I'm using Photoshop (CS4 I believe) and it's really a good, easy process! I use the lasso tool to make the contours and with the anti alias feature it's quite a smooth process
Haha well glad I got you started. What are you doing this with? I use Inkscape and it really bogs down with complicated drawings.
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I'm using Photoshop (CS4 I believe) and it's really a good, easy process! I use the lasso tool to make the contours and with the anti alias feature it's quite a smooth process
Yeah, okay. I always wanted to get PS and Illustrator, but can't afford 'em. So I am stuck with opensource tools and quite honestly Gimp is way too unfriendly to use for me.
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It's drifting a bit off topic but if it's being slowed down by Filter Effects, there are two things you could try.
If you have a Multicore and/or SMT (Hyperthreading, etc) processor:
File -> Inkscape Preferences -> Filters and increase the number of threads. You don't want to exceed the number of threads your processor can actually handle.
Cycle filter effects on and off. Ctrl-5 cycles between effects on, effects off, and wireframe.
There are apparently plans to change the rendering code to use graphics hardware. That should improve overall performance in future versions.
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Another update! Drew up some climate suggestions for the two western-most continents (includes key). Working on contours for the lower continent in the picture!
Here's a map of land temperatures and ocean currents, fits pretty well with what I wanted. It goes from red (very high) -> orange (high) -> green (mid) -> light blue (low).
I'm impressed by the amount of thought you've gone into aside from the drawing, the way you've worked out what makes your world "tick" has made me re-evaluate some of the worlds I'm currently playing around with. I had planned to add sea-trade routes to my worlds in the later stages but seeing how you've worked out currents on your map makes me think that I'd be daft to try and work out trade routes without considering the same thing.
I know how you feel, I used to just make maps without worrying about all the details until I came to this site, and suddenly I realized that a map without just a little bit of thought behind can't hold it's ground well enough to be worth it, if you're planning to do something serious with it. It can be frustrating sometimes when things don't work out how you want them to, but with a little work it's well worth it putting a little extra thought into a map! Thanks for checking it out
Update! Did a lot of work on the next landmass (the one directly under the one I previously worked on - the westernmost central landmass). Here's a 100% view of both. Neither are finished yet, but I wanted to get started on the next landmass so I'm kind of variating between the two at the moment.
I experimented with some town/settlement markers on the bottom landmass... I'm not so sure about them yet, but it's a start.