Feb / Mar '18 Light Challenge: Marwels Tirwedh

[QED42]

It's been a while since I did a challenge so here I am! I went through a bunch of different height maps and ways for generating them over the last few days but this is the one I've finally settled on out of the several I did (it's actually the first one I did). Here's what I have so far.

### Latest WIP ###

world1b.png

[kenan]

Cool, love the texture. If you get a chance, I'd love to know how you did the height map.

[Tonquani]

Really nice start, loving the mountains and the shape of the rivers is superb.

Just a couple of comments: Not sure if the blue land glow isn't just a little distracting. Sorry, you may have loads of other stuff to do with the sea/coast, but at the moment it really drew my eye away from the land (which is excellent!). Also, your rivers are a great shape, but is it worth considering thinning them down a bit as they seem really prominent...

T

[QED42]

Cool, love the texture. If you get a chance, I'd love to know how you did the height map.

Thanks! Good news for you, there is a full and comprehensive tutorial available on the guild which was what I followed to make this map, tutorial is here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=18280

Really nice start, loving the mountains and the shape of the rivers is superb.

Just a couple of comments: Not sure if the blue land glow isn't just a little distracting. Sorry, you may have loads of other stuff to do with the sea/coast, but at the moment it really drew my eye away from the land (which is excellent!). Also, your rivers are a great shape, but is it worth considering thinning them down a bit as they seem really prominent...

T

Right now the glow is kind of a place holder, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the sea but I'll have a play with it and see if I can get something better. I'm not sure how easy it is to thin down the rivers at this point but I might have a scratch round them soon.

[kenan]

Thanks! Good news for you, there is a full and comprehensive tutorial available on the guild which was what I followed to make this map, tutorial is here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=18280.

Thanks! I'm new here and didn't realize that existed.

[Bogie]

Welcome to the Challenge QED42.

Love the texture and the height map / mountains hills. I think the rivers are darn near perfect except for 1 spot. On the south west peninsula there is a river that runs from jsut a fraction of an inch from the west coast all the way across the peninsula to the opposite coast. If the west coast wasn't right there the river would be fine, but I find it hard to see how the down hill flow would cross the land mass, unless that west coast started way up on a high cliff side.
Even with that minor glitch, this is a superb map.

[arsheesh]

The land looks really nice. Nice work on blending those mountains, a lot of people have difficulty with this step. Look forward to seeing what you do with the sea.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[QED42]

Welcome to the Challenge QED42.

Love the texture and the height map / mountains hills. I think the rivers are darn near perfect except for 1 spot. On the south west peninsula there is a river that runs from jsut a fraction of an inch from the west coast all the way across the peninsula to the opposite coast. If the west coast wasn't right there the river would be fine, but I find it hard to see how the down hill flow would cross the land mass, unless that west coast started way up on a high cliff side.
Even with that minor glitch, this is a superb map.

Thanks Bogie! Some of the rivers are a little excessive but Wilbur wants what Wilbur wants! In future I think I might spend a bit more time tweaking with the settings on the incise flow to see how I can tweak rivers.

The land looks really nice. Nice work on blending those mountains, a lot of people have difficulty with this step. Look forward to seeing what you do with the sea.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thanks, your tutorial really makes it easy (or at least easier) to come out with something nice like this! My lazy tendencies can really come in when it comes to blending in the mountains and I just want to do it faster with less care and that always leads to poor results. It really is worth investing the time on that step even if it is a bit tedious.

Here's where I've got to with the sea and messing about with the rivers some. I'm not sure about sea completely, it looks a little flat or lacking in texture. What do you guys think?

### Latest WIP ###
world1b3.png

[wdmartin]

The ocean definitely needs attention. The outer glow there is much too obviously artificial and pulls attention away from the land.

Take a look at the Adarkhur entry for this challenge; that one has excellent oceans. There is a visible continental shelf, but it's blotchy and irregular, and there are lighter and darker (higher and lower) areas in the ocean which are vague enough not to draw attention away from the land but add a little visual interest and suggest the varying heights of the ocean floor.

I'd like to note that as of this writing, the Adarkhur entry also has a great big blank space where the land goes. Between the two of you, you've got this nailed!

[QED42]

The ocean definitely needs attention. The outer glow there is much too obviously artificial and pulls attention away from the land.

Take a look at the Adarkhur entry for this challenge; that one has excellent oceans. There is a visible continental shelf, but it's blotchy and irregular, and there are lighter and darker (higher and lower) areas in the ocean which are vague enough not to draw attention away from the land but add a little visual interest and suggest the varying heights of the ocean floor.

I'd like to note that as of this writing, the Adarkhur entry also has a great big blank space where the land goes. Between the two of you, you've got this nailed!

Thanks for the input!

I grunged up the oceans a bit so hopefully it looks a bit better now. The other thing I've started working on is the border and labels.

### Latest WIP ###
world1b3.png