Unnamed - Various Styles

[aeronox]

Today I filled in the outline, created jagged coasts in the south, and did everything from climate to currents to geology to vegetation type. I fixed up my mountain chains, painted rivers and even cracked 300 MB filesize, til I split it up.

I have produced a large-resolution greyscale map suitable for printing, and was surprised to find a neat tool within Photoshop called "Zoomify".

You can see the result here: http://world-makers.com/SNRM_ZoomMap1/SNRM1.html

[Eilathen]

Wow, i really like that style. Well done. And the zoomify is a fun tool.
Tell us more of this world and hopefully there will be more maps?

[aeronox]

It is the setting for a fantasy story my friend & I are writing.

At the moment there are NO names for anything - my original sketch was labelled "A Map of Someplace during the reign of Some King"!

I am keeping it in this simple greyscale style, until everything is named, borders and roads are drawn, etc. Then I'll make some other styles.

EDIT: here's the general process I followed...

1) Rough shape-sketch on paper
2) Scanned it in to the computer
3) Painted a rough shape, applied RobA's randomiser with large clouds
4) Resized the image, and repeated RobA's randomiser with smaller clouds
5) Painted additional islands, gulfs, channels, peninsulas & seas. I did this by applying the RobA method, then adding it to the rest of the map using Lighten/Darken mode depending on whether I'm adding water or land.
6) Copied the land-base layer, Filter->Stylise->Trace Contour, Blur More, Image->Adjustments->Threshold. This gives me my thick outline.
7) Used my Mountain brush/layer style to draw mountains and hills (adjusting the opacity for smaller mountains).
Following the contours of the mountains i'd generated, I painted rivers, just zoomed in to 200% and manually wiggling them.
9) Painted in the following regions and added various pattern/overlay effects: Forest, Marsh, Desert, Continental Shelf.

TIPS:
1) Learn about the Wind circulation, Coriolis Effect, etc. This affects ocean currents and precipitation.
2) Keep your vital maps at a very high resolution. It's better to start high-res, it saves you from blurryness. For maps that don't matter much, like temperature, rainfall, geology, just copy the map and resize it to something quite small; you won't need a super high-res version of these maps.
3) Precipitation = moisture. Lack of moisture -> desert. Type of desert depends on soil composition, temperature and altitude.
4) At extreme coldness, glaciers form. Glaciers are 'moving rivers of ice', and they grind down mountains, causing them to be jagged, and leave huge pointy gulfs to the water. Think fjords.
5) Rivers flow downhill. If it cannot continue, it forms a lake or marshy area. Rivers come from rain, ice/snow, and springs; apart from the latter, this means that the direction of wind, and therefore the moisture-laden air hitting the mountain slopes, affects where your rivers originate.
6) Think of climates as combinations of Hot/Normal/Cold and Wet/Normal/Dry.
7) Climate affects vegetation types, which affects animal types. Examples include Rainforest, Savannah, Forest, Grassland, Tundra, etc. Think of the whole picture; the 'biome'.
Look at the Pacific Rim to see how 'island arc chains' appear - and how much volcanic activity there is!

[nikonguy]

Excellent map! Sounds like you really did your homework for that one. What were your references? Did you research the information in dead tree form or did you find some great resources on the web?

[aeronox]

Uhh, no references as such... I just love geography!

What is dead tree form?

[mmmmmpig]

I believe "dead tree form" is a book, but I am just guessing. I really like the fact that you have thought about geomorphology in the context of your land-forms. I would suggest trying to keep that in mind as well when political boundaries are generated.

I think you are dead on about the Hi-res first thing. You may even want to break the map into tiles so you can really res it up. I look forward to seeing this one progress.