*** March/April Challenge VOTING - Ink blots ***

[Jaxilon]

It's that time again to place your votes for our Lite challenge entries.

The challenge this time was to use the supplied image of "Ink blots" to create a map of some sort.



We have 8 entries so that allows us to have 1 vote each, choose wisely. Although there can be only one winner remember to give reputation to all entries you enjoyed so they can feel your appreciation.

The winner will receive a fancy silver lite compass award.

The thumbnails are here for your viewing pleasure:

March/April Lite Challenge Thumbs

Poll closes in 5 days. Good fortune to everyone who entered!

[Lukc]

I have to admit this month's lite challenge has made voting very hard for me - all the entries are fascinating, interesting, different and well-made. They all have something to recommend them. I'd write up a more detailed review of all the works, but I'll keep that for later. So, for now, congratulations to all the participants!

EDIT: OK, it's later. I, too, voted for Octopod's caves. All the maps had something to recommend them, but to my mind the caves made the best use of the blots to create a map that is both a bit fantastic and eminently plausible. The blots become an inherent part of the map, they fit in perfectly and yet a person looking at the map on its own would never see them. Also, the trees on top were really cool and it felt like a long time since I'd seen a nice fantasy map drawn side-on.

[Troedel]

Gave my vote to the legendary waterfalls. It´s a great idea and stirs a kind of "fear" in me. Those holes are vast and lead down to unknown depths. The pastel tones and rough strokes give the things a mysterious aura. In short I like it

[ravells]

All great entries - I love the diversity. I voted for Waldronate. Getting such beautiful mountains in FT / Wilbur from a given silhouette (rather than a random generation), is just incredible. A tutorial would be nice too

:: Edit :: I've just seen you've written a tutorial! YAY! Thanks Joe!

erm what happens in.....Jockich?

[arsheesh]

Yeah this was a tough one. There were at least two entries that I wanted to vote for. In the end I went with Troedel's hand drawn map which was very nice. Great job everyone though.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Bogie]

Voting, especially where we can only give 1 vote, is always tough. My 3 favorites are Bridges over Troubled Air, Lostwater Caves, and Valma Islands, but lots of goodness in the others as well.

[rpgmapmaker]

What can I say. I love fantasy style maps. One vote is tough. Some the these maps were really good and way outside the box! Caves, sky-top bridges, lost Starships... Great job to all. I guess you all passed the "Ink blot" test

-RPGMM

[Blaidd Drwg]

Tough one! It was a bit of a tie between Bogie's and Octopod's, but I went with the latter in the end.
Props to all the contestants!

[Jaxilon]

I agree with the rest - I was bummed to only be able to vote for one of them. In the end after I had reasoned over each of them I let my gut decide and went with the one that gave me the most interesting feeling inside.

What follows is just my thoughts as I tried to whittle them down so I could vote for one. It is just my opinions which don't matter a hill of beans in most cases. Like all of you I am still learning so if you listen to me and end up being terrible at this well, you get what you pay for


Mar-April Entry SAT-RECON CZAKO ISLANDS by Bogie: I was impressed by what was done just using a few layers and overlapping them. It does look very much like a satellite image. The Ocean water is a tad boring but around the islands and the islands themselves look very cool. Personally, I like to see a little more handwork in the art but this is a nice image. Keep up the good work.

March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Wreck of the ISS Titanic by Fury: What a cool idea. Thank goodness for the inset though because it was a little hard to see the ship in the larger picture until I knew what it was shaped like (not unusual for a crash site I suppose). For me I just felt like the provided shapes were not capitalized on as much as with some of the other entries.


March/April 2012 Entry - Ocean's End: The Legendary Waterfalls by Inriconus: I really like the feel of this, the brush strokes and mistyness of it all are just great. I could drop this as a location in my RPG world and just go with it. There is a story to be found here and it appealed. Beautiful yet eerie. What creatures ply these waters and what happens if you go over the edge of one of those holes? I had to vote for this one.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Ritradenix's Lair by Joshua: Would have liked to seen it completed as it has potential. Oh well, it happens, hope to see you in the next one.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Lostwater Caves by octopod: Another great entry. This one could have received my vote but I would have liked to zoom in on it more and seen more variety in the soil layers. All in all however this was a fantastic job.


March/April Lite Challenge Entry - Bridges Over Troubled Air by TheBigBlueFrog: I love the viewpoint of this one and it looks fantastic. I almost voted for this one because it kind of gives you vertigo but I would have liked more detail on the land areas. As it is they are just grassy looking. I was wondering why would there be bridges between plain patches of grass? Love the perspective and the faded out planet below though. Just excellent work, I really hope we see more from you in the future as well.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Valma Islands by Troedel: This was another excellent entry. It's the basic fantasy map and covers the spirit of what we do here everyday. I could see this in a children's book which means it's a great quality map. I think if some of the other out of the box takes on the Ink blots hadn't come out quite so well this would have taken it.


March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: CSU Johnsondale's New Found Lands by waldronate: Obviously, way cool mountain ranges. I don't know how to get much myself from Wilber so I'm impressed. The water is kind of boring to me but it does look like a lot of the atlas maps you find out there. I think I would have liked to have seen this developed a bit more with locations and stuff. It does make me want to go revisit Wilber again and see if I can figure out how to make mountains like that.

Wonderful job everyone, you make these challenges a blast to watch and be a part of. Congratulations to whoever wins this round.

[Fury]

March/April 2012 Lite Challenge Entry: Wreck of the ISS Titanic by Fury: What a cool idea. Thank goodness for the inset though because it was a little hard to see the ship in the larger picture until I knew what it was shaped like (not unusual for a crash site I suppose). For me I just felt like the provided shapes were not capitalized on as much as with some of the other entries.

Eh, the concept can only be taken so far

While the 3D perspective differs from the perspective of the ink blot image, it is an exact match because it was loaded as a heightfield map. Look for the smallest ink blot dot and it can be found rendered. Hope no one thinks this was a cut and paste It took 3 hours to render and several tries before that to get it right, not to mention having to create the shaders first.

Got 4 reps for this so far (thanks) which didn't translate into votes but then I'm even losing to a cut and paste