WIP - New map (as of yet unnamed)

[Saule]

After posting a new map a couple of days ago, I started looking around on the forums again. It had been a while since I made a larger map, but seeing everything here really inspired me to start one. I've come pretty far in two days (it's addicting), but I just wanted to post it here to see if anyone noticed something to work a little more on before I start putting in places, labels etc.

All the brushes were drawn by Ramah, and the mountain brushes made by vhailor27, so every credit for those goes to them.

[Croquelune]

Wow great. I love the texture and the style of your map.

[Daelin]

Yeah, this definitely a great-looking map. The only problem I have with it, is the water borders, which look a little bit rushed.

[Saule]

Thanks

The only problem I have with it, is the water borders, which look a little bit rushed.

Can you explain in which way they seem rushed? That would make it easier for me to work on it .

[rafaelrzacharias]

wow, this is looking good! ^^
I've always loved Ramah's Vaniya style, the coastline is pretty neat too.
My only nitpick would be the way you represented your "waves" around the coast, in my opinion, the look a bit too thin, like no blur at all..
try this: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=8797 and see my recent post about coastline waves.
Also, try coyotemax's tutorial, pretty slick http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=6630
I like your map in the overall. Congrats, can't wait to see the end result.

[Locution]

This is very nice! I really like the textures you used.

[the-golem]

Wow. Overall I'm impressed. I really like the textures you used, and the ripple effect of the water (near the shores) is really keen. I'm not sure I'm sold on the rest of the ocean, it looks rather turbid.

Also, If you could handle some slight criticism, Your forests look uniformly placed, and it somehow spoils the effect. Maybe try a method which allows you to see mostly just the canopy, with the trunks appearing only on the visible perimeter.

All that aside, I think it's really sick/sweet/kicka$$/etc.

I have to ask, how did you achieve the ripple effect of the water. Also, how did you map the rivers and get them to taper so well?

[Saule]

I've done a bit more work on it and added a border.

@rafaelrzacharias. Although I did plan for the lines around the coast to be thin as they were, I liked the 'blurry' style as well, so I've tried to combine them. I think it turned out pretty well, so thanks for the link to the tutorial.

@the-golem. I understand what you mean about the 'uniformness'. I've actually tried to do the forest as you suggested, but it didn't really work with these brushes because they're partly transparant. I wanted to use these brushes in particular because they fit in with the style of the mountains, so doing it like this was my other option. I did work on the forest a bit, to try to break up the outline and create some 'open' spaces in the forest itself. I think this also helps a bit to make the forests less like a chunk of trees, it looks a bit more natural like this.

As for the ripple effect around the land, this is how I did it. I work in Photoshop, so I don't know how to do this in other programs.

- First select your landmass. (I always do this by pressing ctrl and clicking on my land layer, it selects everything filled in on that layer, which is what I need).
- Go to Select -> Modify -> Expand. I believe I expanded by 10 pixels. This is how far from the land your first riple is going to be.
- Go to Edit -> Stroke. I think I stroked the first one with 2 px. This is how thick the first ripple will be.
- Repeat this process, Expand the selection, (I usually expand 10 the fist time, 15 the second time, 20 the next, etc. But that's a personal choice.) Then stroke (I stroked the first line with 2 px. the second & third with 1 px).

- Once you've got as many lines as you want (I made 3), you create a new layer.
- Fill the layer with solid black
- Go to Filter -> Noice -> Add Noice. Set the amount as high as it goes (400 I believe), and make sure 'Monochromatic' is on.
- Now you've got a layer filled with noice.
- Make sure your foreground colour is set to black & background colour to white.
- Go to Select -> Color range. Set the fuzziness to 0 and press OK.
- Now go to the layer with the lines on it and press 'delete'.
- Now you can delete your noice layer.

- As you'll see, the lines are pretty 'harsh' at the moment. So the last thing I did was go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian blur. Set the blur the way you like it (pretty low, otherwise you won't see a thing), and press OK.
- Done


The rivers were (globally) done like this:
- Draw a general outline with a bigger red brush
- On a new layer, draw the rivers with a small (as big as your smallest rivers will be) brush (I used 3 px).
- Delete the general red outline
- Select the rivers (ctr click on the river layer)
- Go to the land layer and pres delete.
- Use the lasso to deselect every river you want to keep small. (keep alt pressed down to deselect a part of your selection)
- Go to Select -> Modify -> Expand. and expand with 1 or 2 pixels.
- Go to the land layer and press delete.
- Repeat this process for bigger rivers.


What I've got so far:

[Steel General]

This is looking quite nice!

One thing that kind of 'caught my eye' is the border, while I like the look and color it seems to lack any 'depth' which seems off to me - maybe a low opacity texture or something to give it that last bit of "oomph". *shrugs*

[Coyotemax]

In regards to the tree placement (and since you mention photoshop), you may want to check out the following thread: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=7336

It explains how to use the clone stamp to overcome the transparency issue you're running into with placing the trees. The examples in the thread use mountains, but I can tell you from experience that it makes forest placement way bloody easy