September Entry: Generic Fun

[NeonKnight]

Sorry you feel that way Dorpond.

I think the map is very well done, and I know we all joke and kid about the Forking rivers, but don;t feel bad. we all have features we screw up.

I like your map, and of the Photo-realistic maps I have seen it is probably one of the few I don't need to squint my aged, failing vision to determine forest from swamp from plains.

[Gamerprinter]

Dorpond, don't feel disappointed, I believe JFrazierJr and others were just kidding - nobody wants you banned, we love your work! I think his comment was meant to suggest you entered one challenge and won, as if just entering guarantees you a win - it was a joke in poor taste.

The previous posters do not have any negative feelings regarding your previous map - this much I am sure. I personally am very glad you entered and have missed your work since the VTT map challenge a few months back -that you won.

You are quite right, that we CG'ers only seek to help other mappers out - any posts about banning, as I said, a joke in poor taste.

Get excited about your work, we are!

GP

PS: I believe the river problems involve the fact some of your rivers split downstream into two rivers. Rivers don't do that. When two rivers converge and flow downstream, this is a fork, as it occurs in nature. Rivers do not split downstream into multiple rivers - this problem is common with many new regional mappers.

[jfrazierjr]

You know, I read and re-read many of the replies in this thread and I can't help but feel offended by some of the comments made..

I find it upsetting that people have to mention my previous entry in a negative light, suggest banning me if I win, and state that parts of my map are illogical but not say why. I thought this site was all about making better map makers out of us?

Dorpond, please accept my most humble apology about the banning remark. The first part "Ummm that would be the one he WON..." was a light hearted jab at Delgon. The part about the banning was nothing more than a jest, indicating that I actually LOVE your map making skills; As in, they are too good for us mear mortals, so to speak.

I am starting to question my decision making that map and sharing in the excitement with you all. I am disappointed, that is all I can say.

If anything I want to encourage you to to post MORE, lots, lots, lots more, and especially if you have time, we(at least I) would all like to see more tutorials from you.

As for the river comments, I believe they were pointing out the river NW(if north were straight up) of your main city (about 1.5 inches from the city) which splits going downhill. Likewise, the lowest river splits about 6 inches due south(in the straight up orientation) of your largest city. The point being that in general, rivers rarely ever split while going down stream. While not impossible, it happens so rarely on Earth that most of the time, it feels out of place on a map. "I" for one have no problem with it once in a while, but two on the same map of this scale might be pushing it.

Again, please accept my profuse appologies for any hard feelings.

[dorpond]

OK, OK. Obviously a misunderstanding on my behalf. Perhaps I woke up a little sensitive this AM.

Thanks for the tips on the rivers, Gamerprinter and Jfrazierjr. I always felt weak with making rivers and now thanks to your explaination, I can improve on them. Very helpful - thank you!

[jfrazierjr]

OK, OK. Obviously a misunderstanding on my behalf. Perhaps I woke up a little sensitive this AM.

Thanks for the tips on the rivers, Gamerprinter and Jfrazierjr. I always felt weak with making rivers and now thanks to your explaination, I can improve on them. Very helpful - thank you!

That's ok. I KNOW I sometimes say things that I should not or don't phrase things correctly. I try really really hard to avoid saying stupid stuff, but sometimes stuff slips out. Heh... I have almost gotten fired more times than I can count by saying stuff in the wrong way. Sometimes "it's hard to get your foot out of your mouth after your toes are past you tonsils", so to speak.... Again, I apoligize for any misunderstanding on my part!


As to the map itself, over all, I really like it. When I open the map in FF3, it looks really really nice at the prescaled resolution(about 800x800). Once I bump it up to full scale, several of the elements look a little mottled together(not sure how to explain that). The Mountains look pretty good at the prescale resolution, but I think they are a bit to "bloby" at full resolution for my tastes, I think full size, it's hard to tell that they are supposed to be mountains.

Now, since the whole point of this challenge is to make the map in "your" style, don't in any way feel you have to change anything because of what I say. For that matter, since there can be reasons for a river to fork downsteam, you don't even have to change that either (there is some river somewhere in the midwest(Idaho???) that forks and one fork goes to the Pacific ocean and the other ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, which is even more rare.) if you don't want to. Lkewise, I NEVER think about geology when doing maps. I just don't want to learn about how mountains are formed by plate shear, subduction, etc. I map for fun not for realism.

BTW, I really like your ocean "texture". Can that be done fairly easy in GIMP? If so, I would love to see a quick walkthrough. I like the tossed glassy type look about it.

[dorpond]

Since we are on the topic of rivers, are there any discussions, tutorials, theories, writeups, etc, on rivers or the making of rivers? I have never studied them before and am very curious how they actually work.

For example, do all rivers eventually flow to the ocean or dont they at all?

Perhaps this could spark an interesting discussion or future workshops, if they don't already exist here.

[dorpond]

yeah, I agree with everything you stated jfrazierjr. when I look at the map full scale, it even looks more blurry than I like aslo. I will see what I can do about tweaking it throughout the week. Thanks for the comments and advice.

As far as the water, I actually used a ton of Photoshop filters, made several changes to contrasts, brightnesses, levels, ran more filters. I don't really have a method when I make maps - I sort of throw paint on the canvas and shake it up a bit until I like it.

These are some of the filters I used on the water:
- Ocean Ripple (used this 3 times with 3 different throughout the project)
- Paint Daubs
- Watercolor

[jfrazierjr]

yeah, I agree with everything you stated jfrazierjr. when I look at the map full scale, it even looks more blurry than I like aslo. I will see what I can do about tweaking it throughout the week. Thanks for the comments and advice.

As far as the water, I actually used a ton of Photoshop filters, made several changes to contrasts, brightnesses, levels, ran more filters. I don't really have a method when I make maps - I sort of throw paint on the canvas and shake it up a bit until I like it.

These are some of the filters I used on the water:
- Ocean Ripple (used this 3 times with 3 different throughout the project)
- Paint Daubs
- Watercolor

Well, as I said, it looks really, really nice at about 1/3 size. Very detailed at that scale, it's just blown up when things start getting a bit dicey. I do like your swamp colors. Last night, I was working on the swamp and threw down some splatter brushes(Galaxy brush in GIMP), added some noise, and then bump mapped the whole thing. Turned out to be one suckie ass swamp, but one really nice set of over head tree tops... I rather liked the effect quite well! So now, I have some trees for my forest (if I can remember the settings used and can duplicate it) but still nada for swamps/marshes.


As for the filters, I may have to load up the copy of PS Elements that came with my tablet just to see what kind of filters it has available. Somethings I just can't do in GIMP as easily I might find a filter for in PSE.

[dorpond]

Here is an interesting writeup on rivers:
http://www.fantasymaps.com/101/river.html

[dorpond]

OK,

I tried again at some rivers. Let me know if it is still "illogical"

I also took a step back and looked at my original piece. I tweaked and played with it a bit.

Let me know what you think of this version. Better? Worse?

### Latest WIP ###