Carian - Round... Who knows... [WIP]

[Yandor]

Alright! So I've made some more progress on this beast of a project, each area map is roughly 6-12 hours ( not including the time it took to get the mountains and other things that are included on the continent view) Anyways on the newer maps, I still need to do the oceans, and on the Cael map I still need to adjust the forest and cities a bit on that far left side. Also another thing that some may notice, there is overlapping on the images, and on the regional ones I didn't include the areas next to them, that will be done later when I have all areas done. Also the continent icons for the cities, need some color work...

Anyways comments, ideas, questions, advice is all welcome!

[Len Wolff]

Amazing work. I love the cities and the textures.

Do you know if there is a good tutorial to draw the mountains in this style?

[ravells]

It looks like Pasis mountain tutorial may be what you want. Have a look for it in the tutorial section. I think it's called 'Raising up mountains in photoshop' by Pasis.

@Yandor: lovely work! I don't know how I've missed this thread for so long.

[Yandor]

haha well... The mountains are done through Wilbur, I created a height map in Photoshop and used the erosion of Wilbur to create the mountains. If I had done it with Pasis's Tutorial I would of gone nuts doing so =D, I'm no where near as patient as some people who can do that style! Always been a quick "render" kind of a person, if I can't find short cuts then I'll let it sit until I do! haha

Anyways thanks for the replys already, and Ravells it was simple to miss due to the fact that when I started this, about 15 people were posting in the regional section, so it got pushed into page 2 real fast!

[arsheesh]

Looking great so far Yandor! I especially like the shape of the Torovia map, and the titles of each map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[ravells]

haha well... The mountains are done through Wilbur, I created a height map in Photoshop and used the erosion of Wilbur to create the mountains. If I had done it with Pasis's Tutorial I would of gone nuts doing so =D, I'm no where near as patient as some people who can do that style! Always been a quick "render" kind of a person, if I can't find short cuts then I'll let it sit until I do! haha

Anyways thanks for the replys already, and Ravells it was simple to miss due to the fact that when I started this, about 15 people were posting in the regional section, so it got pushed into page 2 real fast!

I'm just thinking, I don't think It has ever occurred to me to make a map in FT Pro, export it just as a relief shaded white landmass against a black sea and then do all the colouring in photoshop. I think I might try that as my next project! I've never seen your workflow before either (PS heightmap (presumably using clouds) and then erode in Wilbur - the results are fantastic. How much control do you get over where the mountains are?

I'm gonna try that using Bryce instead of Wilbur and see what the results look like.

Thanks for the ideas for a new direction to explore!

[Yandor]

Ravells - placement is key, and very very precise.

Method in a Nutshell
1. PS to create continent use clouds and difference clouds with a threshold layer to get 2 solid colors. Then using a light and darker layer (with the threshold layer) I get myself a continent I want.
2. Using black for the ocean, and a near black (sea level of wilbur #060606) for the land. I then make a layer on top, get a grunge/cloud brush (i've posted similar ones before) and place where I want the mountains in connection with the land (using 20% opacity I build up the height map)
3. Once I get the mountain shape I run it through wilbur with several uses of the 2 erosions, precipitation and Incrise Flow (had to cut up the mountain sections to run through wilbur)

Precipition
.25
-1
8ways
none
5
blend 90%
none

Incrise Flow
1
.4
1
1
0
0

(twice)
Precipition
.25
-1
8ways
none
5
blend 90%
none

(For Rivers)
Incrise Flow
1
.2
1
.5
0
0

Precipition
.25
-1
8ways
none
1
blend 50%
none

4. Once saved as a png TEXTURE map, not a surface map, I bring it back into PS and run it through Lighting & effects to get the mountains to pop.

5. Once I get that I put it all back together and start doing rivers, forests, cities, roads etc.

6. Oceans in my tutorial I posted not to long ago

And thats it really in a nutshell... Wilbur, Forests, Cites/roads and Rivers are the longest parts of the whole process... Getting the actual continent map, and height map is easy. Along with texturing and doing the mountains from the rendered height maps from wilbur are simple too... But yeah... I should make a tutorial one of these days...

oops forgot some pictures, and look at the placement of the mountains in the heighmap to the post of the continent map I did earlier, if you can see they are spot on to the brushed heightmap I did in PS

[ravells]

Thanks a million for this Yandor, I'm having a little play right now. I don't know why I never thought of this earlier (I'm sure you already have), but when I'm drawing my heightmap, I've put in an adjustment layer just above the one I'm working on. the adjustment layer is a gradient layer with hypso tints where the stops are 1% apart. It makes it much easier to see what you're doing.

[Yandor]

Yeah I've thought of that, but every time I've tried it never really worked so well... So all I do is make a selection of the land (so I never go into the ocean when I draw my mountains) and just keep track of how often I click and overlap certain areas.. For example I believe the image I showed above of the before and after wilbur, I had my brush at 40% opacity and did a base layer (single clicks) and then I overlapped twice (first time to get the medium height, last time to get the peaks)... Maybe not the best method, but it got the job done haha

Oh yeah, the process through wilbur I also did for this months Challenge map... so I mean you can do broad mountains for a continent or closer ones for regional or even city maps depending on how "high" you make the height maps

[ravells]

What I love is the the shape of mountain you get at the end, they're really crunchy and look exactly like shaded relief should.