I've been tinkering around with a map of a continent for a setting, and thought I'd share what I've come up with so far. Let me know what you think!
[spoiler=Updated Map (9/30/13) - Now at Full Resolution and with Rivers](http://www.cartographersguild.com/attachments/regional-world-mapping/58076d1380562138-%5Bwip%5D-map-starfall-starfall-v1.5.jpg)
[EDIT] I really hate photobucket right now. This map is 3,000 x 4,000 pixels. It should be bigger. I'll figure something out.
[EDIT EDIT] Haha! Figured something out, and it was NOT linking to the file on photobucket!
[/spoiler]
I think it looks cool. I like that you went for simplicity.
Do the trees mean deep forests? And the average green would mean forests as well as grasslands? Or would that light green patch south of the continent mean grassland?
Using ProFantasy CC3 I can tell. Do you have any of the Annuals? There are some nicer mountain and map objecct sets in the various Annuals that give you more interesting styles to work with.
Geographically speaking, while coastal ranges certainly exist, your 'coastal ranges' on the southern tip and southeastern coast seems a bit too contained along the coastline. The main mountain range from top going down the western coastline, at least where it's closer to the coast is much more like a coastal range than your other two southern extremely coastal examples.
I see only a couple rivers (I can barely see them) and they seem to be alright geographically/geologically speaking, but I expect to see a lot more rivers on this map - rivers can truly make or break immersion of reality in your map design.
Look forward to seeing it further along.
You need more rivers. Lots more. Especially in that central / eastern plain. If the ones you have are anything to get a sense of scale by, the whole central area should be mostly desert or other dry scrubland.
M.
PM, I haven't put in trees yet. The green is just an base layer. The light green things are actually mountains (I didn't have time to make the forum display the map at full resolution :/). Wow, thanks for pointing out that my "deserts" look so bloody green! I didn't even notice that earlier (they were the last thing I put in after sorting out currents and major airflows).
Gamer Printshop, thanks for responding! I'm afraid I don't have the annuals or anything beyond the basic CC3; which annuals would you recommend? Thanks for pointing out the coastalness of those two ranges. I actually drew out the plate tectonics for the continent, which is what yielded the western range, the northern range, and the himalayan blurb in the south. Those other coastal ranges were added in because I wanted more mountains and without enough research on what such ranges look like. My reasoning was that they are old mountain ranges from ancient faults that have since ceased to be.
As for the lack of rivers, I am still working on them. The islands and the southern subcontinent have their rivers. The rest is still in development. I am also intending to add a good deal of glaciation (no idea how, just yet) to the northern reaches, along with a substantial ice cap. As those glaciers are receding, the icecap melting, and a substantial increase in precipitation throughout the non-arid parts of the world, I do intend to add a lot of rivers and lakes and such - and probably a few drowned cities, when I get that far.
Thank you all for the feedback. I will report back with an update in a few days, probably.
Here's a link to the Profantasy Annuals for 2013 (http://www.profantasy.com/annual/2013/may13.html) - Jonathan Roberts set looks cool, but so do Flavio's and several others as well. Just something to consider. I've seen so many maps using the standard CC3 symbols they almost look generic to me. Using symbols from the Annuals really makes CC3 a nice program.
Ah thank you. I'll have to wait until next month to get any annuals, though. In the meantime, I can always plan out where stuff goes! I'm working on fixing those coastal mountains now.
Updated the map with rivers, and even got it to post at full resolution. I've updated the original post.
Looks like a good, functional map. For my own personal OCD, I'd like to see a transition between the mountain color and the color of the ground beneath it, and for the mountains to feel like they connect somewhat, but if your goal is just informational, then these work totally fine.
I am interested to see how it develops when you add in the forests.
For now, I really need a functional map. I'd eventually like to make a pretty map, but since I'm still doing the worldbuilding itself, I really need function foremost. I do agree with both you and Gamer Printshop that those mountain symbols are a bit meh. I found one cool way to do topographic-looking mountains with CC3 using a few layers, but I'll never get to the fun bits (placing peoples, and sorting out their migrations and interminglings) if I go that route now.
There will be a lot of forests. That northern, lake-infested region will be rife with taiga thanks to all the snowmelt from the receding glaciers. Lots of cold forests, cold swamps, and such. I'm kind of seeing it as pretty hilly and full of lakes, too.
The central-eastern area will be heavily forested except where elevation things things out (I might still add in some highlands; I noticed a couple such areas emerge from how rivers developed). The southern tip of the continent will be quite junglely, as that is intended to be a subtropical/tropical area.
Another update! (As before, latest map is in the original post (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,209981.msg225385.html#msg225385).)
Added the following:
- Big Desert - mostly dusty, but with some sandy bits. Much of the eastern side of the Big Western Mountains qualifies as a cold desert
- Forests! Light green signifies 50% or less coverage; dark green signifies 50% or more coverage
- Jungles! Greener green blobs in the south. As with forests, light green signifies 50% or less coverage; dark green signifies 50% or more coverage
- Steppes/plains to the east of the Big Desert
Now I really have to figure out how I am going to do the glaciers in and north of the North Mountain Range. I see that entire area iced over and an "ice cap" beyond that.
As for the people, I generally see the Taiga People in the North River Lands being largely a people, even if still divided into individual tribes and clans. The Desert People are distinct, as are the Steppes People; although, they are both more closely related culturally and historically to the Central and Eastern Peoples. The Jungle People and Western People are both pretty isolated and will likely have their own things going on.
In terms of migrations, a couple of things happening. First, since the Rain of Stars, the corruption from the north has been steadily spreading southward and has finally engulfed the Glacial Regions. Raids and outright attacks are provoking a southerly migration by the Taiga People primarily into the western parts of the Eastern People's area near the Steppes. The coastal areas are suffering massive flooding and horrific windstorms and blizzards (and sometimes they combine), but there are general refugee migrations inland all over the continent - the Island People should be worried. Because temperatures and weather are getting more extreme, the Big Desert is getting hotter and dryer, making it even
more inhospitable; Desert People are starting to move to the Steppes.
I will need to figure out general preexisting attitudes among the Peoples about each other to see just how the migrations are conducted and how the people being migrated into respond. One thing worth noting is that this world is not particularly heavily populated. People tend to cluster together for protection because the world is dark and full of dangers - especially ever since the stars fell and brought demons into the world.
Quote from: Humabout
People tend to cluster together for protection because the world is dark and full of dangers - especially ever since the stars fell and brought demons into the world.
Was that a literal meteor impact? If so I'd take that as license to add an overt area of destruction with lots of impact craters. Kind of a "badlands" of sand and glass. That is, assuming such a place fits with your world history.
How long have you been using CC3? I only ask because I've been thinking about trying it. I use GIMP for all my map making.
Looking forward to seeing more :)
It was a brilliant meteor storm that streaked northward over the horizon from everyone's perspective. If there's such a wasteland (and I think there is somewhere), it's well beyond this map. It's more a metaphorical Hell than anything.
I've been using CC3 for five days. I'm still figuring out everything it can do, but from what I've seen on the Cartographer's Guild (http://www.cartographersguild.com/content/), the stuff made in GIMP and Photoshop really make me think I should get into one of those (probably GIMP, since I don't want to dump more money into software for the moment.
I'm also kind of curious about Sketch Up. It looks like a really versatile and potentially awesome way of mapping dungeons and cities.
Quote from: Humabout
It was a brilliant meteor storm that streaked northward over the horizon from everyone's perspective. If there's such a wasteland (and I think there is somewhere), it's well beyond this map. It's more a metaphorical Hell than anything.
As a player, I'm a sucker for tracking down shooting stars. I'd HAVE to go hunting for that :)
GIMP being free was a driving factor for me also. It takes time to learn how make good maps with it (not saying mine are good) but the key is layers, lots and lots and lots of layers some of which are a partly transparent for effects. As for Sketch Up, I heard it's for 3-d modeling more than other graphic stuff.
Of course I use Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 (http://www.xara.com/us/photo-graphic-designer/) for all my mapping needs, but it's not free, though not expensive either, plus its very powerful, feature rich and much easier to use than GIMP/Photoshop (though Xara is a vector app and not an image editor).
I also use various 3D applications for things like detailed map objects and complex structures, but most of my work even map objects are created in Xara. I'd recommend trying the 30 free trial of Xara to see if it's worth it for you. I own CC3, know how to use it, but never touch it - I find it suboptimal for the kind of designs I like to create.
Quote from: Fortunato
As a player, I'm a sucker for tracking down shooting stars. I'd HAVE to go hunting for that :)
That's your call, as a player, but I'd advise against it. It's just background flavor and folk-lorish event to explain why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. The setting is more about the struggle between the natural world and the unnatural, and about people living in a world that seems like it is ending. Heroes are fighting to hold the Corruption at bay, not to defeat it - no one is particularly optimistic about doing that, and those who are quickly lose their zeal as the dismal reality beats their spirit into the dust.
Quote from: Fortunato
As for Sketch Up, I heard it's for 3-d modeling more than other graphic stuff.
It is 3D modeling software, and it gets used for architecture and urban planning, as well as landscaping and other mapping-related things. I've already seen substantial progress on an amazing fantasy city map that a member of the CG is making.
Quote from: Gamer PrintshopOf course I use Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 9 for all my mapping needs, but it's not free, though not expensive either, plus its very powerful, feature rich and much easier to use than GIMP/Photoshop (though Xara is a vector app and not an image editor).
I'll have to look into that. I've seen it mentioned a lot on CG forums. Do you use a graphics program afterward for any finishing touches, or does Xara take care of all the effects and styles you need?
I'm finding CC3 to be great at being adequate, so far. If it can do the kind of stunning stuff I've seen at CG, I certainly need more practice. The most limiting thing I"m running into, is what you already pointed out - the symbol set. I keep thinking that I could always try making my own symbols, but frankly, I don't know that I want to dump that much time into it at the moment.
The thing that looks appealing about Sketch Up is that I use to mod Doom, the first three iterations, and half-life. It really reminds me of level design, and it looks like you can get images from your maps from any angle you like - top down like traditional maps, bird's eye views, PoV shots. I think it could prove incredibly useful for immersing players. Of course, that all depends on whether the it is as easy as they claim it is. If it takes too long to make a nice map, it might end up not useful. Still could be cool for a labor of a love.
Xara is a graphics program. Think of it like Illustrator, only with less tools, though their versions of those tools are among the most versatile and powerful. I use Xara to create all my maps (and all the finishing touches - borders, grids, labeling), for all of my illustrations, for page layout duties for all my Kaidan and other publications. I'm using it to create all the map tutorials and the guide book design for the products from my recent successful Kickstarter. I use Xara in my graphics shop to design banners, posters, signs, media rich web design, flash, light duty image editing and more. Consider that ProFantasy Software commissioned me to create 189 map objects for the Modern Map Symbol Set, yet all the objects created for that was created in Xara, and had to be converted to CC3 format by ProFantasy's programmers.
Regarding 3D, yes, I use 3D for orthographic (PoV shots) and Sketch can certainly do that for you. 3D is time consuming and complex, and I hate to apply texture maps to 3D objects. Often I create a grayscale version of any 3D object, then apply textures indirectly in Xara as transparent skins over the rendered and shaded 3D object.
While Xara is cheap and easy to use, it's real value is it is very fast to operate, very much not a memory hog so design process is much faster.
What is the benefit of Xara (which is free) over Inkscape? e.g. why use Xara and not Inkscape?
Xara is not free. However, most of my mapping utilizes a heavy use of beveled shapes to emulate depth of terrain. Inkscape has filter effects however doing so, converts the vector shape to low resolution raster, thus you cannot undo it nor make corrections later on (it also has kind of poor results). Xara has the most versatile and robust beveling tools of any software. Xara has powerful transparency tools, 3D extrude, use of Photoshop plug-ins, infinite undo (I can undo processes performed even after I save the file, close the program, open it up again multiple times - and still undo anything ever done). Also it's vector engine is the fastest in the market, redrawing and applying any effect occurs instantly. Redrawing an illustration with a hundred layers or more is quick - so more time is spent creating instead waiting. It also has a limited set of image editing tools built-in or you can directly link an image to Photoshop or GIMP. Also it has robust interface with drawing tablets. 25,000% zoom, and endless other perks.
I actually use Xara Designer Pro 9, which does a lot more than XPGD9, but for mapping XPGD9 can do everything you need. PC Pro magazine awarded XDP9 as the best software of 2013, but I've been using Xara in various iterations since 2004.