February 2022 Challenge: Tour Carmen!

[Tiana]

So this is not the first time I've mapped Carmen and it won't be the last. Since this challenge was to redo an old map, I asked my cowriter to choose between Almaera or Carmen, our two sister planets, and I'm testing out a new workflow in this map.

The very first came from...


Which came from a pencil sketch which I no longer have, but is an accurate representation of the sketch's humor.

Later I made this one, for an earlier challenge ("Sisters") which represents the evolution of the setting into a slightly more serious tone, but not totally.
carmensisterdominionmap.jpg

And finally this one, which I feel is a fairly accurate portrayal of the worldbuilding for Carmen to date, but it serves as more of a tourist brochure than a detailed geographical map.
carmentourmapsmall.jpg

So, I've decided to redo TOUR HOLY CARMEN as if it were represented on a satellite of 3D terrain, as a more realistic, modern, detailed topography map.

So first I had to build a height map, something that went horribly wrong last time I built one for a challenge here. Just did NOT work out at all. But people seem to be interested in process too so I'm showing what it came from anyway.

carmen height maps.jpg

And make no mistake, I had some trouble with it this time too. I used World Creator to convert my sketch of a height map into one with more interesting wear and tear, running it through several different erosion and worldbuilding techniques... which all ultimately ended in me losing the island chains I'd doodled in the first draft as well as all indication of the rivers. Sigh. Still haven't managed to get those back in as I continued and made that map into a colored and textured variation.

Not to mention I crashed the program multiple times, lost my entire first go at it, and GUASIJFFG we shall never speak of this again.

The battle with world creator left me with this screenshot and the height maps shown above.

world creator Carmen try 3 (1).jpg

Then I brought the height map into blender, subdivided a plane and used the height map to displace it.

Carmen blender preview.jpg

Then I added the color/texture version which I made by painting and texture sandwiching it in Clip Studio Paint with the screenshotted version from WC, which is basically halfway to a finished map as it is. Honestly, if I didn't want to fool around with Blender I would have called this a day.

carmen-colors-watermarked.jpg

So yeah, I then tried to use that to give the 3D map color and texture.

Which of course also didn't work as well as planned and resulted in several things going wrong and honestly let's not talk about it but here's some proof that it really is 3D.

carmen render result side view small watermarked.jpg

Anyway, I ended up rendering a couple different lighting variations and combining them in Clip Studio Paint, which means I won't be able to do what I was hoping for the final unless I start getting real convoluted, but right now, this is now a raster result based on a couple of sandwiched versions on blend modes. We'll see.

You can see from the "see it's actually 3D" the 3D version's coloring and also that it starts to lose resolution when you zoom in on it, thanks to the limitations of subdivisions in a plane versus World Creator's specialized rendering machine. But, I don't want to finish it in WC because I don't like how the texture engine works and you can't do any animating or whatnot.

So right now, this is the working 'final' and the one I'll want to appear in the WIP thread... but it won't do that if I don't post it as its own post, I think.

### Latest WIP ###
carmen render base.jpg

[Tiana]

Yep, I was right, the scraper gets confused. Sorry for the double post.

### Latest WIP ###
carmen render base.jpg

[KaiAeon]

Oooooh lovely!

[wminish]

This is looking really good so far, I look forward to seeing where you take it.

[Draghetto]

I love the 3D rendering! You're doing a very good job!

[Tiana]

Oooooh lovely!

Thank you!

This is looking really good so far, I look forward to seeing where you take it.

Glad you like it. I have made a bit of progress.

I love the 3D rendering! You're doing a very good job!

Thanks. It was pretty hard. T_T and I'm not sure I'll be able to do some of the things I wanted to do with it especially in the time frame, because I have so much to learn.

Now we have the decorative goddess themed frame. Still no text, and I have mixed feelings, this is the 3rd draft of the frame. The lurid green is not optional, Lady Fate is known as the Green Lady for a reason!
### Latest WIP ###
carmen map frame3 small watermarked.jpg

If I go with this, I just have to add text and the tour routes and a little boat to finish.

If you're wondering what I discarded...
carmen map draft1.png

I really liked this initial sketch for the frame, but when I tried to turn the sketch into a frame that made sense, well, it just ended up not. I also did really like the flat color for the goddess, more than the cartoon but I wasn't sure people could parse it well enough, because in my experience the more abstract I get, the more confused people get, and the pose is a bit vague with the foot positioning (though I did use the 3D model reference in Clip Studio Paint so it should be more or less 'correct').

carmen map frame small gngh.png
Then I did this effect to try for one more go at the Celtic knotwork kind of framing and well, again, I liked it but it doesn't fit this style of map as well as I'd hoped. I might release that piece later into my thread of free things.

Still, I have mixed feelings about the ribbon explosion cartoon goddess variation. But that's where it's at.

[Tiana]

I add some text. Just the large labels for now. And fiddled a bit more with the frame. Toned it down a bit more.

### Latest WIP ###
carmen map frame4 small watermarked.jpg