Oostangelt en de Verboden Pas

[Meridius]

Unfortunately, I do not have a WIP for this map. After I sent Matrim here, he told me I should get my map on here... Even though I think it's

The map is completely in Dutch, with Dutch-sounding names. May be a bit hard on the average English tongue and throat (topicname is Dutch too: "Oostangelt and the Forbidden Pass", I haven't thought up a decent English equivalent for 'Oostangelt' yet)

On the map are the County of Oostangelt in a country called Bern. The Verboden Pas (Forbidden Pass) is also on this map because I didn't want two separate maps. Just imagine some random map-drawing peasant had the funky idea to draw exactly what the PC's need before they told him

A bit of mission back-story: The players of my D&D campaign are on a mission to get to Khaz Dukar (extreme north on the map, land of the Dwarves), unfortunately, due to insane amounts of 'Pirates' most skippers won't take their ships out. The PC's bargained a trip on a ship from the west of the country to the east, the skipper and crew wanted to go home, and the PC's where to provide security. But now the only viable route is walking... through the 'Verboden Pas', which isn't a very inviting place judging by the name. They've heard of a way to go OVER it though. They came into Oostangelt near the village of 'Gammelbrug' (Which would be something like 'Ramshacklebridge' in English ).

There aren't many villages, towns and cities on this map yet, since I haven't thought them up yet The county is divided in Baronies. Each barony may have more than one town/village in it. But those are still not found in the chaos that is my brain. I've mainly bothered with those I could think up.

I may or may not eventually produce a world map, but I found that drawing maps is QUITE time consuming, (took me a good 30 hours I guess). I absolutely LOVE building this world, but I have to watch out not to overdo it since I still have to create adventures too

The towns, cities and villages are probably oversized. I mainly copied Pasis' style and textures, so at first I didn't really think this was worth posting. Matrim convinced me to do so anyway.

Things I've learned:
- There's no such thing as 'high resolution'. As big as I thought this map was (and my computer agrees), I would almost say it's too small. But I fear my computer will explode in a huge fireball if I push it any further...
- Map making takes cartloads of time.
- Textures make or break a map (so I used Pasis' tutorial textures).
- Mountains in this climate zone should have snow on them, and should be more greyish.
- Having a large font collection is good!

Things I wonder (partially jokingly):
- Is it normal for computers to spend five minutes on a single (albeit complicated) command?
- Is it normal for computers to warm the entire house? On the bright side, I never had cold feet during the making of this map
- How in the world do people make make good tile-able textures?

People I should tank:
- Pasis, for making an awesome tutorial.
- The creator of this forum, for making an equally awesome forum.
- Matrim, for inspiring me to post this map.

[arsheesh]

Now that's a map with allot of character. Perhaps the mountains should have snow on them, but visually they look really believable. I like your parchment-style legend/map key as well. Oh and can totally relate to your quandary about the length of time it takes for your computer to perform a single command: using RobA's tapered stroke path on the rivers of my map took literally hours on my computer. Great job, and here's some rep.

Cheers,

-Arsheesh.

[moutarde]

That looks really great, and congrats on posting your first map here! The only quibble I have, is the gaps in the forest cover. They strike me as looking kind of squarish. But other than that, very well done!

[Meridius]

Which gaps exactly? The small ones, which are 'built into' the texture, or the slightly larger clearings?

Oh, and thank you guys for the comments, and rep!

[moutarde]

Which gaps exactly? The small ones, which are 'built into' the texture, or the slightly larger clearings?

Oh, and thank you guys for the comments, and rep!

I was referring to the smaller ones - I didn't realize they were part of the texture though. They just seem a little jagged in some spots, like they just need a little smoothing or something...

[Djekspek]

That's a very nice "pasis style" map you got there!! As for the gaps, I tried the pasis tutorial some months ago and also found the little "gap" in the trees as well a bit out-of-style (compared to the rest of the stuff in the tut which is just pro). smudging would help or maybe a dark green background could make it a little smoother. cheers!

[mearrin69]

Really great map, doubly so for your first time, so have some rep from me.

Agree about the forests...the gap in the texture isn't great but it's still a nice looking map so fix it if you can but don't sweat it if you can't. If you still have the thing in layers maybe you can just make a surgical fix? If not, you might be able go in by hand and do some paint/smudge/smear to see if you can smooth out the worst parts.

As for creating tileable textures I might have a solution for you. Visit this link and look at the lower-left of the list of tutorials. "Creating Tileable Textures" is (not surprisingly) the one you want. You'll have to register to download it but they don't spam you (that I've noticed). There's much great stuff on that site...many paychecks worth of tutorials are on my wish-list at present.
M

[Coyotemax]

What I found works well for creating the forest texture in that respect is to not use the magic wand tool, but the "Colour Select" (in photoshop anyhow, not sure about gimp). That way instead of a hard selection edge, it goes into a smooth selection when removing the black. That's what happened here I think - there's a hard defined edge between the black (removed, now transparent) and the almost black.

Very small point, and doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the map!

it's a wondeful piece, tutorial basis or not (I've done my share of similar mapping style, nothing wrong with that!), and conveys a lot of information without being overcrowded.

Definitely worth posting, thanks! (and i love the parchment/legend/etc on the left, wonderful job, couldn't have done better myself!)

[Matrim]

This still blows me away! Gonna have to try that tut really soon, and can't wait to get to the next adventure in those woods.

And see, I told you they'd love it, hehe
Have some rep!

[Steel General]

This is quite nice Meridius!