The World of Kaotijus

[George Marques]

Well, after a while trying to realize how I was supposed to do things (and reading a lot of things that made me sometimes even more lost) I finally tried to dip my hands into the dirt and do some actual work.

First, I think it's better that I describe what I have in mind. And I must say that much of this stuff came before I decided to do a map, causing more and more trouble (for me it's easier to build a story around a given map than the opposite). Nevertheless, I'll try to follow what I already have decided and do change the story nor some other details about the world. Much of it is really alike Earth, because when I started the story it was supposed to happen here and not in a alternative world. When I settled to really make a new universe, the story was somehow entangled with Earth's geography and history, so much things would have to be alike in order to make sense. However, many of these is just thought in the big picture and the details can be really fluid.

I have the world of Kaotijus which is a planet much like our Earth, only it is a little bit smaller (around 97%). There's two main continents: a big old one like an Africa-Eurasia thing. And old in the same sense, as the they start to sail further into the west ocean and found a new and smaller American-like continent. The water between them is known as the Narrow Ocean as the other way around the planet is much longer and have deeper waters. (I hope I'm making myself clear, writing in English is not common to me). There's also an Artic inhabited continent and, maybe, a set of islands (like Polynesia).

In a terrain basis, there's no much that I have decided and most of it really don't need to be restricted. I'd like, though, to have a mountain range in the scale of the Himalayas. And, also, I now regret myself in telling about a canyon (not really a canyon but a really big river which dried out a long time ago and, luckily, I've included magic and it can be the cause in this case) but this is a regional matter which I'm not sure if I'll draw a map (it'd be possible to view in a world scale? I don't think so, but maybe it'd be interesting).

I tried to do the whole world at once, following a simple draft in paper and trying to get it alike in the PS. However it was too hard to realize the scale of it all together, so I decided to do one continent at a time and later put them all in a single composition.

With the biggest continent I came to this:
Mikosama-try.jpg

What do you guys think? I know I can't tile up the ocean and I probably will have to rebuild it later, but's not really a matter of concern. Also, if I could make it in a way possible to use as a texture for a 3D render of the world (have anyone heard of Celestia?) and my major worry in this subject is the distortion thing that I know it happens yet I do not have much more knowledge about.

Almost forgot, in this version I tried to follow a scale of 8 km/pixel. If my math is right, it'd be like 60% of the width and 60% of height (roughly).

Maybe I forgot something else... Anyway, that's pretty much it and I'll keep on working.

[Gidde]

Hi George, that's looking pretty good for that continent, although i'm viewing it on my phone so I can't see stuff like rivers and the smaller details. For celestia, you need the whole thing in equirectangular projection, which is difficult (at least for me) to draw because it gets really stretched near the poles. What I would do is cheat a bit; call your eventual stitched together map a mercator and then use an app/plugin like flexify 2 (a google search will get you to the flaming pear product page and there's a free trial) to go from mercator to equirectangular. But you'll still be missing the poles, so I'd grab one of the good Earth equirectangular illustrations from the motherlode (google "celestia motherlode" to find it) and blend together its poles and your reprojected middle. it'll be quite the undertaking, fair warning

Sorry for lack of links; on the phone it's hard to grab them and get back to the post.

[George Marques]

Thanks Gidde for the reply. Actually you can't see rivers because... there's none! I'll put them later, after the possible buggy details about the terrain is decided (and after I re-read the thread about how to put'em right). This "mercator" thing is new for me, but now I've grabbed info about it in the Wikipedia. A pretty clever "cheat" I might say . Though I'm not sure how I'd grab the poles from Earth and if it would have a good resolution. However I'll have to downsize everything to fit into a book page, but it's good to have hi-q assets for a possible online content page and maybe for a future edition.

But I digress. Does the Flexify do this projection translation? If so, I think I can make my way through it. But about the poles thing I'm not quite sure if I could fit it all together and still look pretty. Yet I might try it.

So I'll keep, for now, with this and make a version for the other continent and later I manage to do the composition (or so I hope).

[George Marques]

I've been away for quite a while. I was working on my novel and on other aspects of its world (besides my other tasks and appointments) and left the map for later.

Anyway, here's the "New Continent" of Kaotijus, called Prosama (literally "new land"). Might not yet be finished, but it's close to it.

Prosama try 2.jpg