How to make relief in maps?

[Markisaev]

Please explain me how do you make relief on your maps. Thanks in advance.

[Ilanthar]

Welcome, Markisaev. Could you be more specific? There are many ways to represent topography/relief on a map...

[WaterRat]

Looks like this thread went cold a while ago, but I have the same question! I draw my maps by hand, and I'm anxious to move beyond using triangles and half-circles for mountains and hills. So, I don't want a more specific answer—I would like to know ALL the ways everyone indicates relief!

If you use shading, how do you indicate that it's relief-shading and not artistic-shading? How do you get the "wrinkled" look that many modern maps use? I read once which direction map light always comes from (NW?) but I've forgotten.

If you use triangles/half-circles, how do you dress them up? How densely do you pack them? How do you add foothills?

If you actually draw mountains and hills à la LotR, what does your process look like? How is it different if you're drawing a N-S range vs. an E-W range?

What else do you do?

It seems that most people here use software, so I guess the answers to a lot of these might be things I can't actually duplicate, but I'd like to know at least how they end up looking. And yes, I am also browsing maps to see what I can see, but I'd love to hear people explain their processes.

[damonjynx]

Looks like this thread went cold a while ago, but I have the same question! I draw my maps by hand, and I'm anxious to move beyond using triangles and half-circles for mountains and hills. So, I don't want a more specific answer—I would like to know ALL the ways everyone indicates relief!

If you use shading, how do you indicate that it's relief-shading and not artistic-shading? How do you get the "wrinkled" look that many modern maps use? I read once which direction map light always comes from (NW?) but I've forgotten.

If you use triangles/half-circles, how do you dress them up? How densely do you pack them? How do you add foothills?

If you actually draw mountains and hills à la LotR, what does your process look like? How is it different if you're drawing a N-S range vs. an E-W range?

What else do you do?

It seems that most people here use software, so I guess the answers to a lot of these might be things I can't actually duplicate, but I'd like to know at least how they end up looking. And yes, I am also browsing maps to see what I can see, but I'd love to hear people explain their processes.

Check out the many wonderful tutorials on this site and elsewhere on the internet. Fantastic Maps by Torstan (AKA Jonathon Roberts) is a brilliant resource. He mostly uses Photoshop/GIMP, as do a lot, if not all, of the cartographers here but once you have created your line work by following his suggestions you can scan and then colour digitally or use copic style markers/watercolours if you prefer non-digital mediums.

Other than that, look in the finished map sections here, find some that float your boat and follow the links back to the WIP threads and take it from there.

[johnvanvliet]

no it did NOT go cold

there was never anything to discus as there is basically ZERO!!!!!! usable information in this one short line

Please explain me how do you make relief on your maps. Thanks in advance.

end of story

there is NO way to post anything useful with ZERO information

I would like to know ALL the ways everyone indicates relief!

do you have 10 years to read about 1000 books of information ?


there are about 10,000 different ways to do variations on this very overly broad statement

please reiterate this question into a set of narrow well defined examples

[Redrobes]

Hey WaterRat, JohnV is correct in that the original poster didn't specify the question very well at all but you seem to have a much better idea of what you want. Do you think you could go through some maps on the guild and find one that is close to the style that you want to make and then post the URL of it so we can see what the form of relief you want ? There are a lot of types. Contours, shading etc.

The light is usually from the top whether east or west only because if you take some lit shaded terrain looking down directly from above and then rotate the image 180 degrees then all of a sudden it looks really odd. Its only that were used to things being lit from above due to the sun. Our brains normalize that lighting direction. I usually make a 3D model of terrain I want to shade and then light it from the NW direction. I make the 3D model using contours and then turn it into a height map and then get the computer to shade the height map.

[Azélor]

In order to help us help you, it would be preferable to ask only one question at a time, with pictures as reference if possible.
Also, the question should not be too vague : "explain me how do you make relief on your maps"...
is very vague since there are plenty of ways to represent the relief on a map, as already mentioned.

Another example is when people ask general opinion on a map without asking feedback on a particular area.
They tend to either get very general feedback that are not necessarily helpful: this is a great first map!
or none at all, which is even less helpful but understandable if people don't have anything meaningful to say and nothing to comment on.