally I'd love some magic technique that would turn them smooth like I've done with the coast. Could be that I'll just have to redraw them with the brush tool or what have you.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom8.png 
Views:	64 
Size:	2.31 MB 
ID:	67108

    Step 5) Forests
    Again, I've not selected a new way here yet. Gonna browse around for some new tree brushes. Here are the old ones:
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	zoom7.png 
Views:	68 
Size:	1.45 MB 
ID:	67109

  3. #3

    Default

    Hey Tolcreator

    I like your map so far. It has some nice shapes to it and you have some interesting techniques. Are you looking for advice or feedback?

  4. #4

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Treijim View Post
    Hey Tolcreator

    I like your map so far. It has some nice shapes to it and you have some interesting techniques. Are you looking for advice or feedback?
    Thanks... either would be appreciated! I'm currently experimenting with rivers, and to a lesser extent forests.
    What I've tried so far is:
    - Tidy them up so they go all the way to the new coast
    - Do path to selection (from the coast path) and then do a + selection by colour of the rivers. Then do selection to path, then do stroke path. This gives an outline of the rivers, but it makes them too... big I guess. I think it would be fine for big rivers but not every little tributary.

    In the past what I've done wit rivers is, they are 3 pixels wide by default. Then I start counting tributaries. Once I've got 5 together, I bump it up to 5 pixels. 10 tributaries makes a 7 pixel river, 20 makes 9, 40 makes 11, 80 makes 13. Don't think I've had a bigger river than that on any map I've done :p I usually make the rivers a little transparent so they don't dominate the map. I might try blurring or something.

    I've tried a few new forest techniques, namely these two:
    How To Draw Forests | Fantastic Maps
    and:
    http://www.cartographersguild.com/ge...html#post61849

    In the first case my first little test forest came out looking OK but... it's hand drawn, so it's very hard to get everything looking consistent and to the same standard all over the map.
    In the 2nd case I just copied and pasted the samples. I had to shrink it down to about 12-10% in order to look "right".

    Hopefully I'll have a few more experiments (and pictures!) done soon.

  5. #5

    Default

    I assume you're looking for advice relating to the painting of the map itself, rather than its structure or realism in terms of climate and such?

    Just in terms of aesthetics, I notice that your map lacks any significant inland sea or water areas, and there seem to be a lot of mountains. A lot of your basin areas have a lot of erosion (implying running water) but no lakes or rivers. It's also rather conveniently square and fits almost too snugly within the border. These are all just things I notice. Where will the equator be, roughly?

    And what's the purpose of the map? You mention an RPG campaign, but what exactly will that involve? How will the map get used?

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •