June/July Entry: Lost Ichenjanda

[gilgamec]

Ah! Another contest to try out some new procedural techniques.

I'll make a map of the lost city of Ichenjanda, as excavated by a team of archaeologists researching the old Challipai empire. Ichenjanda is situated on a hill overlooking the Bujapur River, and had a commanding position in the control of military and commercial movements on the river. It was abandoned nearly a thousand years ago, but had been declining before then. In legendary times, it was the capital of a mighty empire; this is the Ichenjanda the archaological team is seeking.

This one looks like a good opportunity to make a more schematic map, with vector and not raster graphics. I've been playing around with some ideas on how to get common effects procedurally. As with last month's Challenge, I start with a sketch:

This shows the location of the river, forest, and hill crest. Add some noise to loosen up the boundaries, create a height map, and render with contour lines and some other effects, and we get my first
### Latest WIP ###

(This is just an overview inset, showing the situation of Ichenjanda in the surrounding area. The main map will be focused on the city, on the hill in the middle.)