Arin - World Map

[Arrant]

Hey guys! I hope all goes well for you guys!

Let me introduce myself, and it's a pleasure to be among you guys and gals.

Obviously I'm a new guy, I've been quietly lurking these forums for probably the last half year or so, when I got it in my head that I wanted to officially start making a better reference map for my Fantasy world. Then by way of Search engine I ended up here. I immediately started devouring tutorials I found most interesting and relevant to what I wanted my map to look like. Namely the Arsheesh tutorials and map style became a focal point of the design.

A few idea's from other tutorials like the Ascension Atlas Maps, an Realistic Mountain walk through, became relevant to create my world to very degree's.

This was the first real foray I had into map making of this type and while I had some basic understanding of Photoshop, these tutorial's taught me lot bit more. Not that I think I'm anywhere near good as the people mentioned above or even could be. I did a few hand drawn maps several years back but maps of this complexity where new to me.

The rest of my free time is devoted to my Dog, and Writing.

Initially when I started work on my map, I grew a bit tired and despondent with it, and approached Arsheesh about a commission. He unfortunately didn't have time, at the time, and I was at a lack of funds anyway; so sadly It never went further than his email back to me. To that I apologize immensely to Arsheesh for just leaving you with your return email and not getting back to you. However his return email got me thinking about things, and I let my world rest for a few months before last month in a frenzy I began work again. The outcome was what you will see bellow.

Anyway without further ado, this is ARIN (Said: ARE - en)*. I'm sure I committed a number of mistakes from desert region mistakes to rivers or more.

That being said, please be honest, I've come for critiques and ideas on ways to improve it. Though it is still very much a work in progress. Specific land oriented details will be harder to fix, as I would need to redesign the whole map layer then re-gradient them all, but if there is a strong enough specific need it can be done. I'm also still not entirely finished adding rivers, or necessarily set on the clement regions. Those however can be easily shifted and changed.

*Reading it aloud might make you think I intentionally want to make you say 'are in'. However when that name materialized in my conciseness out of a desire for simple pronounceable words like 'Earth, and Mars'; Arin had the shortest and most elegant ring to it in my ears.

Obviousely this is a heavy work in progress. Labeling is barely begun, and I haven't even addressed where the cities are yet. Formally.

Empty Arin.jpg

Political Zones Arin.jpg

Here is some additional information for people that care about that stuff. If not feel free to by pass this:

Document Specifics:
These files are technically from a larger overall design (which probably contributed to my eventual exhaustion on the project many months ago). The original document is 16000x8000px. Even this cropped image is from a 8000x8000. Eventually I designed Id focus primarily on the continents that would play the most of a roll in my Story, an decided to leave the other unexplored area's for if I ever needed them. Though I have a rough shape and design for those landmasses ready and waiting.

Author side information:
Arin is about 1 3/4th's the size of Earth, an orbits its white-yellow sun at about the midpoint of its systems Goldilocks Zone. Despite its size, and Orbit, it has a rotational speed and yearly time table about the same as Earths. This is mostly because Arin is a honey combed world, thus its mass is lighter than a planet of equal size. Flaws in my logic aside there are other reasons for this as well.

Arin is an old world, with the majority of its geological activity having gone dormant, or proceeded so deep down that it's no longer easily recognizable. There are a few remaining hotspots that flare form time to time, but for the most part the world has stabilized in its current shape. Not that the passage of human time frames will ever notice that information.

She also has three Satellites, One Large tidal locked moon known as Meva that acts as Arin's stabilizing force so she doesn't spin wildly on her axis, and 2 smaller moons, Yuva and Murn that orbit her further out. Because of this Arin's tides are often unpredictable and fierce. Meva is consistently in the night sky, while Yuva, and Murn will grace the night sky every few months of a year. The yearly cycle is generally marked when all three moons align in the night sky in a certain order. Meva at the center of the sky, with Yuva above and Murn respectively below it.

I'm personally still trying to figure out a way to get those rotations to work properly, and honestly I'm not sure it's even doable but, if that's the case; then as much as I want it to be achieved realistically, I might just employ the old adage, 'Magic' did it.


World Information:
Arin is a savage often unforgiving world, home to three major adopted Races; The Evaya, the Ithparin, and the Bahar. Along with them, there are the Dragon-Born and their Dragon progenitors; they are the only two species that can claim their ancestry is derived from Arin. Beyond that there are also the Remnant, who make up what could be considered the monsters and uncivilized humanoid like creatures of the world. There exact origins are unknown, but anything from small tribes, to entire hordes of them have plagued the surface of Arin. They are a ever constant threat to bastions of the Evaya, Ithparin and Bahar.

What exactly the Remnant are is a bit of a perplexing question, they are made up of many different species and primitive creatures with no seeming society. Yet they all however seem to come from 'Rinth'. Though no one knows exactly how the 'Rinth' came to be, and now large it is, it is often only spoken of in whispers. Some believe it is a underground cave system spans the entire world, while others think its meandering tunnels are a gateway to the Abyss. Whatever the case may be, the one sure thing is that the Remnant live and breed in force there. An those that have entered the few opening that exist on the surface of Arin have never returned.

Many things press against the boarders of the Evaya, Ithparin and Bahar lands. Including the beasts of Arin. As if the Remant were not bad enough, the wild creatures of Arin are no more forgiving. From the wild Drakes and beasts, that make pushing forward a chore, to the massive Leviathans and Krakens that punish the sea faring, the fight for survival even on going.

While great progress has been made to civilized the lands these races call home over the centuries, it is an ever constant struggle to keep those wilds at bay. For most it is a fact of life, the constant struggle along the border lands. An the ever present knowledge that no matter how much they push forward and the territory the claim, Evaya, Ithparin, and Bahar all know it could be lost in moments.

Such is the nature of Arin. Yet for all she takes from them, what she gives back is plentiful. Life is not easy, but those that persist, are ever rewarded for it.


***
Side note. Is there a good way to deal with attachments? Seems either my files are too big and I need to shrink them to a much smaller size or I need to rely on a alternate file hosting system. Any thoughts on that?

[Chick]

Hi Arrant! Welcome to the Guild!

You have a very nice map here, especially for a first one. If you are about to do rivers, you might want to read these tutorials, if you haven't already:

How to Get Your Rivers in the Right Place: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=3822

and

The Most Common Reality Errors: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ad.php?t=30156

One of the problems with the Atlas style of maps is that the mountains are just randomly scattered around, instead of being in good ranges, but yours don't look too bad, and they are certainly nicely done.

The colors are great, and the texturing is very nice. I especially like the desert!

Great job overall, and looking forward to seeing more as you develop it

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Arrant! I'm glad to see that you decided to take the plunge into map-making yourself. For a first attempt this turned out very nicely The colors are great and the mountains look like mountains.

I do have a few bits of constructive criticism for you. First, you have a large river which spans the entire lower continent. Apart from intelligent intervention (i.e. in the form of say carving out a canal) rivers do not do this. There is a helpful thread here if you'd like to read up more about the do's and don'ts of creating rivers.

Second, the contrast between hills and valleys is pretty stark. This is probably due to the cloud pattern. Though it may be too late to correct in the current piece, in future maps I'd recommend spending more time blending the land cloud layer, covering over these areas of contrast a bit more so that they are not so stark.

Third, it may just be my monitor, but the sea looks really dark, almost black. A lighter hue might help.

That said you ought to be proud of what you've accomplished here! Great work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Arrant]

Hey guys, thank you for the Replys and the welcome.

Firstly I will have to look over those tutorials for rivers. They will probably help a lot.

Welcome to the Guild Arrant! I'm glad to see that you decided to take the plunge into map-making yourself. For a first attempt this turned out very nicely The colors are great and the mountains look like mountains.

I do have a few bits of constructive criticism for you. First, you have a large river which spans the entire lower continent. Apart from intelligent intervention (i.e. in the form of say carving out a canal) rivers do not do this. There is a helpful thread here if you'd like to read up more about the do's and don'ts of creating rivers.

Second, the contrast between hills and valleys is pretty stark. This is probably due to the cloud pattern. Though it may be too late to correct in the current piece, in future maps I'd recommend spending more time blending the land cloud layer, covering over these areas of contrast a bit more so that they are not so stark.

Third, it may just be my monitor, but the sea looks really dark, almost black. A lighter hue might help.

That said you ought to be proud of what you've accomplished here! Great work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thank you for the comments Arsheesh, It was you who promoted me to continue. Any color credit goes to you, as I pulled the colors from your tutorials, I just made adjustments and played with dials to get them to work well. Its funny you mention the sea color, its actually a color I pulled from your tutorial as well, I originally had a much lighter blue, but changed it out not to long ago for the one in there. Even before you said anything I was a bit hit or miss on it. I both like it and wonder if I should go lighter. I can see the hints of blue on my screen but its a very deep navy blue almost black as you said even there. I dont doubt the web color might have hit it harder then I should it would, but regardless I might see if I can find a nice between of the two.

I did kind of have some questions for you. When adapting your tutorial to my designs I noticed that gradient fill did not work as intended for me. If the lighting or shadows off the mountains were to light or dark on the BUMP, it would fill them with white, or the next closest dark color, rather then ad-hearing to the Height scale. It wwould end up looking like a hot mess.

The way I found to combat this was to take the unaltered height map, and apply the gradient to that. Then Create a new layer from that, and hide the working items, and Hard Light colored height map onto the BUMP bellow it. That was the only way I could keep the gradients coherent to the mountains. I wonder if there was a step I over looked, or if perhaps my design was just altered enough that the normal gradient method simply didn't work. Ultimately I've wondered if I did something wrong.

An your right about the valleys. I did what I could my creating alternate height layers with the colors tweaked so I would get more of a lighter color to sort of blend those valleys better. Sadly It didn't work as well as I had hoped.

I've decided I'm going to go back and rework that. It will take time, but not as much as the first time I did it. The absent minded person that I am, deleted my gradient layers so I will have to redo those, but I set up the work compartmentalized enough that I can go back make alterations, and I shouldn't take to much time doing so. Though I cant save the gradients exactly and will have to spend time toying with those again, I will be able salvage the layer masks and transfer them to the new gradient maps. So that's a little time saved.

Most of what I'm doing from your tutorial I've adapted to photoshop. Ive used GIMP, though I find it very cumbersome in a lot of respects, however one feature that I find fantastic is it bump map feature. That's about the only time I go to Gimp without hesitation, is to create new BUMPs off a height map. I cant figure out how to get a similar function in photo shop without jumping a lot of hoops. Though I will admit probably some of my problem with it is the fact I am more use to Photoshop then I am to it. All that is besides the point though.

Again thank you guys for your time, and the welcome.