Royal Domain (World of Calidar)

[Thorf]

Following on from my hex map post from a few days ago, here's an example of a slightly different style of map I assembled for Calidar.

This one is a provincial map showing the extents and main features of the Kingdom of Meryath's main province, known as the Royal Domain.

Glorathon-domain-1c.png
Copyright © Bruce A. Heard 2014

This preview shows the whole map at a slightly reduced resolution. It's going to be printed as a half page map (approximately 8.5 x 5.5 inches) in the final book.

As you can see, it's a topographical map with a hex overlay. Further, it's based on the hex map linked to above, splitting its 10 mile hexes into a 5 mile hex grid in this map.

Stylistically, this map is composed of a height model built in Photoshop, eroded in Wilbur, shaded with a combination of gradient maps in Photoshop, and lit in Blender. These layers are composited with a sea mask layer set and a parchment texture, with icons, roads, borders, and labels all adapted from the original hex map.

Getting the lighting right was extremely difficult. If anyone has any hints on how to do this, I'd love some advice. I ended up needing multiple lighting layers, combining various different opacity types to get to this point. Another lighting-related issue was that Blender's lighting tends to render the lower elevations (i.e. hills) as almost flat, so I actually blended in another lighting layer generated in Wilbur to make the lower elevations stand out more.

[Sapiento]

Interesting style, well done.