Askath: Continents

[Mouse]

Oh wow! yes it has been a while. I admit that I quite forgot about that comment I made in the interval.

I can see a lot of work has been done here, and the whole thing is looking so much better

I hope I don't offend by saying this, but I prefer the atlas style of the two. I think the lat and long lines might be a bit thick and bright on the first one. How about toning them down to a colour that is only a few shades above the palest blue of the ocean, and making them so thin that they are only just visible?

The labels look a lot better than before, but they are still a bit large, and would be just as legible if slightly smaller, and the letters were more spaced out (perhaps with nearly a whole letter space between them?)

Both these things are only suggestions, however. A lot depends on personal taste

[woodb3kmaster]

No worries, Mouse. I agree that the grid lines on the first map are thicker and brighter than they really need to be, and the labels are generally oversized (and, once again, brighter then necessary). The tests I've done on improving those two things are showing some promise, and I imagine I'll have another WIP in that style to show before long that reflects those tests.

For now, though, I decided to work on elaborating my "atlas" style by revisiting the continental map of Matlas:

matlas-contour-wip01.png

I'm not completely sold on my chosen elevation colors and am open to suggestions for better ones. The example maps I looked at were less help than I'd hoped, simply because they used so many different color ramps. C&C on any other part of the map is also welcome.

[Mouse]

The green and fawn at either end of the scale are fine. Its the sheer intensity of the yellow that's making it look a bit sickly.

If you give me a few minutes I'll see if I can adjust it a bit and show you a suggested alternative palette

You could try combining these two ready made palettes from ColorBrewer

This is a hacked around screen shot I took of the two that are probably closest to what you already have. I gave you the link so you could go and choose for yourself and download the palette(s) directly (I don't use GIMP so I couldn't do that for you).

Screen shot colours.JPG

Although the yellow that appears on the way to the fawn/brown appears deceptively bright here, its a lot less saturated and lemon coloured than the one you currently have.

And here's an even better one where the colours are ready made divergent

better colours.JPG

[Mouse]

I've just discovered something wonderful....

[woodb3kmaster]

Now that is just plain awesome, Mouse! I had no idea a gradient repository this big existed. This is truly something wonderful, and a find that deserves rep.

I ended up choosing the current Wikipedia gradient for elevation, which is the closest to what I was aiming for with my homemade gradients. Here it is, applied to two continental maps:

ahsam-contour-wip01.jpg matlas-contour-wip02.png

The ocean colors come from the same gradient and are really just placeholders for the real depths, which I have yet to determine.

To make the labels and gridlines stand out less, I used more moderate colors with them and set their blend mode to Hard Light, which lets a bit of the underlying color show through. I think the effect is quite nice, but anyone is welcome to share their own opinions on it. I've also become very adept at putting labels on curved paths; I find that gentle curves make the labels look better.

[Mouse]

Thanks woodb3kmaster

And as for the improvements...

WOW! That's fantastic. These look real - as in, this is a real world you've been hiding away from the rest of us all this time

This one stage in the development of your world shows more than ever the sheer power of colour, and how important it is to get it right.

[woodb3kmaster]

Than you so much, Mouse! That's a huge compliment. It certainly is incredible to see just how much of a difference the right color palette can make. And to think it might not have happened (at least this quickly) without your chance discovery!

As part of my current round of mapmaking, I've been going back and refining my heightmaps so that they have a realistic amount of detail for their scale. Mostly this has meant adding a bunch of noise to the mountains and running one erosion pass after another until I'm satisfied with the result, but the results have been getting better and better. I'm especially pleased with how detailed the mountains on Khalsim are now - as you can see on my latest topo map WIP:

khalsim-contour-wip01.jpg

The updated satellite-style map isn't looking so bad, either, IMO:

khalsim_wip02.jpg

If y'all have any comments, suggestions, or the like, I'd love to read them. Compared to many of you here, I'm still fairly new to making maps of this quality.

[zhar2]

Wow colour me impressed.

[Pixie]

Hey there.

You are indeed achieving a good balance in terms of color (in my humble opinion, that is) and your continents are increasingly realistic. But, you will soon, if you haven't yet, hit a wall... That's how much you can do with Wilbur. Wilbur works wonders and it is truly an achievement for mankind (at least, the part of mankind that does fictional mapping as a hobby), but it works well only for regional to local sized maps.

This is because it lacks some important aspects of the erosion process - mainly sediment deposition and variations in rock hardness. That's why Wilbur will never give you meanders, swamps and deltas, nor lakes and waterfalls.

I have tried to use Wilbur for continental maps, just like you are using, and I got a bit frustrated about it. But if I had the time/energy, here are some things I would do if I was to go back at using it at this scale:
- create "rain" maps and use them as masks when applying erosion
- create "icy/snowy/glacier" maps and use them as masks for some very deep erosion
- create "rock hardness" maps and use them as masks to apply random "up" noise
- create "lowlands" maps and use them to apply a smoothing "add" operation of a few meters every rain cycle
- create "desert wind-drive erosion" maps and use them as masks to apply a smooth/flatten effect like the actual effect of the wind on dry regions

All these and a tremendous number of very-light-on-their-effect cycles could probably turn results like yours (impressive at first sight, but quite repetitive when it comes to features on a continent) into something closer to reality.

In the meanwhile, something simpler you can do is simply to add more geological features to your continents - strings of mountain chains (small and large), plateaus (normally, one side of a mountain range is higher than the other, and very commonly, a plateau) - and to put some more effort in respecting general climate tendencies (river based erosion is hardly noticeable in the tropical desert areas, closer to poles you will have mountains eroded almost to sea level in channels, because of the glaciers).

Having said all this, I hope I didn't come out too negative. I appreciate your effort and am genuinely interested in where it will lead to. Keep it up!

[Sir Mikolai]

Oh my. I must say, I am very impressed with the way you did all of this. I sorta had an idea of combining a bunch of mine like this. But I have no clue how to do any of that haha. Excellent work though!