March 2017 Challenge: The Voyage of the Caribbean Crown

[Hustle]

Diamond, may I ask what you're using for your mountain ranges at this scale? They look great. It's such an appropriate size for this map, and I think I could learn a lot from your methodology.

[Diamond]

The mountain ranges are done with various photoshop filters. I start off with a layer that's got just a generic black&white clouds filter, then add between 4 and 8 difference clouds. The more difference clouds, the smaller the scale, so if you're doing a smallish regional map, use less; for a continent or world map, more. That's your base mountain layer.

Then I make another layer and do CTRL + Shift + Alt + E; this creates a copy of the previous layer with all the stuff/fx already in place. This is the hill layer (it creates the finer underlying terrain below the mountains). I add a noise filter and then move the layer under the mountain layer.

After that, it's just a matter of experimenting with various bevel/emboss settings to get something you like. Start with the mountain layer, set the layer fill to 0%, and then play around with the bevel settings. When I have something I like, I duplicate it for the hill layer, but at a lesser degree. When I get home from work tonight I'll try to remember to write up the exact process.

[Hustle]

That's a fantastic description. I'll play around on my own with that process and see what I can come up with. Thanks very much!

[Mouse]

I haven't been able to resist looking, and now feel relieved that what I thought was the end of the story before the middle turned out not to be the case - still looking forward to the story.

The border work is lovely. It goes much better with the rest of the map than the previous one

[Voolf]

Many thanks for the answer how you do relief Diamond. Looking forward to finished work.

[Diamond]

Done. Hope the story is to your liking, Mouse!

### Winner ###

[Mouse]

Its film-worthy

Errr... "Persons wishing to visit the exhibit or any other part of the AMNH must submit to a 5 level Federal Screening"! Yikes!