My first attempt in GIMP

[johnvanvliet]

just for fun. and to half way ignore prime time tv , i made a quick height map ( needs work- just a quick map) then rendered it in blender



some of the work done in wilbur the rest using grass and "r.terraflow"

[Straf]

Oh wow! That shows me exactly how the land drains. It's also making me rethink some of my topography. For example the isolated mountain in the middle looks like a volcano and that doesn't makes sense. I may remove that and opt for some gentler slopes. The range at the north of The Split peninsula thing doesn't look right either.

Did you get Wilbur to run in Wine?

[Mouse]

That's really beautiful, John

Straf - a fantasy world doesn't have to follow all the rules, you know. And I wouldn't remove any mountains, or things could get a bit flat and boring down south. Instead, what about adding more to link the existing isolated bumps to make a nice exciting chain of mountains? Perhaps they divide one or more factions? They could also harbour dangerous animals and bandits or guerrilla fighters

[Straf]

You're right about suspending belief of course Mouse, but when it's the author refusing to suspend his belief who just so happens to cohabit the cranium of the cartographer...

You know those mountains in the north? Well what lies beyond them is a mystery to most as nobody can get past them to see. The closer you get the more you forget where you were going and why.

I did think about adding more mountains to the land but then thought about all the shading I'd have to do and my wrist ached at the prospect. I think the music I should be listening to is Donovan "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."

Anyway I think I'm going to take today off. There's a break in the weather so I'm going to take advantage of it. I'm just trying to decide where to go - scheduled monument or ancient woodland?


EDIT: As soon as I mentioned the weather the sky clouded over and the wind started howling. Oh well, maybe later...

[johnvanvliet]

i have wilbur 1.85 32 bit running on the development 1.9 wine ( multi lib)


i did have some trouble with "Visual Studio 2015 redistributable package" ,had to install the 64 bit for the 32 bit wilbur
-- i always have had issues with MS software

the other is linux native "GRASS 7 " ( qgis uses grass and is installed with it)

[Straf]

That VS 2015 part was what stopped me even trying it. I could practically feel my kernel preparing to panic when I was reading it.

Can you load fantasy maps into GIS? I thought it was more for geospatial data collected in the field.

[johnvanvliet]

you can but they need to be georeferenced

not too hard most of the time

[Straf]

you can but they need to be georeferenced

not too hard most of the time

Ah yes, of course, georeferencing.

Pssst, can someone tell me what it is?

I'm assuming it's matching something on a map to something on another map so that the 3D coordinates can be synchronised? Sort of like a benchmark. In the UK we have these benchmark symbols all over the shop where there's a known elevation. I guess a couple of people were sent out from sea level every so far and surveyed the land, chiselling the symbol into a wall or a kerb or something and then writing down the elevation. I remember learning about them *cough* years ago before I swapped civil engineering for chemistry because the explosions were prettier.

Anyway, I'm posting an update to the map here but I'm still not finished the mountains at the top. The shading is taking quite a lot of time up. If it looks alright I'll continue. If it looks wrong I'll try something else.

new kassandria.jpg

[Mouse]

The shading looks great, Straf

I'm wondering, though, when the rivers, forests, towns and roads might start to reappear

EDIT: Maybe you're cooking up an explosion of them for us - like fireworks?

[Abu Lafia]

Hey Straf, i really welcome your idea to skip the mountain brushes and draw them yourself. I hope the points i'm going to make are encouraging to keep you on this track, since the progress is clearly visible already throughout the posts. Nonetheless, i think you were focussing a bit too much on things like linewidth/color, canvas size, etc. Not to say one should not spent some time thinking about these things (i know that all too well! ), but as with rivers for example, there are some things to keep in mind when drawing mountains.
The first thing that comes to my mind is, that both sides of a drawn mountain should rest on the same horizontal line. Otherwise the ground itself can look twisted. The best way to achieve it easily, is to work with the grid function in your program (at least in gimp it's called this way) or by having an extra (overlay-)layer with a grid on it.
The most instructive (and regarding the outcome, i'd say also most encouraging) thread about this and many more things regarding mountains in my view is this one here. Especially Xpian's wonderful tips are one of the most condensed kind of "checklist" regarding potential problems with freehand mountains, so i will repost it here.


(well, i often and deliberately ignore point 4 )

Nearly everyday someone is showing a new/different way of depicting mountains on a map and i strongly disagree with the idea of the "one and only way" to draw them (ofc the same goes for rivers, forests, etc.). The collection of wonderful tutorials to draw mountains for maps in this forum alone is huge, and here are some of my personal favourites (i copied from a thread where i listed them before), which are also covering the things shown by Xpian above, but also many tips about shading/lighting etc:
Torstan's Mountain Tutorial(s) might be THE reference, a lot of useful information about shading included.
Xpian made a wonderful series of video tuorials lately. Very informative and he covers different styles of mountains (Torstan's too).
Max's mountains are (as his whole work / style) a thing many people are looking up to (me included ) and orient themselves on here at the guild.

For shading mountains, besides the tutorials above, for me J. Edwards hints and tips on shading mountains on one of my maps was really helpful, so i made a mini tutorial from it.

Please don't feel overwhelmed by all this stuff, i just think in some cases one can profit from the experience of others (isn't that what this whole forum is all about? ) and everyone is in some way or another "standing on the shoulders of giants".
I hope it helps you with working further on your mountains.

EDIT: sorry, the attached image got a bit out of control....