NOV/ DEC 2014 Lite Challenge: Galaurien Again

[Chick]

Some time back, I posted this map in Finished Maps. I was trying out a new technique I wanted to use for map land and ocean and I thought it came out quite good (the technique, not the map). To make it look like a map, I used PS brush mountains and some other icons on top.


Galaurien.jpg



That post brought out a lot of good critique, the most useful these:

TheHoarseWhisperer:

You're right, the colours are nice on this map.

A few suggestions and opinions from me (I'm going to assume, since you mention this is practice, that these are suggestions for your future mapping adventures):
--I like the texture/colour of the seas: perhaps next time you could show a change in water where it approaches coastlines, and on rivers.

--the mountains currently seem to be stuck on top. I think part of the problem is the starkness of their black, and the other aspect is that the land 'beneath' them is the same green as elsewhere.

--additionally, I don't know if that style of mountains suits this kind of map. Mountains depicted as icons on an otherwise topographical-looking map seems disjointed. A better approach, in my opinion, would be if the mountains were shown as if from a satellite view.

--the marbled pattern of greens on the land looks good, but possibly also problematic. At the moment it looks like a painting (which is fine) but from a practical sense, what do the changes in tone mean: does it indicate more/less vegetation, higher/lower altitude? Maps are, fundamentally, about conveying information, and I think the marbled effect looks too random. What if you wanted to add farmland? different types of forest? hills? etc.

--this point actually kinda brings points 2 and 4 together: it is a bit too green. And its green-ness gets in the way of other types of terrain. I'm not sure how easy it would be to start adding deserts, steppes, scrub, or the mountains/farmland previously mentioned.

--there is a tendency towards darkness (especially around Goodley) which can obscure details, if you wanted to include them.

--I'm assuming, as a practice map, you weren't too worried about coastlines/rivers. Just in case, though, I think the rivers should taper as they move away from the coast, and the coastline should be more diverse and rough (the islands in the middle and SE especially look too regular in size, shape, and placement).

--some labels are a bit off: Byne Bay, Withal Bay, Derna Bay. It is probably just that the text is in too large a font. Smaller fonts will let you place the labels better within the feature, and not overlap the land. But then, I'm pretty rubbish at labels, so I can't be too judgemental.

--one last point, and this is a trivial one (and might just be my opinion): do the runes around the edge of the map suit the style/theme of this map? Runes to me suggest Norsemen, and hence wintery terrain; not green and lush, as this appears.

Deadshade:

The colors are really nice.
But like THW above, I Wonder about this mix of CC like mountains and rivers and salellite photo quality textures.

If the style should be a photorealistic map then it'd need also realistic rivers, mountains and fractal coasts.
If the style should bea CC like map then the textures look too random and little informative.

Chashio:

.....your practice map does have a pleasing color palette, though I'm not sure I'd call it truly natural--it's a bit too dark and limited for that--but still nice.

GreatWhiteNorth:

One suggestion I have is to make sure the color of the ocean does not extend beyond the border. It makes it look like your border is sort of just floating in the ocean, when really that is the edge of your map.

In another thread, I asked about and tried my hand briefly at using shaded relief mountains, without a lot of success IMHO. That is still on my list to learn more about.

So for this challenge, I have decided to combine those techniques and redo the Galaurien map, using the original land/ocean technique I developed, shaded relief mountains, and addressing as many of the criticisms as I could.

Cheers,
Cornelia

[Bogie]

Looks interesting

[Chick]

So here is my start.

People didn't like my coastlines, so I've redrawn some of the less interesting ones, and junked a lot of islands that weren't really contributing any interest.

Then I added the suggested ripple lines along the shore to help distinguish water from land.

I've tapered the rivers.

I've lightened the overall color a bit.

My original thought was that the color would indicate terrain, but the comments about not being able to add deserts or farmlands was not really a problem. I've added those type of regions and some snow very easily.

I made a proper neatline and a solid color border frame.

And I junked the ugly mountains and browned up those regions. That is where I will try to put the shaded relief mountains. I wanted to play fair and put the mountains in the same places, so now I have to go find some sr mountains of the right shape and orientation and figure out how to make them look like part of the same land. This is such fun ..... !!


Galaurien Again 01.jpg

[Chick]

Sigh. I'm almost afraid to post this. Does it work?


Galaurien Again 02.jpg

[Deadshade]

I like that much - I always had a feeble for realistic style maps.
As for the mountains, you have plenty on your other thread. And anyway you know how to do them now if necessary
This new variant you have here looks too large, chaotic and busy to me even though the one on the island looks fine.
Their look also questions the scale you displayed - the map looks like if the scale was at least 10 times bigger (e.g 120 horse days).

Perhaps just a small suggestion - if the yellow is desert, then around a desert are other only slightly less arid areas. So I'd avoid putting rivers there which suggest the contrary - humidity and rain.
What often helps when wondering where belongs what biome is to put latitudes on a map. The climatic zones and therefore biomes are broadly defined by the latitude band they belong to.

[xpian]

Never be afraid to post here---we're all trying to improve our skills.

1) The mountains and hills crinkle textures are working OK for me, but they transition into grasslands that are much more blurry. I'd try to tie the textures together more, perhaps by adding some gaussian noise to the blurry stuff.
2) The rivers really seem to lie on top of the grasslands and forests, the extent that the underlying texture of the blurry grass and trees is unaffected by the river slicing through it. I would add some texture or effects that show the rivers impacting these textures underneath, so that the rivers feel more a part of the surface.
3) Forests are so blurry! I'd try to rough up and crispify the edges of the forests, in addition to adding noise.
4) The ocean texture is working pretty well for me.
5) The icy snow in the north doesn't work at all. Far too blurry...makes the whole north look like a cloudy day shining on the windshield of a car. The white of the snow and ice needs to "sit in" the texture beneath it. It should feel like it's in the grooves. Or feel like a new texture of snowy dunes on top of the texture below. I'd say you should, at the very least, try some new snow textures and other blending modes. Possibly try an entirely new approach for the snow.
6) The text items and icons feel a bit stark and plain, being so white. You could achieve a similar but more integrated effect by going to Screen blending mode, or perhaps Overlay, and then backing the opacity down from 100% a bit.
7) The waves around the coastline are working pretty well. They just feel a bit angular. Like they're "digital", and this is a map being displayed on a monitor in a scifi movie.

Those are my thoughts. It's good work, but I see lots of little things that bother me. Biggest thing is the blurriness of the textures, and how they transition into one another. You want to try to preserve the toothiness of the textures, which can be hard if you're enlarging them. Then, preserve the tooth, the crispness, while still blending a transition from one texture to another. Alyssa Faden does a masterful job of this sort of thing. In this image, you can see her using different textures but not blurring them into each other. And the only thing that's obviously semi-opaque are the clouds, like they're supposed to be. https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaFaden...type=1&theater

[Chick]

In the original Galaurien thread, I explained what I was trying to do, but probably I need to explain it again here.

There is no "texture" in this picture in the sense you mean. Everything is done with a single color and an underlying completely desaturated lighting layer. It's an experiment in technique.

The land was originally a single solid green, but now I have painted a few areas of sand, brown and white. The ocean is a single solid blue layer.

The lighting layer is a single greyscale layer that controls the shades of blue and green (and now brown) on the color layer.

The shaded relief mountains are just an additional desaturated lighting layer.

I think part of what you are seeing is that the mountains are too strong. They look like some conventional mountain textures, and that is not what I want. So I have reduced their opacity a lot, to avoid giving the impression of anything discrete.

Don't think of this as realism, exactly the opposite! Think of this as impressionistic art. Maybe it doesn't work for cartography, but that is what this image is about.

Anyway, I've added a lot of labels, maybe that will help. Or maybe not ....


Galaurien Again 03.jpg

[Chick]

Oh, and the ocean shore ripples are angular because the shore is angular, and I make them by spacing out from the coastline. Is there a better way that would make them softer and rounder?

[xpian]

I use a layer style outer glow set to multiply with humps built into the contour...easier to just show you instead of explaining it all. See screenshot below.

As with anything in Photoshop, there are usually five ways to accomplish the same thing. I believe Schwarzkreuz uses a special Action he's set up to create the waves. I like my version because I thought of it myself (not that others hadn't already come to the same idea, I'm sure they had...I just had to figure it out) and because it's versatile. By making it a layer style, it can be tied to the shape of the continent, lakes, rivers, and islands. If I make any change to the layer that contains the landmass, the waves surrounding it automatically change. Which is nice.

Screen-Shot-2014-12-08-at-8.08.07-PM.jpg

[Deadshade]

Don't think of this as realism, exactly the opposite! Think of this as impressionistic art. Maybe it doesn't work for cartography, but that is what this image is about.

As far as I am concerned, this is how I see it and find that the result is quite nice.
However your rivers really clash with this idea because they don't look impresionistic - if they did, they would blend in while here they look like solid lines superposed on an impresionistic picture.
Almost at the opposite of the Spectrum is the Snowy north where one sees what is underneath by transparency - it has an impresionistic touch but one can't decide whether you wanted to show snow or clouds.