Absolute Universe: Estalleon

[SSJPabs]

A funny name I know. Anyhow this is a map of one of the continents of the fantasy world that has been kicking around in my head for half my life. Done using Ascension's tutorial (classic!) along with a few modifications. I think I am okay with the borders represented as how they are, but I still can't seem to find a font that works to label cities and large features both! They seem to look good small but bad large or the other way around. Oh well.

Scenario: It's been about 1200 years since the last survivors of the great technomagical civilizations united in a final effort to defeat the demi-gods that had enslaved humans for cattle and sport and destroyed their original civilizations. While they were successful in ending the threat, their societies too collapsed and most of the world has had to rebuild without help. The major legacy of the past lies not in inspirational ruins (though some exist) or ancient magical technology (barely any exists) or even in geography (for which the rough geography of the world is known to most) but in the knowledge of human potential: that humanity once dominated the world with an incredibly advanced society.

The map I up as a WIP a few days ago, Drogen (not German!) is located not far off map from Gate, which is their colony.

Apologies for the large size.

ED: After reading the advice on the thread, I decided to try a re-letter and re-bordering. The Version 1.1 is posted here.

Original HERE

[Aelyn]

Nice I see you improved your style since "Drogen". The sea looks a lot better now. The dotted lines are national borders? Perhaps you could make a few more dots, right now it's rather difficult to follow the lines with your eyes.

And btw, I don't think the name is funny. At least not in any of the languages I speak

[tilt]

very nice map... I agree with Aelyn about the number of dots, also the textured forests clash against all the none-textured elements - so you need to texture the rest. I also feel the labeling is a bit dominating, that could be toned down a little - perhaps going down a few font sizes ... but looking good indeed

[bobslayer]

this is really cool, but I think the mountains look kinda flat, I really like the way you did your water, looks pretty good! Have some rep

[Ascension]

It's a very lovely sea but we don't really need to see all of it so I'd cover up a lot of it with a darker solid color that fades near the coasts.

[SSJPabs]

Nice I see you improved your style since "Drogen". The sea looks a lot better now. The dotted lines are national borders? Perhaps you could make a few more dots, right now it's rather difficult to follow the lines with your eyes.

And btw, I don't think the name is funny. At least not in any of the languages I speak

very nice map... I agree with Aelyn about the number of dots, also the textured forests clash against all the none-textured elements - so you need to texture the rest. I also feel the labeling is a bit dominating, that could be toned down a little - perhaps going down a few font sizes ... but looking good indeed

I have now redone the dots by hand. Unfortunately I can't really change the forests easily but I will go back and work on that in future maps. I also toned down the labels somewhat I think. I used to be quite good a labels and borders but since I started this new style I don't quite have the hang of it yet. Tips are appreciated.

this is really cool, but I think the mountains look kinda flat, I really like the way you did your water, looks pretty good! Have some rep

Yes, I see what you mean. I should see if I can try to add some more obvious peaks in the future. The water was done by opening up a new project the size of the map, selecting a dark water color, then Render>Clouds, Ripple Large at 999%, Ripple Medium at 999%. Then I placed it over and modified the clouds render that I used for main map as per Ascensions tutorial and edited some of the details on the layer. The layer style was modified but I can't remember it off hand. I think it was just multiply.

It's a very lovely sea but we don't really need to see all of it so I'd cover up a lot of it with a darker solid color that fades near the coasts.

Good advice, I attempted it, but wasn't able to do it satisfactorily (it looked very abrupt). I will have to experiment and practice some more with the water, in the future.

[tilt]

looking nice... and a note for future reference - the idea with the WIP thread is for people to see the work done on the map from when it started to its finished - so please leave the original map intact and put the revised map in a new post (in the same thread), that way we can compare and those coming late to the party can also participate - and learn

[SSJPabs]

looking nice... and a note for future reference - the idea with the WIP thread is for people to see the work done on the map from when it started to its finished - so please leave the original map intact and put the revised map in a new post (in the same thread), that way we can compare and those coming late to the party can also participate - and learn

Yeah, I thought it was done done so that's why I posed it in the finished section, ha. I'm not going to change it from what's posted right but in the future I will be heeding your advice.