Atlas Elyden

[AzurePlanet]

Hi Nate! I prefer the portrait orientation because I find it more substantial. The sea surrounding Korachan is splitted in the landscape orientation, but I think it's important to show it as a whole. Also, as regards the insets, I noticed that you drew grid lines without numeric reference, however you've not finished with that, I guess.

[vorropohaiah]

I don't know if it helps (probably doesn't) but have you considered a rotation of 45º to 60º for the map, on a landscape orientation?... you wouldn't have north at the top, but...

I had tried that before, and posted quite a few WIP pics on the first pages of the thread though the general consensus was that most atlases avoid rotating the orientation even if it means getting a better fit in the page. I decided to follow that, so 1 longitude line in each map needs to be parallel to the page.

Hi Nate! I prefer the portrait orientation because I find it more substantial. The sea surrounding Korachan is splitted in the landscape orientation, but I think it's important to show it as a whole. Also, as regards the insets, I noticed that you drew grid lines without numeric reference, however you've not finished with that, I guess.

yeah, I've updated both the graticule and grid references since posting that. I;ve also added more labels to the inset maps and am starting work on the topography. fingers crossed

[vorropohaiah]

So here's my work so far on the topography. The world map will use a maximum of 10 levels of height, each representing 1-mile (the highest peak on Elyden is just under 8 miles (compared with 5.5 miles for Everest, keeping in mind that Elyden is larger, with slightly less gravity and, well, created by gods), though I may change this. So far the map below has 5 layers of elevation, so needs three more, though I need to revise the topography to make most of the map 'shallower' as it's turning out too high, given the limitation on hight I've set myself.

I have no idea how accurate or realistic my topographies are (if you spot anything wrong with them please let me know!), though I have to say I'm really enjoying making them. They are a bit time-consuming, especially as I need to try and make the map fit in with features and regions that are already established, though they're very relaxing to make! If anything I need to try and limit the amount of time I spend on them as I could get carried away, though hopefully, more time spent on the map means a better end product.

A note on the colour - these colours are just a temporary feature while I work on the map, and I have a few options in mind - colour gradient, just the topographical lines, or use the topographical lines to help me make a relief map in greyscale. I'd like to try all 3 options and see which fits in the best.

EDIT: the entire N-E part of the map is unfinished as yet - just the 'coastal' regions, so far. Also the attached map is larger than the Korachani maps in previous posts as I figured i might as well work on a larger area, in preparation for the next map.

Korachan - topography.jpg

I also settled on a portrait aspect with inset maps on the right, as shown below:

Korachan.jpg

[AzurePlanet]

I have no idea how accurate or realistic my topographies are (if you spot anything wrong with them please let me know!), though I have to say I'm really enjoying making them.

Hi Nate, I like very much your contours but I think you're getting an overall "too high" relief.

You can get an idea of how much your relief is realistic by having a look to the hypsographic curve of Earth's surface. Here you can see that the average land altitude is about 800 m, while the average ocean depth is about -3690 m. Furthermore, terrestrial mountains and oceanic trenches are very steep while their areas are small. This is also a good reason for chosing inhomogeneous levels of height for Earth, i.e. shorter levels (maybe 1/10 mile?) for representing low lands, and larger levels (1 mile or even more) for representing high lands.

Also, I noticed that some roads in your map reach very high altitudes, so far. This is definitely very inefficient.

Finally I observed many endorheic basins in your relief. On Earth these are mainly common in desertic regions.

May I ask you what method are you using to draw your contours?

[vorropohaiah]

Hi Nate, I like very much your contours but I think you're getting an overall "too high" relief.

You can get an idea of how much your relief is realistic by having a look to the hypsographic curve of Earth's surface. Here you can see that the average land altitude is about 800 m, while the average ocean depth is about -3690 m. Furthermore, terrestrial mountains and oceanic trenches are very steep while their areas are small. This is also a good reason for chosing inhomogeneous levels of height for Earth, i.e. shorter levels (maybe 1/10 mile?) for representing low lands, and larger levels (1 mile or even more) for representing high lands.

Thanks, that's actually one of the things i commented on in my post, that i need to go back and revise a lot of details. it's showing far too steep in most places and i want to get get down to 6 levels at most, if not 5. Would using inhomogeneous levels help?

Also, I noticed that some roads in your map reach very high altitudes, so far. This is definitely very inefficient.

that's actually something that I hadnt thought of. Some of them would be represented by tunnels in the final map, though there are some roads that are meant to pass through mountain passes, which would of course need to have lower elevations.

Finally I observed many endorheic basins in your relief. On Earth these are mainly common in desertic regions.

some of the basins are atramental (bad magic) wastelands. one of the effects in regions where the atramenta is strong is the weakening of stone, causing a lot of sinkholes that over time and large distances lead to such basins. Though that's just a partial explanation - i can easily remove some of them, which helps with the high relief.

May I ask you what method are you using to draw your contours?

um since i wanted more control over the creation imm just doing them by hand one layer at a time.

[AzurePlanet]

...Would using inhomogeneous levels help?...

As a result of using homogeneous levels, contour lines become too much gathered wherever the relief is very steep. So you could get rid of redundant contours by using inhomogeneous levels. That is, less contours wherever the relief is steep.

...some of the basins are atramental (bad magic) wastelands...

Oh! I didn't know the magic origin of those basins. So, if you need that they've to be there, no reason for removing them.

...um since i wanted more control over the creation imm just doing them by hand one layer at a time.

That's the same method I used for my USN's map. Certainly a great control over the creation, but alas! Very time consuming!

[vorropohaiah]

That's the same method I used for my USN's map. Certainly a great control over the creation, but alas! Very time consuming!

I feel your pain, but i do enjoy the process, much more than the labelling at least...

[vorropohaiah]

As per AzurePlanet's suggestions, I revised the topographical map:

insert topography.jpg

I still have a few levels left to go and I think I'll need to go back and make some of the mountain areas even shallower than they already are and touch up some areas to make them more interesting. I've been consulting my notes, checking that I don't stick a mountain in a plains area and think I'm pretty good though I still want to go over everything to make sure everything's ok.

[Pixie]

I thought I could share this with you..

It's a colored scheme I use to compare my hand-made relief, done using layers in the same way you are doing it, with a map of Earth (like I did here)

Elevation_reference (colorkey).png
(The arrows are the matches to my height levels, as you can see, it's not evenly spaced - inhomogenous)

[vorropohaiah]

The first map in my Atlas Elyden series is finished! Now to start work on the next...

Korachan.jpg

I spent far longer on the topography than I was hoping to but, I can justify it by saying I was working on a large area that sees the basis for around 6-8 maps largely done, so that will save me a lot of time in the future.

I updated the colour scheme, and went for a simpler scheme for the water (no wave lines any more), though there’s no topography for the water (yet… not sure if I want to do that for now, but its easily something that can be done at a later time). I still need to add some spot-heights (and depths) but they’re not essential to the map and can wait for later. I also had to go over the roads and paths to make them fit in with the elevation better (no roads in steep inclines, for instance).

I removed the greyed out ‘focus’ area in favour of a washed out near-greyscale background for areas outside the borders of the focus nation (in this case all lands not part of the nation of Korachan).

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the end result and am already on the Pelasgos map, which shouldn’t take too long now that I have the base ready. If I can keep up the pace I might try make some encyclopaedia entries for the regions I’ve finished.