[Award Winner] My atlas style in PS

[Aenigma]

You know what? I'll just do everything from the beginning, veeeery slowly

[Ascension]

I was thinking that myself as I was writing my previous post But I hate to tell folks to start over.

[Gidde]

I'm sorry Hohum, I missed your post there and my translation pdf disappeared with the rest of my attachments in my bonehead deletion move last week. Here it is again:

[Torius]

Could Gidde's conversion of this method to GIMP be linked on the master Tutorials thread? Thanks

[DracoDragon]

Hey there Ascension and everyone else. I'm currently having an issue with the water elevation, specific step 42-44 on the Shelf Layer. My water doesn't look like the screen shot provided basically. I was wonder if there is a step or something I'm missing from the tutorial. Thanks in advanced!

Also, where do you get the starts with circles around them to note a capital city?

[Ascension]

The reason is that you deleted the area that is supposed to be the shelf and left the area that is open sea. So when you bevel it it will look backward. The continental shelf is made of land so think of it as an enlarged landmass and not a hole.

[DracoDragon]

Thanks. I have found where I made the error and fixed it! Wootness.

[Sinastir]

I tried this tutorial to make my first map. I had a hard time following a few things (maybe because I use cs4 ext?) but I think I pulled through. I'll post the result here, but I think I will start up a WIP thread as well.

Thanks for the great tutorial!

[Valtharius]

Ascension.... you are nothing short of a miracle worker! Thank you so much for this great tutorial! This is my first time using Photoshop for a project (other than cropping pictures of the kids and grandkids lol) and the steps were easy to understand.

My original post was from quite a while ago... WIP - Argontath. Between the time of my computer burning out and picking up a decent laptop I trolled the forums on my iPhone and gleaned what I could from the work you and others have done. I must have read and re-read your tutorial a hundred times.

I worked out a preliminary map and played around with the tutorial until I was comfortable with it. Then I started five maps (of the six continents) at the same time and followed the steps 3 or 4 at a time. Once I was on the third map I was more comfortable and working much quicker. I took to heart what you said about the tutorial not being a bible and to play around with the settings. It took a bit of courage, but I screwed with the continental shelves and the effect looks a bit different. I am happy with the effect. I am going to sit down and figure out the river system now. Now that I am somewhat comfortable I will most likely re-do the maps in a much larger size to apply more detail, but I wanted to share what I have done so far.

Lantier (1100x1100) is an undiscovered and uninhabited continent to the north of the continent of Khaitaer-Ypriss. Perhaps there are ruins of an ancient civilization?

Tathis (2600x2600) is the eastern continent and one of the two primary continents for my world (in terms of where the campaign characters are from). The western regions are explored and inhabited. the far eastern and far southern reaches are unexplored territory.

Kaitan (1200x1200) is a continent to the far south east and unknown to the 'civilized' world. Its inhabitants are a feral race hell-bent on conquering whatever lands they find. They are just starting to explore the world in which the players live... and will not hesitate to make their presence known.

Khaitaer-Ypriss (2600x2600) is the western continent and one of the two primary continents for my world (in terms of where the campaign characters are from). The northern continent of Khaitaer is inhabited in the western and eastern regions. The central region is ringed by mountains that holds a vast swampland-jungle. The southern continent of Yppris is largely unexplored territory and inhabited by bands of tribesman.

Ascalon (1600x1600) is an unknown continent to the far northeast. It holds thriving and ancient civilizations that are largely disinterested with outward expansion and focus more on their maintaining their borders with the other countries in their part of the world.


Thank you again Ascension for everything you have taught me!

~Val

[Ascension]

Ah I see, you have a much more subtle shelf...looks good. The one thing to watch out for is the gradient overlay that puts the colors in (the land layer I think) so unless those two lands on the left are near the poles you might want to tweak the gradient. You have some nice looking shapes going on and that's like the second thing that people notice after colors...so far so good. And thanks for the props, it's what I do - teach.

edit: never mind what I said about the gradient, saw your other post and everything checks out just fine.