Map of... uh... nameless world

[sirdanilot]

Well yeah, why on earth would a world have a name? Anyway, I made this map ages ago in Photoshop, and I remember it took me a long time (but it was enjoyable in a compulsive kind of way). If we call the continent you see west the Central continent (it's supposed to go from the North Pole to the South Pole, with perhaps a small sea seperation or something) you see the Eastern continent here, and at the easternmost tip also the Far East. The mythical West and Far West are not on this map.

With this map, I focused less on being artistic, and more on making a very exact replica of a map I had drawn even longer ago (in retrospect I should have used Inkscape or Illustrator but oh well). The weird northern islands were supposed to be atolls (real world example: Maledive islands in the Indian Ocean) though I'm not too sure if they are realistic. I suppose this would be on the southern hemisphere with the atolls around the equator. I tried to create an atlas effect, but horribly failed, because it suffers from 'world is square'-syndrome, doesn't have latitude/longitude marks, simply doesn't look much like an atlas etc. For an atlas effect I am afraid I'd have to start from scratch, though if anyone knows how to convert even just the outline to a proper projection (I am not knowledgeable, but willing to learn) I'd be happy, since it would make expansion of this map in other directions a lot easier.

Being cautious, I put a watermark on the map, though I suppose it's hardly worth being stolen and this site is under a license, so if anyone is bothered by it I'll upload one without any mark.



MOD: if this belongs in WIP (due to being bad and ugly) go ahead and move it there or anywhere you please.

Small additions/changes/comments?

[jwbjerk]

though if anyone knows how to convert even just the outline to a proper projection (I am not knowledgeable, but willing to learn) I'd be happy, since it would make expansion of this map in other directions a lot easier.

I don't know what you mean by the "proper projection" there are dozens of different methods to smash a round object only a flat plane.

I'm sure there are more sophisticated approaches, but i have my whole world's texture on a single image (twice as wide as tall), and have it wrapped around a sphere in Google's free 3D app Sketchup. The texture gets increasingly distorted towards the poles, as you might expect, but if you can see it in 3D, you can (with some back and forth) work it out. So then if i want to do a particular region, i take a screenshot of that part of the 3D globe, and the curvature of the world is taken into account.

[sirdanilot]

The problem is I already have my square world here, how would I wrap it around a globe in sketchup?

[Aenigma]

I do quite like it, although my riverpolice-radar is beeping furiously right now

You've done an excellent job with the colours! Really well done.

[jwbjerk]

The problem is I already have my square world here, how would I wrap it around a globe in sketchup?

Um, what you've shown is a piece of a world. Is that what you are talking about?

Either way, i'm not exactly sure what you mean by an "atlas effect"... perhaps you could explain what exactly you want to achieve before somebody provides detailed instructions for something you might not actually want to do.

[sirdanilot]

Okay, this is going to be a bit hard to explain, so bear with me.

1. The north south distance of my map is X degrees (I have to decide this still, but not that hard to do), and the entire world is in total 180 degrees from Pole to Pole (like our earth). I would apply a grid to the globe (also choose a meridian line and applying the vertical grid lines), and then determine the coordinates of where my map is located. For example, if my map is like 40 degrees from north to south, and I would want it be located on the southern hemisphere, I'd choose the north end 10 degrees (north), south end 30 degrees (south), and some random position on the east/west scale.
2. Now this is what I want to ask: how would I parse my FLAT map into the coordinates I determined in (1)? It would require folding the map so that it can fit a part of the surface of the globe.
3. Then after doing that I would want it projected back to 2d for practical applications, but I'd be happy with the first two steps.

I hope I am making this clear, since it's very hard to explain and understand.

edit: this tut shows maps of what I want it to sort of look like (almost an impossible goal, I know...)
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...mp-Illustrator

It seems very hard, and also uses programs I don't have (illustrator) so I do not think I can use this tutorial.

@Aenigma: thanks! But what is wrong with the rivers since I did try to make them realistic? Are there too few in the inlands? Are they too curvy?
I took care to let the rivers run from high to low, and not unrealistically such as from sea to sea (which is impossible as far as I know.

[jwbjerk]

Okay, this is going to be a bit hard to explain, so bear with me.

1. The north south distance of my map is X degrees (I have to decide this still, but not that hard to do), and the entire world is in total 180 degrees from Pole to Pole (like our earth). I would apply a grid to the globe (also choose a meridian line and applying the vertical grid lines), and then determine the coordinates of where my map is located. For example, if my map is like 40 degrees from north to south, and I would want it be located on the southern hemisphere, I'd choose the north end 10 degrees (north), south end 30 degrees (south), and some random position on the east/west scale.
2. Now this is what I want to ask: how would I parse my FLAT map into the coordinates I determined in (1)? It would require folding the map so that it can fit a part of the surface of the globe.
3. Then after doing that I would want it projected back to 2d for practical applications, but I'd be happy with the first two steps.

I think i understand you, but i still don't see what you are trying to accomplish. If you are only concerned with this square, and you think it takes up about 40º N-S, then the difference between this square projected on a globe, and the same square flat won't be very significant. Anyway, since you are only dealing with this square you can declare that it is whatever projection you want, at this range i don't think anyone could tell the difference.


Re: Rivers. A lot of your river-heads come very close together. It's easy to think they actually touch, maybe that's what Aenigma thinks he's seeing -- that was my first impression, though of course i didn't check them all.

[sirdanilot]

Oh I could do some effort and try to make my rivers tapered (just saw a tutorial on that here on the site), I didn't know how to do this at the time I made the map. Then they would be thinner at their origins. Otherwise, I do consider this base map finished for now (which is why I posted it here, I guess).

Well, if the difference is not significant, I'll just keep this one as it is for now. I do plan to make maps of the entire world at some point, but I think I'm going to have enough fun making up adventures, languages, cultures, countries etc. on this little continent for now, and of course more artistic or ancient-looking maps, which don't really care that much about projections.

I didn't realize the difference would be so little, so thank you for that very helpful comment saving me from putting a lot of effort into nothing!