World Map in progress, Need advice and guidance

[RevGunn]

I'm making yet another attempt at mapping my latst campaign world. With this one I'm adding in 90% of the cool stuff I've thought of over the years of gaming. I'm sort of trying to create my "final world" where I'll run my games for a while...

I've got a huge history created, probably way too much.

I started the Ascension Atlas style on it, and it looks alright except for the mountains. I knew the scale was going to be off for a world size map so I did my cloud rendering at 4000 by 8000 and then reduced back to 2000 by 4000 with the hopefully higher detail renders. It sort of worked. There is one mountain range I really like but the rest are just... out of scale and not where I need them to be.


The scale is 15,000 miles by 30,000, just a bit larger than Earth. Any suggestions as to how to depict the mountains at this scale? I've looked at so many threads today its all blurring together but I have seen some really great work. A bunch of it I'm not sure how the artist did them though. I'm on a Linux machine, otherwise I'd try Wilbur, even though I could probably hand draw it long before I can figure the program out.

So other than there being too much land mass, anything jump out at you?

[Chick]

I believe there is a section in the tutorial about how to move the mountains to where you want them. Did you try that?

[waldronate]

I am led to believe that Wilbur works acceptably well under Wine and its derivatives.

[johnvanvliet]

the 32 bit wilbur runs on my 64 bit OpenSUSE 13.2 in WINE 1.7
64 bit code and "wine" do not get along yet
and anyway most if not almost all 64 bit windows code is the same 32 bit code just compiled as 64 bit

as to image size 8192x4096 ( 8k ) image is a average to small image

a modern i5 or i7CPU with 12 to 24 gig of ram has no problem with handling a 32768 x 16384 px image in RGB or 16 bit unsigned gray

i would start with a Height map FIRST
then color and shade that

if you are using a unsigned gray 16 bit tiff Krita can be used
( 32 bit floats are iffy in krita depending if it is normalized from 0 to 1 or not )

Krita SHOULD in your OS's package manager
https://krita.org/download/krita-desktop/

or Cinepaint ( but it is rather OLD ) and NOT supported by the Debian based distros

and Gimp for coloring
and if you are NOT using a Height map

but there is something a bit off on the north and south pole
the north then the south remapped to polar stereographic


see the distortions at the poles

i use in Gimp the "resynthesizer" plugin ( you have to BUILD the code)
it builds just fine using gcc 4.8
the code
https://github.com/bootchk/resynthesizer
and the programs web page
http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer

a quick fix ( done while i was typing this )
the two poles

and remapped back to simple cylindrical

[RevGunn]

Follow up post with a bit of the history and background.

The planet was terraformed by the Elves. My elves are a lot more Melnibonean than Sindarin, and are pretty decadent/evil. They settle, build cities and farms, fortresses, etc. Their technology is based on extra-planar energy used like we would use electricity. (which could itself BE extra planar, we don't know). After several centuries, they abandon the world.

Humans arrive in huge colony ships, which I see as being like the one in the movie "Pandorum". They settle in the Elven ruins, setting up a high tech society with Tesla style broadcast energy, with a power grid of huge plinths. The "Golden Age" ensues.

Several centuries pass, until the world is invaded, through dimensional gates, by Mind Flayers and thier Hobgoblin slaves. Illithid technology utilises Psychic energy. So an apocalyptic level war begins, with armored Hobgoblin troops with lightning lances and energy blades versus Human gauss weapons and repulsor aircraft. Humanity proves pretty difficult for the Illithid to dominate, and unexpected allies from the sea help the Human armies. Aboleth, psychic monsters of the deep and ancestral enemy of the Illithid. (That's why the Elves abandoned the place.) Aboleth meddling begins to (re) awaken the psychic and magical abilities of Humans.

Humans eventually win the war, but its a Pyyric victory. The power grid is devastated. The cites lie in ruins. The Illithid are either driven back through the portals or deep underground, where they wait, brooding and plotting. The Hobgoblins, now free of Illithid domination flee in to the mountains and go back to being Iron Age barbarians. Hobgoblins are marsupials by the way.

So Humanity is picking themselves up from the ruins for a few hundred years. This is when most of the extra-planar beings, "Gods" intruduce themselves to the now (re) awakened Humans.

The Elves return, and promptly enslave the re-building Human society. During the pacification, an entire Elven legion dissappears without a trace. Taken below by the Mind Flayers, and "altered". The elves prove to be cruel masters. Humanity bides their time, and learns.

A few centuries pass, and with each generation, the Humans become more attuned to eldritch extra-planar energy. Then comes the revolution, and "The Starfall" when thousands of meteor strikes are directed against the Elven citadels. The surviving elves flee through their portals, or take to the seas in the huge bronze war barges. The seaborne Elves escape to a remote island, where they rule and begin to interbreed with the local Human population.

With the defeat of thier former masters, the Human Sorcerers decide.. "Hey, looks like we're in charge from here on out." The first Witch King is crowned in the North. They prove to be much worse masters than the Elves even thought about being. "Man's inhumanity to man" and all. The Witch Kings spend thier time aquiring knowledge and power. Their subjects suffer. People are sacrificed, experimented upon. Life sucks.

In the South, the Goddess Shar Su'ul builds a Theocracy with her puppet priests, the first of the two Empires of the South.

[RevGunn]

I was pretty sure Wilbur would work under WINE. I haven't tried it. Honestly I'm afraid of the learning curve. I did try moving the mountains around chick, but I think I need to generate a few more images full of them to get what I'm looking for. I looked at a "caterpillar mountains" tut here and I'm thinking of giving something like that a shot. Thank you johnvanvliet for fixing the poles. I've got Krita, I'm using GIMP. I'm going to get that "resynthesizer" plugin immediately if not sooner. Thanks y'all

[johnvanvliet]

if you need help
i have been building the gimp "stable" and "Development branch " code since 2001

i mainly use rpm based distros
Fedora, OpenSUSE , RHEL

but also use Debian 8 testing

i DO NOT!! use Ubuntu or it's off shoots


for the plugin you will want to do a bit of reading
it also installs some python scripts
you use one of the select tools then use the "heal selected area" script on that area
there is also a "enlarge and sharpen " script
and "sharpen by synthesis" script
and a few others

filters / enhance

[RevGunn]

johnvanvliet... Yes I'm going to have to do some reading. I'll likely need some assistance with the plugin. Unfortunately.. I DO use Ubuntu. It works, and it isn't Windows so I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not a real knowledgeable Linux user yet, I fled to it from Windows XP. I've learned a lot though. This distro has a really awesome DAW included also. I'm a musician in a couple of bands, we're recording at the moment so I'm using it a LOT.

Today I did this.Attachment 71081 Its not bad. Its pretty good actually, but not what I wanted.
So earlier I was staring at google maps, zoomed out and looking at the Rocky Mountains. I spent a long time on that.

I'm guessing its time I learned Wilbur. Maybe some hand drawing. I don't know. I'm feeling the frustration.

[RevGunn]

So its been a week or so, and I've been learning. First off, I found the Israh Tutorial Which was great, except I don't have Fractal Terrains. I got the Demo, it was pretty cool. But... I sort of remember a couple of programs back a few years ago, so I went hunting. PlanetGen was the thing I was thinking of. I'm sure y'all know about it, but just in case. It can come up with some pretty cool maps. Climate, Seasons, Heightfield. Its a bit low res but I scaled up the resolution in GIMP then did a gaussian blur. Like 15 pix I think. Looked pretty good.

So I got my heightmap. Then I took that to Wilbur. Wow. Amazing program. I have learned a lot. After some Preciption Erosion, Incise Flow and fill basin, add noise, and then river flow. I did have to offset quite a bit to get any ocean at all. I used the Israh texures from the tutorial and I came up with this.

Maybe a bit too mountainous but I sort of like it. The colors.. Well I dunno but overall, I am liking it. Especially those canyons.

[johnvanvliet]

on linux OS's you can use the bit older "fracplanet"

the code dose need a bit of updating and has been on my "to do list" ( i am NOT the original creator )
the easiest way is to use SVN

svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/fracplanet/code/trunk fracplanet-code

http://www.bottlenose.demon.co.uk/share/fracplanet/

it uses Qmake and QT4 ( not qt5!!! )

"fracplanet" dose Water worlds , it is a bit slow but not too bad for making a height map ( the color sucks and the "normal map" is F^<Ked up and in NEED of a rewrite )

the default colors can be edited in the sourcecode

Maybe a bit too mountainous but I sort of like it

a bit noisy but not bad

i find that 90% of the ones i start i delete
that leaves about 1 in 10 that make if farther

most of the time it is just
--- it just dose not look "right" ----


Wilbur is rather GOOD a bit complex but that goes with the territory