I never got too heavy into whirlpools, I just made some clouds and hit them with the twirl filter, put the layer in the exact middle of the image and pinch filter it, then move into place and play with blend modes and layer styles.
So this pretty much finalizes the terrain, I redid most of the mountains and a lot of the hills. I wanted them to be a bit more understated than I originally had them.
There are not a whole lot of rivers included, as at the intended scale they would unlikely be visible. I have included a few of the major ones and some smaller ones where I felt they were needed.
Still looking for a good method of creating maelstrom's. I plunked around with it a bit and was largely unsatisfied with the results. So if any one has some suggestions I'd be glad to here them.
Next up...the LABELING!
As always C&C encouraged and appreciated.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
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I never got too heavy into whirlpools, I just made some clouds and hit them with the twirl filter, put the layer in the exact middle of the image and pinch filter it, then move into place and play with blend modes and layer styles.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
I'll have to give that a try, I was trying to do them 'by hand' with a mouse.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Yeah, I tried that at first too I even went so far as to create a custom gradient just so that I could twirl it, polar coordinates it, and other filters...all were kinda sucky. So I just twirled some clouds and let it be.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
It's going to be a very cool map I think. The ground textures are crisp and the coloring is also top notch. Some of the lakes do bother me slightly, as they are more like holes in the terrain. What would happen if you modified the shadow effect on those areas to give the water a smoother and lighter touch, and also tuned the water to look more shallow (as it is quite dark & deep at the moment)? Other than that, there is nothing more I can think of. Good work! Can't wait to see the end product.
Very nice. The colors really do it for me. I'm always impressed with the forests and grass textures that Photoshop renders.
@Jykke - I can easily change the color of the lakes as it is all on a separate layer, I may even add a bit of a pattern overlay to it. The 'shadowing' is most likely the result of the low opacity stroke I put on the land it give it a bit of separation from the water.
@BeZurKur - Most of the textures used are from Spiral Graphics Genetica viewer, I did use a couple of Photshop's textures and 1 or 2 others I downloaded from someplace (probably cgtextures).
Thanks for the comments.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Well I had started my labeling and it was going fairly well, but the more I looked at it the more unhappy I became with the continental shape. It just started looking wrong to me. So I decided to start over.
Which brings us to this latest upload. Same basic techniques to create the various terrains with some tweaks.
As always C&C is encouraged and welcomed.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
I see where you're going with that desert so you might want to turn the scale down on the pattern a bit...looks a lil big and dominating.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Yup, you're right it is a bit overwhelming and it is repeating, but I think the issue is I shrunk it down to much (the original pattern is 1000x1000 - maybe bigger). I'll have to double-check to be sure.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.