March Entry: Good Intentions

[Korba]

So far thats all i have at the moment but I'm defiantly going to try and get this finished. No idea at the moment if i will stick with what i (just about) know or try some thing new. So far just a tidied up png with some initial ideas for watershed areas based on the lakes and rives that already exist.

EDIT - now added a basic river structure that (i think/hope) firs the number requirements.

### Latest WIP ###
Challenge-03-09.jpg

[Korba]

Thanks to Ascensions tutorial i may be using a map similar to below. I think doing the tutorial a couple of times has shown me i should be able to make it work with this contest but if anyone has any tips comments at the moment that would be great although I'm fully aware that at the moment i have to many mountains to fit the required number of rivers

entry-03-09 copy.jpg

[Korba]

One hurdle down. I have been trying to work out how this region can have so much water spread over it based on a reasonably accurate geographical layout.

I was going to have a tundra climate with an ice sheets and glaciers allowing water on both sides of the continent but couldn't face trying to work out glacier paths and erosion effects. Instead i have come up with the following geography:

It is a area of land similar in size to Northern Italy. Like Western America the area is at a destructive plate margin and the pressure is forcing a mountain range to form in the center. However a relic transform fault runs up the center of the land (like the Great Glen Fault in Scotland). This line of weakness has allowed the areas rivers to erode faster than the land is being uplifted and remain flowing. The prevailing wind direction is from the right so to the right of the mountain range is lush grassland, forest and swamps while to the left the climate is more arid.

The rivers to the right will be large and meandering filled by regular rainfall from the slopes of the mountain range. To the left the rivers are filled an occasional storm or from snow melt so the rivers will be under-fit to there valley size and maybe seasonal only.

Now to make the map!

The red line is the transform fault and the brown lines the mountain ranges defining the major river catchments.

### Latest WIP ###
entry-03-09 copy.jpg

[Korba]

I worked back through Ascensions Tutorial again and think I'm quite pleased with my method of creating a realistic drainage pattern and the overall look.

Next stages are to try Ravells river tutorial and Pasis's mountain tutorial

This image is 1/4 full size so you may not be able to see all the smaller rivers on this version.

### Latest WIP ###
edit copy.png

[Korba]

With a rainy day for inspiration and meaning nothing else to do...

I like the dry river beds, hopefully they are not to subtle they are not something i have tried before. Hopefully i haven't made any errors but thats the next stage (hopefully).

### Latest WIP ###
entry-03-09.jpg

[Baziron]

Looking good! I really like the continental & relic fault line idea.

[Korba]

Thanks Baziron

I have been using my rivers layout along with my coastline selection as a base layer in Photoshop. This has meant when i crop the texture layers to keep them away from the coast it also keeps them away from the river valleys as well. However in the last one i think i killed the mountains by clearing an 80 pixel gap and a 20 pixel gap for hills.

I have finalized my major river systems now so I'm going to use (the very boring) layer below as my template and work through again. This time though I'm going to crop hills 10 pixels and mountains 40 in the hope the central area will remain more mountainous and the foothills are more pronounced. The green areas are the valley flood plains to ensure no hills appear where the larger rivers would have eroded them.

template.png

[Ascension]

My map is 2000, yours is 2500 so those numbers should work. On mine I was clearing out 50 pixels but I also had a feather of 25.

[gimil*]

I think my favourite feature of this map is the transition from desert to green land. It is very well done. A concern I do have (Similar to what I said in another map) is that on some of the green the rivers are to dark and difficult to see. While it is difficult to see it could be damn near impossible for the average colour blind person.

[Korba]

Thank you Ascension and thank you Gimil, i guess i just have to work on everything else then now

Slightly changed dry river beds.

### Latest WIP ###
post.jpg