Union World Map [WIP]

[handsome_unlimited]

Yeah... cancel that. Northern hemisphere lows should be anticlockwise, and southern hemisphere lows should be clockwise. This is very painful.

[handsome_unlimited]

I have no idea what I'm doing. Can anyone see anything wrong with the prevalent winds I've drawn up for northern winter?

Prevalent Winds Winter.jpg

[handsome_unlimited]

Summer Prevalent Winds (it's not good but any more will drive me insane). PS, see if you can spot the hidden message in the map!

Prevalent Winds Summer.jpg

[Charerg]

If you're doing the climate, I suggest that you start by working out the oceanic circulation first. Here's a suggestion (red=warm current, cyan=cold current, green=neutral current):

Union WMap Currents.png

Now, if you take a look on Earth's climate, you'll note that there is a strong feedback loop between the oceanic and atmospheric circulation. When you have the cold Canary Current moving equatorwards, you can expect an oceanic high pressure center to appear (the Azores High). I'm not an expert, but I think the reason why the subtropical high pressure centers always form at the eastern margins of an ocean is also due to the fact that the cold currents tend to trail the eastern edges of the ocean (in subtropical latitudes).

Here's a map based on the prior oceanic currents, showing the location of the more-or-less permanent major pressure centers (orange=high pressure, blue=low pressure):

Union WMap Pressures.png

I should note that I've omitted the ITCZ in the pressure map, because the exact location varies seasonally. But it's essentially a continuous low pressure belt located approximately at the equator.

In your case, the "Polar Cell" would effectively have little seasonal variance, because there are barely any landmasses above the 45 latitude in either hemisphere. Essentially you'd have a (relatively weak, because there are no polar landmasses) high pressure center on each pole, and a continuous low pressure belt around it (like the one that surrounds Antarctica on Earth).

[handsome_unlimited]

@Charerg: Thankyou thankyou thankyou! Immensely helpful! Have some rep!

As a sidenote, I may be taking the map in a completely different direction soon, which will minimise the need for "earth-like" climate zones. I was doing a bit of reading over my world setting and realised there may actually be something to gain from embracing the idea of a flat world, but we'll see how I go.

[Charerg]

If you stick to the Earth-like climate, I should add that the subtropical high pressure centers also fluctuate seasonally (they're approximately north of 30 during northern summer, and migrate south of 30 during northern winter, although this is just a rule of thumb). The seasonal fluctuation results in Mediterranean climates (dry summers, rainy winters) appearing on the polewards margins of the subtropical high pressure centers (on the western coasts of continents, basically next to the centers). The map I posted is essentially just to demonstrate the approximate location of the pressure centers, and also to visualize the connection between their location and the oceanic circulation.

[handsome_unlimited]

So here's where I'm at: although far from perfect, I'm satisfied with the grayscale shaded relief. However, my biggest problem has come in colouring. Every combination of layer styles I've tried so far has given awful results - nothing like the beautiful, low-saturation palette I'm aiming to imitate from Ilanthar's style. I'm finding it almost impossible to integrate the shaded relief layer without completely destroying the colour.

Failed attempts so far have included:
-shaded relief as overlay, "normal" colour underneath
-shaded relief as multiply, "normal" colour underneath
-hue/saturation/colour/ etc colour layers, "normal" shaded relief layer underneath

Am I missing an obvious solution to this? The closest thing to success that I'd found was using Hue/Saturation layers with layer masks and selecting the "colorize" option.

BTW for reference, here is the grayscale shaded relief landmasses (ignore the "ocean" background; it's just a placeholder for the moment)

shaded relief.jpg

Thanks in advance for any and all help provided.
-

[Ilanthar]

Well, I did use two layers for the shaded relief. Twice the same layer, one at multiply 100% on top of one at multiply 25%. It helped to add some more contrast.
For colors, I used one layer with a "strong light" effect at 35% opacity.
That being said... it also depends of the paper background (if you have one). In my case, the paper had its own color, so it played a part in the final colors... Anyway, it's a matter of tests and ajdustments (layer/layer effect/opacity) until you find something satisfying.

[BlindBlake]

Wow, you really thought about every aspect of your world, this is impressive!
Usually I stick the shaded relief underneath everything on the map, then I add features on top and choose the right blending mode. I found that snowy part looks good with incrustation and other with multiply... Well sometimes a hue/saturation layer can be useful to ease the colours. Anyway, there are probably better way to do that, but I don't know them

[handsome_unlimited]

Well, I did use two layers for the shaded relief. Twice the same layer, one at multiply 100% on top of one at multiply 25%. It helped to add some more contrast.
For colors, I used one layer with a "strong light" effect at 35% opacity.
That being said... it also depends of the paper background (if you have one). In my case, the paper had its own color, so it played a part in the final colors... Anyway, it's a matter of tests and ajdustments (layer/layer effect/opacity) until you find something satisfying.

@Ilanthar: Thankyou so much! I'm going to play around with some settings now. And yeah, I'm definitely going to need to find a good parchment background. I should have started with one, but I haven't been following my usual workflow this time around... trying new things and all.