World Of Muna

[mbartelsm]

Another WIP, I hope I get to finish this one.

I'm beginning this map as a hex grid laid on top of an icosahedral projection. I have a couple of reasons for this:

• The icosahedral projection has low distortion and can be rearranged on demand to see things in a different perspective
• Hex grids give me a good sense of dimension as long as I'm aware of the scale of each hex
• Hexes feel more natural to work with than pixels, and they translate much better into the icosahedral map
• I can increase the resolution regionally, meaning that I don't have to exhaust myself making the entire world as detailed as a small island.
• The dynamic resolution allows me to use the map as a master map for the world, that way I don't have to remake everything whenever I wish to switch scale.
• Even though it was a pain to set up, I already have a pipeline for switching back and forth between a equirectangular projections and a icosahedral one

The plan for this is to have a world map I can expand, edit and go back to on demand for my setting.

Below is a section of the map at three different levels of detail, with the smallest one being about the area of control of a castle, fortress of settlement (25km radius, about the distance cavalry can ride and still fight afterwards in a day).

LoD.png

• The first level is what I used to block the landmasses
• The second level is to define shapes
• The third level is for exporting to make regional maps

[mbartelsm]

I have started mapping the first region, it is the same region displayed in the thumbnails of the previous post.

MunaPol.png

The land itself is about the same size as Scandinavia, and spans the same latitudes. The colored areas are a sketch of the different earldoms/clans there are in the region and whether or not they are part of the larger (and still unnamed) kingdom.

[mbartelsm]

The idea for this region is to make a medieval style political map that looks like a bastard child between these two maps:

GeneralMapOfDistancesAndHistoricCapitals.jpg Untitled-1.jpg
Especially Japan in the first map

For that, I've labelled the map using numbers and generic names (i'll replace them later) so that I could describe the region using text. The map looks like this:

MunaPol2.png

And a description looks like this:

Clan 21 (fairly small territory):

• South: 17
• West: Mountains, then 22
• North: Mountains, then 28
• East: Mountains, then 20 to the north and 18 to the south

After all the descriptions for the clans are done I'll do a detailed description of the coastline, noting inlets, bays and other features. Then, using the descriptions I'll recreate the map by hand. I expect to get something along the lines of the shown maps.

[mbartelsm]

This is the first result of the method:

Comparison1.jpg

Since I was 'blind' to the actual map while making this, there are quite a few important errors, some of which make the map feel more authentic, others which need fixing. The most important errors are the relative sizes of the clans, this being a political map, it's probably one of the things that would've been taken into consideration. There are other errors that I plan on fixing such as the shapes of the different bays and gulfs which do not reflect reality, these areas are travelled often enough for there to be quite a lot of data on them, so the map should reflect this.

On the other hand, the northern regions are scarcely inhabited, and other than a couple of major mistakes (such as the shape of K and the islands of J) I'm gonna leave it as it is.

All in all, the map looks pretty close to what I was aiming for.

---

I drew the map again, fixing some of the problems in the previous one. This time it ended up looking a bit too good, so I 'undid' it a bit digitally. After that I began adding some of the rivers. Even though I'm still not really happy with the result, it's looking much better.

MunaPol3.png

I'm gonna try a more personal style next. After all it's a fantasy world and a fantasy culture, there is no reason why people would draw maps like they did in earth's middle ages. Perhaps that way I'm gonna be more satisfied.

[Robert]

I like where your map is going and look forward to see more of it.

[mbartelsm]

After doing some analysis, I decided my scale was waaaay off for my setting, off as in every clan was about the size of ireland when they are supposed to be close knit communities. So I decided to redo the world map and start from scratch. This time I've decided to focus a bit more on geography before biomes, that way I can setup more realistic climates, the result so far is below:

fuller_input.png

Oblique_output.png

I've also changed the overall region's geography to allow for some more interesting dynamics between factions and add a bit of room for the history of the world I'd planned. For example, I want my people to 'discover' a new continent like the vikings did and conquer it like the spaniards did, something the previous world did not allow for. I also want civilization to be born somewhere close, which the huge valley to the southwest now lets me do with the huge rivers that will sprout from it.

[J.Edward]

I really like the look of that hex globe.
I'd love to hear anything further about how you worked it to fit so nicely on the globe.
Any tricks or advice on doing something like that.

[mbartelsm]

The method was invented by a member here, su_liam. He made a blog post detailing the process, you need POV-Ray, Wings3D and G.Projector, all of which are free. The tutorial can be found here.

The process is basically:

1. Make a 3D icosahedron
2. Apply icosahedral map as texture
3. Take a equirectangular 'photo' from the interior of the icosahedron
4. Reproject with G.Projector to another projection

[J.Edward]

Thanks MB. I will check that out when I can.
Much appreciated.

[mbartelsm]

I've finished all but two continents, which should be more than enough for now. I modified the icosahedral projection to cut as little land as possible, with the disadvantage that navigating it can be a bit disorienting. Mountain chains were placed without a solid tectonic background, they are mostly where they 'felt right' after looking for a long while at a topo map of earth.

Map.png

Stereographic_01.png

Next step: Climate

I'm a bit worried that there may be too much rain shadow, but if it becomes an issue I could just flip the map, we'll see.