Uncivilized Coastal Map

[Duvik]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I'll try each technique tonight and see what happens.

So far as how I went about getting the water effects...

Well, it's only a single layer of pale blue with some effects added to it. I can get more specific on the actual settings later. I'd do it now but I'm on a different computer and can't refer to the psd.

The current like effect was made with a bit of patience and the Satin effect. I set it's contour to the stock setting available that looks like two little triangles. Then I just sat and alternated the scale and distance until it looked about right... I then turned the opacity down almost to nothing... prob around 10 or 20 percent if i recall.

Added a Bevel of nothing and the texture option that is only available if Bevel and Emboss is checked. ((The texture was the rusty red and black looking spread, it's good for many different terrains))

So far as the coastlines... there is a 10px border up and down each coastline that is on an upper layer and was used to select and cut out grass at an even distance all around. Then a mild Blur effect up and down each coast on the grassy layer sort of hid the hard edges.

A bit of outer and inner glow tweakings took care of merging coastline into mainland fairly well I think.

Those hills are killing me though... YARGH!!!!

Gotta get back to work

[Duvik]

Alrighty, managed to work a little on the hills and I think they look better now.

I also added some roads, field areas, a small spot where a mini port will be... and, some small access roads for fields.

The idea is for there to be a larger city in the middle of the river on the largest island.

There will be a bridge across the narrower part of river to the north of larger isle. The kingdom controls this major route and charges a toll for all who wish to use it.

More to come as i get time.

aww heck, forgot to filter it at end... ah well. here's the raw form with no final filtering effects added

[Duvik]

Well... you might have seen the other WIP I posted about following a tutorial on map making... well...

The techniques for making little terrain features apply just as well to color and... I finally got me some decent looking hills up there!!!

[RPMiller]

There you go! Now that has reached a whole nother level. Well done.

[ravells]

Eek, I hate to say it, but I think you have a lighting problem with the hills (which look a lot better btw). You've got different sets of hills casting shadows in different directions. Also I don't know why, but it looks (to me) that the hills on the top left and bottom right are concave rather than convex - it could just be me.

Ravs

[RPMiller]

It's just you.

I think I see what you are referring to. The edge of the hill appears to dip from the road and go down. Hard to notice at first, but now that you pointed them out...

[Duvik]

I'm thinkin that's from when I flipped one of the copied layers and started reusing it... note to self... don't do that!!!

Unfortunately, I accidentally killed the psd for this particular project and though I learned much, I'm closing it and moving to another.

I don't think I planned it out anough in the beginning and my features are out of proportion compared to what I had in mind.

Thanks for all advice on this one though, it helped me learn a few new things.