The Continent of Vindarten

[buzzgunner]

For some reason, I've always be fascinated by Runequest's Questworld map. In particular, their focal continent of Kanos holds a particularly strong appeal to me. When Questworld was published in 1982, I grabbed a copy, "filed the serial numbers off" (so-to-speak) and started using Kanos as my own D&D campaign continent (renamed to "Vindarten".) I've used it, in parts, ever since.

However, the original maps provided with the official product were little more than black line drawings on a white background and I've always wished that they could have been much, much more. Since I've doing a lot of other mapping for my D&D campaign world (in Photoshop CS4), I decided to take a stab at fleshing out Kanos/Vindarten. Here's my finished result.

Vindarten.jpg

My thanks goes out to Tear for his "Saderan" tutorial. It was instrumental in the creation of my oceans for this map!

[Ilanthar]

Good map, I like the shape of the land. The cloud effect is a bit strong over the sea, and I would probably go for a paler blue in order to make the land "pop" more.

[Josiah VE]

A great map! I love the mountains, although the bigger ones seem to be flat at the top, which isn't so good.

[Robulous]

Nice start for a landscape, but there's no labelling or context... is this really finished?

[sword peddler]

The line-gradient outlining the landmass gives the continent the appearance of floating in the air above the water rather than nesting in the water.

[Elterio Delgard]

I like the coastline, you avoid the squareness which is hard to do. However, the gray brown desert looking biomes... Rivers irrigating them and no vegetation? Might you explain it cause it could be interesting but also it could be unnatural.

[Hai-Etlik]

Will be terse as I only have my left hand. Sorry, don't mean to be rude.

The colours all highly saturated and all middle intensity. All they have to distinguish them is hue. You also have a lot of noise. That makes for rather poor readability. The rivers are particularly bad. Contrast is important. Try to keep as much available to use as possible by keeping large areas either fairly light or fairly dark so that you can contrast significant features with it. Have a clear idea of what's important to your map. What is it for? What information is absolutely required to make that work? What information would be useful to help provide context? Make sure the vital information is absolutely clear. Add the supplementary info only if it doesn't detract from the important information. Restrict the level of detail of the supplementary information if possible.

Contrasting visual densities are also important. Try to avoid filling up space with meaningless noise filters. A natural variation of information density draws the eye to what's important. Blank space is a good thing so use it for what it is rather than trying to fill it up.

You also have seriously mismatched information about the projection. The equally spaced straight parallels say this is normal equidistant cylindrical, which would be a horrible projection for something in this range of latitudes; even if you picked a standard parallel to minimize distortion there would be massive distortion somewhere. Over this extent it also wouldn't be either distance or bearing preserving which means the scale bar and compass rose can't possibly be correct. There's no way to even come close to preserving both scale and compass bearings at this extent. Again, the purpose of the map is critical to getting this right. Is it for navigation? Physical reference?, Political reference? A base map for thematic information?

The rivers in the SE are completely unnatural. Something vaugely like that but much smaller might make sense as the delta for a large river system but it makes no sense at the massive size it is and all by itself without a much larger upstream area feeding it.

Be very, very circumspect about noise filters and "glow" effects. They have places for both generating fictional terrain and simulating low tech map making techniques but if you just toss them arround willy nilly all you will get is obvious looking noise and blur filters.

[buzzgunner]

You also have seriously mismatched information about the projection. The equally spaced straight parallels say this is normal equidistant cylindrical, which would be a horrible projection for something in this range of latitudes; even if you picked a standard parallel to minimize distortion there would be massive distortion somewhere. Over this extent it also wouldn't be either distance or bearing preserving which means the scale bar and compass rose can't possibly be correct. There's no way to even come close to preserving both scale and compass bearings at this extent.

And yet, isn't that what a Robinson projection does? If you assume that compass rose on my map is at 0° longitude, then isn't my map effectively a Robinson projection with the longitude lines removed? I don't mean to be militant about this, but it seems that there are a number of existing accepted map projections that don't meet your specifications.

If I'm wrong (and I'm certainly not an expert cartographer, as illustrated by my map), could you please elaborate for me? Thanks!

[Hai-Etlik]

And yet, isn't that what a Robinson projection does? If you assume that compass rose on my map is at 0° longitude, then isn't my map effectively a Robinson projection with the longitude lines removed? I don't mean to be militant about this, but it seems that there are a number of existing accepted map projections that don't meet your specifications.

If I'm wrong (and I'm certainly not an expert cartographer, as illustrated by my map), could you please elaborate for me? Thanks!

A compass rose indicates the map is bearing preserving (North is always the same direction anywhere on the map, and northeast is always 45 degrees from north anywhere on the map). Robinson is not bearing preserving. There is only one projection that is bearing preserving at small scales (Big area drawn small) and that's Normal Mercator. A compass rose on a Robinson map is wrong, as is a linear scale bar. Using Robinson for a restricted extent is arguably an abuse of the projection as it's a specialist projection for full planet general reference maps. That's a very specialized role and it breaks down outside of it.

It's hard to explain without a lot of typing or diagrams that I'm not in a position to put together until my thumb heals but no normal aspect cylindrical or pseudocylindrical projection (where parallels of latitude project to straight parallel lines) is going to be remotely appropriate for the extent of that map. The quickest explanation I can give is that in order to minimize the distortion, the projection needs to be tilted so lit lays flat over the area being mapped and normal aspect (pseudo)cynindrical projections are flat to the equator. (that's a gross simplification)

[buzzgunner]

A compass rose indicates the map is bearing preserving (North is always the same direction anywhere on the map, and northeast is always 45 degrees from north anywhere on the map). Robinson is not bearing preserving. There is only one projection that is bearing preserving at small scales (Big area drawn small) and that's Normal Mercator. A compass rose on a Robinson map is wrong, as is a linear scale bar. Using Robinson for a restricted extent is arguably an abuse of the projection as it's a specialist projection for full planet general reference maps. That's a very specialized role and it breaks down outside of it.

It's hard to explain without a lot of typing or diagrams that I'm not in a position to put together until my thumb heals but no normal aspect cylindrical or pseudocylindrical projection (where parallels of latitude project to straight parallel lines) is going to be remotely appropriate for the extent of that map. The quickest explanation I can give is that in order to minimize the distortion, the projection needs to be tilted so lit lays flat over the area being mapped and normal aspect (pseudo)cynindrical projections are flat to the equator. (that's a gross simplification)

The diagrams aren't necessary. Your explanation makes perfect sense to me.