World Map WIP

[Yandor]

So after hearing that people work in a huge scale (haha the 10,000x10,000) I figured why the heck not, lets see what I can pull together with that big of a size....

Anyways I'm not too sure I like the "square" shape, nor the actual size or shape of the continents.... So in general I'll probably revamp it and try again...

However, two questions come up before I even take another stab at it, one does the Water work? (on the right bottom corner of all the land it shows a small highlight... that should probably go around the whole landmass but yeah, change or leave it?) Also the continents seem a bit too... Craggy? I can't think of a better word, now don't worry about the inner lakes those will all disappear, but I just want to know if there should be less cragginess around the continents or if its fine... Please let me know!

I added a stroke so you could actually see the definition of the land

[Daelin]

Yeah, I think you're right about the landmasses being too "craggy". That there is that many scattered islands around every continent seems unrealistic. I'm guessing you've been using cloud renders to generate land? I think you need to manually edit the results, if you want something more believable.
And the white "drop shadow" on the land is also noticeable. Is that a layer style, or could you solve the problem by moving the water layer a few pixels up and to the left? Then you might have highlight around all the land.

[Yandor]

Thank you for the reply, I'm revamping (pretty much starting over) the map, and I've been using clouds yes, but I've never come across this much "craggy" business when doing them, but than again I've never messed with such a large image size before, so new problems and need to solve in different ways.

As for the water, I tried to do a "shallow" around the land, but it turned into a "drop shadow" effect (weird) but its connected with the layer, so I'll just have to mess with it a little.

Thanks again, I'll get a new image up here soon.

[alizarine]

I know you're revamping this, but I actually quite like that water effect - it looks a bit bright when viewed in the small preview size, but when I opened it up and zoomed in to the full size it was a fantastic feature. I work pretty large for my maps and one thing I've tried (that works pretty well) when fixing that island problem is after playing with the levels - if that doesn't fix the problem - I don't fill in parts I want to be land but rather cut and paste sections of the clouds that have a good edge for a coast line. I'll set up just the coast of the landmasses with edges of "leveled clouds" (that does not sound like a cloud filter that was adjusted with levels). I end by just taking a brush and filling in the interior. No extra islands I don't want, and no weirdly placed interior lakes either. I'm not sure exactly how you're creating your map, but that might be one way to take care of the island problem. It's a lot more labor intensive though, although it leaves a lot of room for being picky (which is what I am, so it works for me ^.^ ). I'd love to see your revamp!

- Alizarine

[Diamond]

I agree with Alizarine about the water; when I first glanced at it in the preview thumbnail I was like "ugh", but on full view it looks pretty cool. And once you add in all your terrain features it will probably balance out quite nicely.

[Yandor]

I agree with Alizarine about the water; when I first glanced at it in the preview thumbnail I was like "ugh", but on full view it looks pretty cool. And once you add in all your terrain features it will probably balance out quite nicely.

haha glad I wasn't the only one with the "ugh" feeling, I did the exact same thing, cause while making the land I was at 6.25% view... haha it looked just like the thumbnail but when I zoomed in to 100% it looked fine, I'll incorporate the ocean next picture

Alizarine thanks for the tips, I had to go through manually, and edit the coast line, took a lot long than I thought but eh it turned out rather nice.

Well heres the revamp, tell me what you think of the shape of the continent, also I think there are too many little island things, but maybe thats just me let me know!

[Yandor]

Well made a little more progress, from here on out its mountain and forest laying!

The ice caps need some work but seems to be coming a long ok

[alizarine]

That is a fine looking map ^.^ Still liking that ocean effect at full-view. When in full view (since thumbnails always make maps look 'bleh') the land texture/pattern looks nice - I'm sure it'll work with other features and won't look so much like a pattern once there's mountains, forests and other stuff in there ^.^ I'd say there are a LOT of islands in the center of the map; could be a good story feature, of course. One thing I'd say about the mountain in the polar/white areas is that they feel a bit big right now, and if they're going to go to the edge of the water, maybe creating some cliffs to show a drop off or clean up the area so the mountain 'lowers down' into the water. Otherwise great progress - definitely something to keep an eye on.

- Alizarine

[Diamond]

Maybe try the map without that continent(?) to the north of all those islands. As it is now, you don't really have any oceans, just a lot of smallish seas. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just feels a bit crowded to me.

[Yandor]

Diamond I hear ya, and thanks I was wondering what seemed... off and crowded is the best way to put it Tell me if either of these two examples is kind of what you were talking about, or were you referring to the northern ice cap thingy?

Alizarine thanks again for the comments, and I think this time around on the ocean is better than the first one!

So 3 ideas popped into mind when diamond said it was too crowded, #1 and #2 ideas were theres two images, and idea #3 one of those, with the removal of the stretched northern ice cap... Ideas anyone?