Uncivilized Coastal Map

[Duvik]

Greetings folks, I found this guild by way of RPMillers sig image at www.rptools.net...

I figured I'd start off with a map I began work on this evening... I have all the major landscape features finished and am debating adding a few cities and trade roads but, I consider this map a finished product as it is now... though, it could use a compass rose methinks.

Ah well, I'll have to work on one of those next i figure.

edit: ya know... i take it back... those hills look atrocious on closer inspection... no way in hades this is finished yet...

Virgin Territory

[RPMiller]

Welcome!! Great to see you over here, and a great start.

Is that supposed to be a slightly isometric map or a top down map? I'm assuming the former. I would have to agree about the hills. They really look out of place with the rest of the map.

[heruca]

Love the color scheme.

[RPMiller]

I've been looking at the water trying to figure out how you did. I think it looks just perfect for river water. Would you mind sharing the process that you used?

[ravells]

Great start and agreed about the hills. Perhaps a better way to represent them would be not to have them outlined with black but to use deeper shades of green to suggest the shape but in a 'diagonal pencil sketch' way (if that makes any sense) as you have done for the trees.

Ravs

[Robbie]

One thing you could do for the hills is to use a dodge effect on the mass of the hills making them look raised and semi-3d...it would set it apart a little from the ground.

I as well like the color scheme.

[Duvik]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I'll try each technique tonight and see what happens.

So far as how I went about getting the water effects...

Well, it's only a single layer of pale blue with some effects added to it. I can get more specific on the actual settings later. I'd do it now but I'm on a different computer and can't refer to the psd.

The current like effect was made with a bit of patience and the Satin effect. I set it's contour to the stock setting available that looks like two little triangles. Then I just sat and alternated the scale and distance until it looked about right... I then turned the opacity down almost to nothing... prob around 10 or 20 percent if i recall.

Added a Bevel of nothing and the texture option that is only available if Bevel and Emboss is checked. ((The texture was the rusty red and black looking spread, it's good for many different terrains))

So far as the coastlines... there is a 10px border up and down each coastline that is on an upper layer and was used to select and cut out grass at an even distance all around. Then a mild Blur effect up and down each coast on the grassy layer sort of hid the hard edges.

A bit of outer and inner glow tweakings took care of merging coastline into mainland fairly well I think.

Those hills are killing me though... YARGH!!!!

Gotta get back to work

[Duvik]

Alrighty, managed to work a little on the hills and I think they look better now.

I also added some roads, field areas, a small spot where a mini port will be... and, some small access roads for fields.

The idea is for there to be a larger city in the middle of the river on the largest island.

There will be a bridge across the narrower part of river to the north of larger isle. The kingdom controls this major route and charges a toll for all who wish to use it.

More to come as i get time.

aww heck, forgot to filter it at end... ah well. here's the raw form with no final filtering effects added

[Duvik]

Well... you might have seen the other WIP I posted about following a tutorial on map making... well...

The techniques for making little terrain features apply just as well to color and... I finally got me some decent looking hills up there!!!

[RPMiller]

There you go! Now that has reached a whole nother level. Well done.