Tel'lar (a "Median" world)

[Sinnyo]

I hope I'm posting this to the right forum: the distinction between sci-fi and world mapping is as yet unclear to me, so I hope I'm on safe territory posting an alien world here! This one is tied to my Median project, as with my WiP Earth, here.

Tel'lar is the homeworld and starting point for one of the game's alien races; also its most humanoid-looking. The Tellerians are intended to be a familiar but exotic race; tidy and enlightened, in a sort of elven/Vulcan niche. Its world will hopefully reflect this, expressing hints of the exotic without feeling too bizarre and hostile to anyone visiting it. The Tellerians are technologically enlightened, which I've decided should be an evolution direct from their environment. The need to develop advanced transportation, habitat technologies and so on comes as a result of living on sparse terrain, surrounded by hostile seas and plantlife.

There's also an aesthetic consideration: since I'm making a retrofuturistic game, the theme grants me license to make each world visually unique and colourful, and so Tel'lar appears purple and red near its equator. Until I conduct more research into other planets, I'm putting this down to vast iron deposits in the deserts (Martian?), and to two warring families of plantlife: photosynthesising green plants in the temperate zones, and something altogether more fungal in the tropics. The same colours taint its thick atmosphere: gaseous but not toxic, yet enough to force the Tellerians to build their spires high and develop sophisticated lighting given heavy diffusion of Tel'lar's daylight.

20100513 Tel'lar (annotated, 1500).jpg

EDIT: Hmm, somehow this appears a lot darker as an attachment than inside Photoshop. My apologies; methinks my gamma's gone wrong somewhere...

I made this map following Ascension's continental tutorials. Doubtless I need more practice at this, particularly in defining my polar ice caps and the balancing of oceans, but I am very pleased with the technique, derived as it is from mere cloud renders. Bravo and thank you, Ascension.

A note on my annotations: though there isn't a legend to match yet, the various coloured splodges and transportation links represent the various experience levels the player must attain in order to play there. The game takes them all over Tel'lar, but in a circular fashion when seen in this map form. They begin in one of its heaviest-populated regions, uncover relics and holy sites in the deserts, and battle rebels for control over some of the planet's farther-flung regions. The last few stages will take them off-world from back near where they started.

[RobA]

I hope I'm posting this to the right forum: the distinction between sci-fi and world mapping is as yet unclear to me, so I hope I'm on safe territory posting an alien world here!

I hope we don't come across that strict

They really are crossed categories, with the four main categories defining level of detail (battlemap, city, regional, world).

Then we have some forums for genre (sci-fi) and purpose (VTT, board games) to make these more visible.

The CL's have been discussing adding prefix categories or tag picks to threads to help with the organization, but this could get cumbersome. The best thing is to drop it where it fits best, and add lots of good tags to it can be found through searching!

-Rob A>

[Sinnyo]

I hope we don't come across that strict

Ah! Teehee, no, not at all. I'm just trying to be polite, but thanks!

[Sinnyo]

Here's a 'stage 2', with something more of a legend. I'm not sure how much detail my map will contain, nor in which forms I will represent the various gameplay data, so there's a lot of room left there for expansion if needs be.

I drew two versions of this political map: one with the territories simply painted over, and this one, which uses the same image data but is rendered as inner glows in order to keep more of the landscape visible.

I'm really starting to enjoy this mapping lark again.

20100513 Tel'lar (annotated, 1500 v2).jpg

[arsheesh]

Hey that's looking slick! Nice work on this Shinyo.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Sinnyo]

Thank you very much, Arsheesh!

[Steel General]

This is turning out quite nicely. The colors take a bit of getting used to, but once you get past that it's all good.

Keep up the good work.

[Sinnyo]

This is turning out quite nicely. The colors take a bit of getting used to, but once you get past that it's all good.

Is there anything you might suggest to help relieve that, or something which struck you as particularly difficult? I'm trying to strike a single-glance "oh, this is clearly an alien world" without having to push through something more unsettling. I think I've been staring at it a little too long to really take the colours subjectively.

[Aval Penworth]

In response to your latest post. IMHO the saturation and contrast levels are very "full on". You have 3 extremely bright bands across the map, which some will find jarring to the eye. At the moment they just look to me like the result of a computery effect, rather than an attempt at representing an otherworldly phenomenon. I realise that the white bands at top and bottom may be icy poles but the band lines still seem to me to intense and uniform.

[mearrin69]

Nice map. I really dig the colors...never can seem to get myself to go for bolder coloring, even though I often want to. Have some rep. And. Welcome to the Guild!
M