World of Madara

[Tzi]

So in my never ending quest to improve my map making skills, I bring my third attempt at a world map. This is done in GIMP 2.8, using MathMap. Currently it has no labels or national borders drawn in as I'm currently trying to think of the best way to do that. Also implementing a legend, this world is roughly the size of Earth of Venus.

Madara.png

Originally I made the world much smaller with less oceans, here is the crude version I did earlier. This version has labels and depicts a smaller world.

new world waterworld.png

The inspiration for this world originally were maps of a theoretical future Terraformed Mars. Originally the world was smaller with just one single ocean but for my purposes this lead to a world that was too small and to climatically hard to explain. So I upped the scale, expanded the land masses, added more water and also produced I think a slightly better quality world map. The top one having more texture to the land and more defined rivers.

Anyway, Questions? Comments? Input? I'm open to suggestions on improvements or recommendations on ways of implementing good labels, or national borders.

[DreamingNomad]

I love the 2nd picture, how you'v made it look like a real world, I'v been trying to use CC3 to create some kind of world but very detailed and hard to understand everything.

How did you start?...

[Tzi]

I love the 2nd picture, how you'v made it look like a real world, I'v been trying to use CC3 to create some kind of world but very detailed and hard to understand everything.

How did you start?...

Actually I started with a webpage about a guys theories about a Terraformed Mars.

I looked at this,
MRZ.GIF
Source


And from that I just build my own version of a world. Actually some of the source material is still visible. Mariner Canyon is still there only now in the larger map it is a significantly larger inland sea. The Top Image is my current rendition, mainly my attempt at a world with enough Ocean coverage IMO to evenly maintain climate stability. Also still there is the Helles Sea, Chryse Gulf and the Agryge Sea as well as the two big continents general shape.

Mainly I just started with a single layer, with just two colors, one for oceans and one for land and sort of moved things about, added ocean, subtracted ocean, and went from there. I just basically added layers to give color based on climate, like the green areas of the tropics ect... and used a lot of bump maps to give the land form.

The world itself is partly a reaction to other D&D DM's in my areas local setting. Homebrewing a setting is basically the entrance exam, the Trial one has to do to DM in this area. Or at least in the circle. Most of the DM's have created these rather oppressive fairly bleak worlds. One friend has made one where "The bad guys have won and you must cling to hope." another is making a sort of gritty steam punk post apocalypse. I came to the idea of taking their ideas and flipping them on their head. This world, the Bad guys have won, several times, been toppled, civilization has risen collapsed, and the very world has nearly been rendered uninhabitable, but now is terraformed back to life. Were other DM's have sought to make bleak worlds, dying worlds, I decided to flip the script and make a lush vibrant virgin world. My main inspiration is the idea of taking a dead world like say Mars and making it a living world, in this case with magic. Or a dying world like Athas of Dark Suns and Rebirthing it into a lush life filled world of plenty.

[Tzi]

Okay world atlas mock 2....

Here I tried to correct the colorization of the map and made a little ocean and wind current chart just so I could kind of know where it is likely wet and where it is likely not wet.

Madara.png

It has come out less green but in my mind a bit more realistic. The Tropics are much more clearly delineated from the rest of the world and the planet now climate zone wise at least has fuzzy bits of grassland, dry space and more then just ONE desert.

[Tzi]

Curious, for those who've made scales? Whats the ideal way to calculate out a scale? Since I'm a novice at this my first instance was to take my intended circumference of the whole planet and divide it by say the number of pixels the image is wide.

so Say the circumference around the equator divided by 1600 Pixels (=423.33 MM), I went with 38025.6 Kilometers (The same circumference as Venus)

[Midgardsormr]

Curious, for those who've made scales? Whats the ideal way to calculate out a scale? Since I'm a novice at this my first instance was to take my intended circumference of the whole planet and divide it by say the number of pixels the image is wide.

so Say the circumference around the equator divided by 1600 Pixels (=423.33 MM), I went with 38025.6 Kilometers (The same circumference as Venus)

Until such time as you print, pixels are the most easily used absolute units you have, so yeah: 38025.6 km / 1600 px = 23.766 km / pixel. Of course, that's only going to be true at the equator in a rectangular projection. I don't know much about projections, but I know that either size/distance or shape gets distorted as you near the poles, so a scale is of limited usefulness on a world map.

Your ocean color is overwhelming. I'd say darken it by about 30%, and maybe desaturate by about 10%. The color it is now makes me want to put a weatherman in front of it. ;-)

[Tzi]

Until such time as you print, pixels are the most easily used absolute units you have, so yeah: 38025.6 km / 1600 px = 23.766 km / pixel. Of course, that's only going to be true at the equator in a rectangular projection. I don't know much about projections, but I know that either size/distance or shape gets distorted as you near the poles, so a scale is of limited usefulness on a world map.

Your ocean color is overwhelming. I'd say darken it by about 30%, and maybe desaturate by about 10%. The color it is now makes me want to put a weatherman in front of it. ;-)

Currently the only point of a scale is mostly to give myself and players a rough estimation of distance, plus as I make smaller maps of single regions it helps in knowing their scale if I can suppose a total side of the world.

Madara.png

So I made the scale a bit smaller, or the world slightly smaller just so I could deal in even numbers. The ocean is darker and the continent labels remain but I intend to redo major bodies of water labels. As well as general geographic labels.

[Erik Tiber]

What type of map projection is it?

[Tzi]

What type of map projection is it?

Right now? Just a flat map projection, I'd warp it to be more errrrrr.... planet? Shaped but I probably will just keep it in its current form which I envision as being more a Mercator projection. Which will be more apparent when Lat/Long lines are added.

[Viking]

Hi Tzi, nice work. I love the idea behind the map.