My Map and need advice

[Midgardsormr]

Midgar I was wondering though since a chapter is only available for download, what else is actually in that book? do you know?

I flipped through it once in the local game shop, but I didn't have any money at the time, so I didn't buy it. From what I recall, it was a top-down design manual for world-building. You start with geology, determine climate and topology from that, then build the ecologies, which leads into what kinds of cultures will grow up in those environments. It also talks about what sorts of things you should expect to change when you introduce magic into the system.

The other book, Magical Medieval Western Europe, goes into economic and political systems, and how they might be different in a world with overt magic. I really need to get around to buying both those books--they're very well done.

In any case, the sample chapters are well worth reading. I can't think of another company that's put so much good and useful info into their freebie sample chapters.

[Beowulf]

Well, I do really like your work, Yandor. Mine was a minor quibble, overall I like it. And Insania is really neat- I like the "shattered" look of it. By chance was it inspired by the Helloween song "Twighlight of the Gods"?

[pyrandon]

Congrats, Yandor: your post has surely generated interest--and all in one day! Nice!!

Good luck trying to achieve your desired effects (and emulating Jared's map--a lofty goal!) I do have to suggest you not put in politcal boundaries until much later in the worldbuilding process; it is very, very typical that borders follow geographical lines as much as political lines.

Otherwise, I look forward to following your progress!

[Yandor]

Beowulf thanks for the complements, and isania wasn't inspired by anything other then prior map drawnings. We can say it was inspired by that song though , to be honest when I draw maps , I just sit down grab a pencil and start drawing wavy lines, after getting the continents connected, I go back and fix lines, redraw parts of the continent that just seem weird or could look better if an inlet was there or some gulf etc haha so no inspiration other then drawing a map is used

And Midgar I think I'll join you in buying that book, I read over the chapter and yeah good stuff

Pyrandon thanks hehe I am surprised to get this big of response too, and I'm greatful people are willing to place interest in it. And yeah Jared's maps are a huge goal, but might as well aspire to something useful right? and the only reason why I made the borders and what not was to help me get the feel of the cities, Kingdoms, nations etc and other things I needed so I could start with the general outline of my book. I made a vague map with few details at first to help work with my book, then the whole cartography interest took hold and well now I am here

[Yandor]

despite my anti shadow relief idea, haha I started to mess with the idea, the results so far... not really that "good" but gotta start somewhere

[RobA]

The one issue I see in maps made this way (my own included) is that the mountains are really just sitting on top of a pancake of land... Like this:

___A_______

And it doesn't work like that in the real world. Here is a cross section diagram (not to scale) through North America that I dug up through google:


See how the elevation changes gradually across the entire continent? This is the type of profile you need to try and duplicate.

-Rob A>

[Yandor]

yup yup, I was going to mess with that today when I got back from my history class, I just made the mountains and didn't bother messing with river/lakes, or for that matter the plains areas... but thanks RobA! I would of just randomly did it, but that should help out

[pyrandon]

The real question is: short of a 3-D app OR assigning colors to heights, how does one achive that non-lumpy effect? How do you convincingly show some land is higher than others, etc.? It's ironic that I'm working on a map right now that faces this same issue now; I'll let you know if I can help--and I'll be checking back to see if you can solve it for me!

[RobA]

Don -

It is a big problem with many maps that try to look shaded relief or photorealistic. The mountains just stand out like lumps.

If I come up with a good solution, I'll drop a hint or two...

-Rob A>

[pyrandon]

What I'm finding in my current shaded-relief play is that the shadows are the key: eliminate all shadows on one side of the ridge and it will look like a drop off; it even helps to over-exaggerate the shadows on the ridge-side and the lower elevations below. Additionally, if you darken ever so slightly the color of the entire lower elevations, the land will seem "lower", I think, for the eye wants to see the brighter surfaces as higher up. This is my fledgling opinion to date! I'll post examples of what I mean when I get to my home computer.