a short first post

[Anna]

Hi everyone

I just found this wonderful site and had to say hello

This site is something I’ve been dreaming of a long time and I have found something even better.

I’ve been into fantasy map making as a hobby for a long time. Being a Greyhawk fan meant that I had to make maps of the Flanaess.

I have a thread on Canonfire where you can see and download my work.

http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modu...ewtopic&t=1966

Thanks again for this great site


Anna

[megrim]

Welcome! i am fairly new as well. Nice maps, maps of the f lanaess then you must be into dnd, me too! but i am more fanatic of the forgotten realms. What did you use to make such textures?

[ravells]

Welcome Anna!

Such beautiful maps! The wealth of detail is amazing and your colour choices are stunning. I am sure that you'll find a lot here of interest and that you can teach us all how to improve.

I would love to know what applications you use and how you go about the process of making your maps.

Lovely work and welcome again!

ravells

p.s. If you are interested in taking a break from Greyhawk, check out our July competition thread! Your style of mapping would make a great entry.

[Torq]

Welcome Anna. I think you will find the atmosphere and helpfulness of the prople on this board to be a big plus.

I love your maps. Can you tell us how you achieved those great mountain textures/bump maps? What software do you use? I have been trying my best to get a similar mountain effect, but I havn't been able to get there.

Torq

[Anna]

Thanks for such a welcome, a freindly and cheerful community indeed!

The software I use are Corel apps like PhotoPaint, Painter and CorelDraw and Bryce 5.5 and 6.

The terrain is made and rendered using Bryce, but the textures are made using PhotoPaint (it has a great function to render fills). The rendered pics from Bryce are then put together and edited in PhotoPaint and Painter.

The final map are made in CorelDraw along with all the symbols, heraldry etc.
I work in 600dpi in the whole process to be able to make hi quality prints.

My plan is to make the whole Flaness this way, which will take 3 years or so. I'm also working on city, dungeon maps and terrain renderings of Greyhawk.

Thanks again for your interest

Anna

[Robbie]

Wow, that is some amazing work, and definitely welcome to the site.

As you're developing those maps we'd love for you to take advantage of our WIP/Critique forum and based on the interest your style is generating, feel free to jump in and create some workflow/tutorial posts in the tutorial/how-to forum as well!

Amazing stuff!

[RPMiller]

Not one to jump on the bandwagon usually, but wow! Yes, I have to concur with all the above sentiments. You have some really great looking maps there!

And as I always have to give some criticism to help growth, I had to look hard and long, but I found something. Bare in mind these are nitpicks:

• The ocean needs to better match the land. The gradients that it has now are a bit jarring when compared to the absolute beauty of the land. Perhaps a water texture or a higher level of blurring would remedy that.

• Some of your text especially over the marches and landmarks require zooming in a great deal to make out the words. Perhaps a better contrasting color would give them more pop.

Ok, I've done my worst.

[Razor767]

Well, since I've seen Anna's stunning maps before, I'll take credit for posting the link to cartographersguild on the thread I saw them on first.

http://www.wrath.co.za/support/viewforum.php?f=21

*takes a bow*

I just knew with her caliber of work, she'd be an awesome addition over here.

P.S.
Anna, my login over there is Sandy Britches.

[ravells]

Sandy Britches??? :eek:

What's the story behind that?

Ravs

[Razor767]

LOL

Dark Sun is a campaign setting that's predominantly a desert world.

*jumps up and down, causing a light sprinkle of sand to escape his pant legs*

I'm there alot in my mind, so I figured sand in the pants would be a realistic consequence.