wthrasherb

Originally Posted by wthrasherb

Howdy folks! Typically on the weekends I try to work on fun/rpg related material... something leisurely at any rate. Friday night I decided to try to create a new map in the style of my World of Aerdlon map (found here).

The first part is fairly easy since I'm just doing the initial "shaping" in Fractal Terrains 3 and Wilbur. I actually spend more time waiting on the computer to render/process stuff at this stage more than anything else, but it is still a lengthy process, and takes me about 12-16 hours (including waiting on rendering and such).

Then comes the fun stuff! Once I've shaped and generated various outputs from FT and Wilbur, I dump everything into Photoshop and start making the computer generated stuff look good Here's where I was a little lost when I started trying to recreate my previous style. I had all my previous versions saved at various stages so I could retrace my steps, but as "non-destructive" as I tried to be, there were still lots of "trial and error" type changes that I failed to notate during my process.

For the most part, it was a lot easier than I thought. I struggled with the ocean again, but I finally got it. Apparently I had blurred a few layers and merged them and such, but failed to make a note of what I did exactly. After feeling satisfied that I had recreated "my style" close enough (I didn't spend a lot of time on touch ups and such), I started working on a different look in the same basic style....... which brings us to now!

This map is going to be my campaign setting for a new D&D group. This is totally for fun and non-commercial use. I'm actually creating a long term campaign based off of the AD&D 2nd edition boxed set adventure "The Rod of Seven Parts" and Monte Cook's "Night of Dissolution" adventure from the "Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire" campaign setting. This map is actually being tailored to those two adventures (and maybe a few choice side adventures). Most of the action (I think) will take place in just a tiny portion of the world.... which I will proceed to map later. For those of you that may be familiar with Ptolus, no, I do not plan on remapping that city. I MAY map choice portions/buildings and of course some of the "dungeons" under the city, but not the entire thing (I'm not there yet with my city mapping).

I'll stop rambling now... comment, curse, or click away!



More to come later...