One more time...

[Majortopio]

Well, after working extensively on my last map, I began getting doubtful about how useable it would be. Too many problems kept cropping up. And after I saw the WIP map Anul by Rajorke, I got inspired to make a map modeled after Tear's tutorial - the style intrigued me very much. So this map is heavily inspired by the Anul map and Tear's general style in his tutorial.

So it's going to be a world map, and the scale is 1px = 1km so it's very big (15000px wide - smaller than earth, but more than big enough for me). When I tried to save the file with all continents and one mountain range, it was unable to save because the size exceeded 2gb. So I'm breaking it down in continents/landmasses and working on one at a time.

I'm pretty happy with it so far, but I'm just worried I'm cramming too much into one spot. The desert suddenly seems very out of place for me, as I was thinking that the Sprawling Plains would be southern European oriented (Spain, southern Italy), climate-wise, and the Highlands of the Spear Scandinavian-oriented.

All names are placeholder, more like labels showing what general feel I want that particular region to have.

CC is appreciated as usual. Very scaled map of landmasses and regional map of the northern part of the western continent (which is what I am currently working on) is attached.

[Majortopio]

Alright, quick update. A fix before any CC - not a good sign for the quality of the map I'm afraid haha.

I decided to remove that misplaced desert - I instead lengthened the Highlands of the Spear and put in a large plateau (I'm no geology expert - please say if this is impossible).

New image is here (couldn't get the attachment module to work): http://www.lilnik.com/landmass1.jpg

[Redrobes]

Really lovin this. The shape of the overall world is very nice with lots of different types of landmass to make for interesting adventuring. The starting map for the local area is also very cool. The reason it didnt upload is that there is about a 5K pix limit on the image size. If you scaled by 1/2 and reposted then it would upload ok I think.

[Majortopio]

Really lovin this. The shape of the overall world is very nice with lots of different types of landmass to make for interesting adventuring. The starting map for the local area is also very cool. The reason it didnt upload is that there is about a 5K pix limit on the image size. If you scaled by 1/2 and reposted then it would upload ok I think.

Thanks! Appreciate it

yeah, that was what I was going for, lot's of variety for infinite possibilities. I like having all options open to me

Ooh okay, that would explain it. Thanks .

[altasilvapuer]

If you're worried about realistic or at least semi-realistic of your deserts, etc, it might be worthwhile to sketch out the climatological patterns on the world map. There are a number of world-builders here who have done just that over the past year or so, that I've watched. Karro and Korba's maps are the ones that influenced my first one, however.

Karro's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2463
Korba's Calen Ndor: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4812

There was also another that popped up recently which generated some amazingly useful discussion on oceanic currents, but I'll have to dig for it, as I don't have it bookmarked.

EDIT: Okay, I went and poked around for a few minutes and actually found two of the other worldbuilding endeavours that have been undertaken recently:
Laime's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=6539 The discussions here are good for examples of both tectonics and ocean currents.
Gidde's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=5508 The discussions here are especially good for ocean currents, and the difference between surface currents and the thermohaline system.

Both of these later posts are good for expanding your understanding of the groundwork, but I feel like Karro and Korba offer good examples of converting that groundwork into actual climate/biome zones. Additionally, in my signature my own endeavour on the subject, with which I tried to be thoroughly detailed.

If you've got specific questions, feel free to hit us with them and we'll answer what we can.

-asp

[Majortopio]

If you're worried about realistic or at least semi-realistic of your deserts, etc, it might be worthwhile to sketch out the climatological patterns on the world map. There are a number of world-builders here who have done just that over the past year or so, that I've watched. Karro and Korba's maps are the ones that influenced my first one, however.

Karro's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2463
Korba's Calen Ndor: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4812

There was also another that popped up recently which generated some amazingly useful discussion on oceanic currents, but I'll have to dig for it, as I don't have it bookmarked.

EDIT: Okay, I went and poked around for a few minutes and actually found two of the other worldbuilding endeavours that have been undertaken recently:
Laime's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=6539 The discussions here are good for examples of both tectonics and ocean currents.
Gidde's world: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=5508 The discussions here are especially good for ocean currents, and the difference between surface currents and the thermohaline system.

Both of these later posts are good for expanding your understanding of the groundwork, but I feel like Karro and Korba offer good examples of converting that groundwork into actual climate/biome zones. Additionally, in my signature my own endeavour on the subject, with which I tried to be thoroughly detailed.

If you've got specific questions, feel free to hit us with them and we'll answer what we can.

-asp

Ah! Thank you for that treasure trove of information, I greatly appreciate it. While I'm not aiming for total realism, it's always nice to have that information in the back of your head so things don't go completely wrong.

I think that I'll make a rough ocean current map before I continue on, just for safety. I'm not overly worried about tectonics and the like, as I place my mountains where I feel they are necessary

Thank you once again for all the useful links!

[Majortopio]

So I took a stab at ocean temperatures, and it fits pretty well so far with what I have and what I have been planning. The only hard part was getting the southernmost continent right, I was planning on that being some sort of "tropical paradise" so I don't know if I took too much creative liberty with the temperatures down there - from what I've seen around the forum and on real world maps that should be entirely possible with ocean flow etc etc.

But I really don't know if it's correct in any way - so please point out mistakes if you see any!

EDIT: I made some revisions this morning, to make it fit more with the real world - as in which climates I had in mind for which places. So far it's looking pretty good, imo, but I still have no idea if it's all correct. Updated version: http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r...opio/temps.jpg

[altasilvapuer]

Glancing over this, it looks pretty much right to me. I see a couple minor things on the northern bound of your red band, but they're not really bad enough to mention unless you're really hardcore about realism, which you've established you aren't. Overall, it looks good to me.

If you just want a general idea where the various biomes would probably be, then I'd just drop some quick mountains so you know where they are, do a rough idea of the preciptation (that's the dark green-tan scale on most of the linked maps, if we didn't label them clearly; I forget) and then you'll be able to figure out biomes based on the temperature and dryness of each place.

Love to see more!

-asp

[Majortopio]

Glancing over this, it looks pretty much right to me. I see a couple minor things on the northern bound of your red band, but they're not really bad enough to mention unless you're really hardcore about realism, which you've established you aren't. Overall, it looks good to me.

If you just want a general idea where the various biomes would probably be, then I'd just drop some quick mountains so you know where they are, do a rough idea of the preciptation (that's the dark green-tan scale on most of the linked maps, if we didn't label them clearly; I forget) and then you'll be able to figure out biomes based on the temperature and dryness of each place.

Love to see more!

-asp

Alright - thanks for that. Needed confirmation that I did in fact do it correctly (you did see the edit update, right?)

That's a good idea, will prevent a lot of clutter and random placements later on. Definitely the next step.

[Majortopio]

Alright, so I've made a rainfall/precipitation (whatever it is) map for the two largest continents, I don't want to continue until I know I'm doing it right, because it's very time consuming.

So basically darkest green is highest, tan is lowest. So if I've understood this correctly; forests (re jungles) tend to spring up where precipitation is the highest. So I've taken to that to mean that the two next levels (the two next lighter shades of green) is where grasslands/plains tend to be. Deserts are, of course, where the tannest areas are (that + the arctic parts of the continents), and very dry places are the level above that. Tell me if this is all wrong .

Some VERY rough mountain sketches are there too. The actual mountains will no doubt be less "straight" and there are of course more smaller mountain ranges.