Newbie requests suggestions (map attempts included)

[Nevermet]

Hello!

I found my way here because I wanted to make better maps for a pet project world of mine.
To date, I have exclusively used the techniques I've learned from RobA & Wisemoon's PDF tutorial on how to make maps with GIMP.

First, here is the basic map that I made using Autorealm and its gloriously simple fractal edges:


This map is of the Set Archipelago, and the map is supposed to be about 6,500 miles wide. This is the only land mass on the planet.
I realize the layout of the islands is likely not realistic, but it's how I want it to be. My only semi-regret about the map is that I would perhaps like to redo it so as to have some geographical features related to former glacial activity. However, as I know next to nothing about glacial activity, or how to do it in GIMP, this is not a major concern of mine.

Anyhow, from there, I opened up GIMP and created this map:


As I did more islands, I started to get a bit of a handle on how things work, so I started redoing the islands I had already completed. Each island I am doing as a separate file, and then scaling to the appropriate size and moving in place back on the larger map. Here is where I currently am:




So.... How am I doing so far? Sorry for the lame wording, but I still am working out what is the potential and relative difficulty of various actions in GIMP. I'm not sure what can be tightened up how easily.

That said, there are a few things I dislike about my efforts to date.

First, my forests sometimes look "plopped on" rather than part of the terrain.

Second, I don't really have terrain other than plans and sudden mountains. Foothills aside, I dont really get a sense of topography looking at my map so far.

Third, my mountains sometimes want to look like canyons rather than mountains.



Anyhow.... that's it. I haven't tried to do rivers yet, though I'm a bit nervous about them coming out.

Overall, I'm trying to work from an aesthetic similar to what a satellite photo would look like. I don't think this is by any means the only way to do things, but it's the way I want to do this map.

I'm open to suggestions, especially because I am too new to even know what to ask.

Thanks!

[Eilathen]

Hi and welcome to the guild, Nevermet.

I don't know about other users here, but for me, all your pictures are broken...even on flickr. So i can't really comment.

[Larb]

Yes, same for me. The links take me to the page but the image doesn't load.

[Chick]

Strange, all the pictures show here in the forum and on flickr for me.

Are any of you using Mozilla browsers? Perhaps their turning off flash is affecting you. Try looking with IE.

[Nevermet]

Very strange.
I just edited the links, so hopefully they pop up on the thread at least.
This is hardly an auspicious beginning to me being around here, is it?

[Meshon]

I can see the images in the forums alright. I think your forests need a little shading to match the underlying terrain. You have some detail in the trees, but the forests could use some broader strokes to show when the terrain under them isn't flat. I haven't got much to help with the mountains; I have a personal fear of rock formations

My own preference would also be to roughen up the coastlines a bit, or at least add some sandy beaches along the edges. What sort of scale are you working at? I know you said the archipelago is about 6500 miles, but how big is the island in the third image?

This is a great start. I appreciate your ambition!

cheers,
Meshon

[Nevermet]

The island in the 3rd pic is about 350 miles along the North-south dimension.
And yeah, I lost some detail on the coast, or more accurately I just didn't have it since I started with such a large map.

As far as forests go, they got a little better when I decreased the opacity a bit, as that blended the color a bit. As far shading and putting broad strokes down to make it less flat... stupid newb question: how do I do that?

So, let's take that middle forest. I used RobA's tutorial, which uses Arsheel's tutorial on forests. Here in a screencap of my GIMP window:


Now, based on what you said, it sounds like I could figure out how to add some shading to the layer "T2 Bumps", and that's really the texture for that forest. I assume I should do that by creating a new layer than tries to have some broad brush strokes blurred together that give some topography. ...is that sounds about right?


Also, if I'm asking questions that are better answered elsewhere, just give me a name of a thread and I'll hunt it down.

[Gamerprinter]

The islands (and sub-surface islands) seem to evenly distributed to me to look natural. Other than that, it looks like you're on your way to an interesting project.

[Nevermet]

The islands (and sub-surface islands) seem to evenly distributed to me to look natural. Other than that, it looks like you're on your way to an interesting project.

Is this map better? If it isn't, what would improve it? I'm just talking about the placement / distribution of islands; there's a lot of work I need to do regarding shaping them so they're not just blobs.