Bréistyn's Folly - the Sværian Age (an experiment in globe cartography)

[Eilathen]

That looks pretty awesome already, Caenwyr! Looking forward to the rest of the development.

[MistyBeee]

Getting more and more impressive, Caenwyr. I really love your color choice too

[ThomasR]

It is really impressive ! And I think the change of tilt will allow for wonderful terrain. I cannot wait to see this wonder in the making finished !

[Caenwyr]

Thanks a bunch guys!

Now I have to admit, I got a little bit stuck after my previous update. I spent a crazy amount of time trying to work in the forests. Not because I don't know how to do that - I even found a pretty okay way to have them curve with the globe - but because I wanted something that looked more... satellite-esque.

So I started working out a system to display individual trees as tiny vertical lines (vertical relative to their location, obviously), but these looked far too harsh and unconvincing. Especially for tropical forests. They might have worked in a boreal setting, but definitely not here.

Bréistyn's Folly (6).png

I tried adding a canopy, and while that worked too, it was way to fluffy OR they blended together into one amorphous blob. Then I realised that, if I wanted realism, I would have to ditch both my usual style and these individual trees, and go for colour shadings. Forests don't look like puffy clouds or individual trees on satellite maps, their presence is solely indicated by use of colour.

So I came up with this:
Bréistyn's Folly (7).png

You'll notice I worked in some desert structures too. I've now begun to dream about removing all of my linework (just like the dune edges aren't visible in the above picture), but for that my mountains are still way too blurry. I think I should be able to give them some edge though, after all I basically have that effect already at the very bottom of the map.

Bréistyn's Folly (7b).png

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So here's a little poll!!

Do you think I should

1. proceed along that trajectory? Removing the linework, and upping the detail in the shading itself? Or
2. keep the linework as it is now?

[Jean-Abdel]

I think it's much better with the linework, the blur effect without it is weird

[waldronate]

I don't think that the shading without the linework is particularly interesting. It blurs together with no edges for the eye to track. It might work to reduce the intensity of the linework (say, half transparency) if you find the hard-edged high-frequency detail distracting.

Keeping the line rivers without the line mountain edges doesn't work at all for me.

Another option might be to fade out the linework on areas that are deemed less important for the purposes of the map. For purely artistic reasons, a radial fade to reduce the intensity of lines towards the horizon might be a nice effect (maybe use aerial perspective fading towards blue at the edges of the land as well to highlight the central area).

[ThomasR]

I'd say the linework has to stay. You once pulled an amazing stunt on a map named Archaias (or something close) without linework but your shading was from another world on this one. On another point, I think the classic cloudy forest could work well and the satellite style clashes here. With an appropriate cast shadow and canopy shading, I'm sure your usual forest would keep the style of the map consistent. My two cents.

[bkh1914]

You seem to be presenting a view rather than drawing a map, in other words your map is becoming a 'painting'.
With that in mind,
- Map makers love lines
- Painters use them very sparingly (but hard color edges are common)

The one without lines looks more like a painting.
Sharper shading edges and color edges would improve the mountain definition/sharpness.

[Ilanthar]

hehe, I'm more a map maker then, because I prefer the version in the middle, with the lines on the mountains & coasts.
I missed this, but it's just spectacular, Caenwyr!

[Caenwyr]

Whew, thanks for the feedback people!

I went ahead and tried detailing the terrain a little more, with the intention of leaving out the linework entirely. It might not be my usual style, but after all this is an experiment into something new!

If you still feel like you hate it, let me know and I'll see if I can work the original linework back in

Bréistyn's Folly (8).png