District of Milhet | by novaTOPO

[Ruedy]

Clean, crisp and very beautiful. A really professional product - super work, Ruedy. Tell me, how do you decide where to put the shadows on the mountains? I expect that the shadows are independent shapes?

Oh, at first I create the relief with photoshop. Then I put it into a layer in Inkscape and construct the colored hight-lines in form of the relief.
The shadows are not vector-shapes. You could transform them into vector schapes, but even Inscape is current not powerfull enough, to do that with good quality.

[Midgardsormr]

As beautiful as the map is, you've hit one of my pet peeves: foreign characters used as though they were Roman characters. I don't know much Greek, but I know you're using sigmas where you should be using epsilons. All of your 'E's say 'S' to me, and there's no pi in Dionysus (though I understand that he does like pie), to say nothing of the psi right next to it.

Ahem... As I said, a pet peeve. I really like what you've done with the left-side border, and the bull in the upper right is also a nice touch.

[Ruedy]

Oh yes, I know what you mean.
But there is no greek speech and typography in Dionysos. It´s a german-speeched micronation with parts of greek culture.
The interaction is in german und nobody would be have the desire to write and comunicate in greek print characters.

[ravells]

Oh, at first I create the relief with photoshop. Then I put it into a layer in Inkscape and construct the colored hight-lines in form of the relief.
The shadows are not vector-shapes. You could transform them into vector schapes, but even Inscape is current not powerfull enough, to do that with good quality.

Interesting! How do you create the relief in photoshop?

[Bohunk]

Very inspiring, wonderfully original! Wow!

[Ruedy]

Interesting! How do you create the relief in photoshop?

Ohje, i will try describe it.

Create ten or fourteen altitude stages in inkscape(b / w, with the lowest black, white represents the highest point), Gaussian Blur, on Alpha channel expose, which already has one shadow. Shadow-level color level set, mode: Multiply, opacity adjust. Some things, such as rivers, but you have to manually refine.
At last I do the fine parts in a new layer with sharp tool in black contrasts, then negative-multiplication (Screen) an set Layer Style to Bevel and Emboss.

[ravells]

I can see what you are saying, but I can't see where in the process the contour altitudes turn into mountain shadows which do not follow the contours, particularly if you don't use the render / light filter. Is there any chance you could post a sample .ps file of a simple mountain range - I'd really like to see how this is done as I rely on Fractal Terrains if I want that sort of mountain shadow and I'd love to do it all within PS.

[Ruedy]

I can see what you are saying, but I can't see where in the process the contour altitudes turn into mountain shadows which do not follow the contours, particularly if you don't use the render / light filter. Is there any chance you could post a sample .ps file of a simple mountain range - I'd really like to see how this is done as I rely on Fractal Terrains if I want that sort of mountain shadow and I'd love to do it all within PS.

Sure, in the next days I will create an example and send it per PM.
Perhaps there is a mistake in my Desciption.

[ravells]

That would be very kind of you Ruedy - thanks!