Greetings from the Last Frontier

[jdram]

Hey there everybody.

I stumbled upon this website while I was searching for ways to create my own Digital Elevation Maps (DEMs). While I wasn't so lucky as to find out a good method for fake DEM creation, I did find this website and have found it to be an astounding help and quite inspirational.


My baby, a project I'm calling "Ancestry" is the true reasons for my being here. After reading around the forums and checking out a few tutorials, I made a map based on a fictional world I have in the works.

I don't yet have a name for this world, and perhaps that's something you could all help me with. In any case, here is the map I ended up creating for a portion of my world, a continent called Valvirtia. I used a tutorial that was stickied in the regional forum.

Valvirtia - The Island Cluster

I hope you all enjoy my work, not only in cartography, but literacy and imagination as well. I look forward to getting to know you all and having the chance to better myself in the skills of cartography through your help, advice, and example. Thank you.

[ravells]

Welcome to the Guild, Jdram! that map has 'Ascension' written all over it...I suspect it was probably his tutorial you followed....dark and moody maps is what he does, yes, yes - so now we have a plethora of dark and moody maps scattered around the guild (and we love them).

May you enjoy your time here and find what you're looking for!

[Redrobes]

Hi JDRam, I am an admin for the - admittedly slow going these days - MeDem project which is at www.me-dem.org and we try to make Middle Earth as a DEM. Theres a lot of really good info on there about it. Now I am not in the creation of the dem side. I do the procedural expansion and texturing stuff. So my advice is to pop over there and see some of the articles about how to do it. The guy Monks there and here in fact too does the dem stuff using Global Mapper which he rates very highly after trying just about everything there is on the planet to do this sort of thing.

The last Middle Earth map we did here...
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4055

I do some terrain creation too and I generally use contour lines and greyscale fill them and turn them into height maps when trying to model a known terrain. If going for a more random terrain and getting what your given and improving it then there are lots more ways to do it. I have my own tools but several people here use Fractal Terrains which is written by Waldronate on these boards too.

[Immolate]

Welcome to the guild!

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[Ascension]

Welcome to the guild. I like the little tweaks you have made, gives it a slightly different look, most noticeably in the snowy places.

[icosahedron]

Since it's become customary to rep someone for a first-post map and the 'big sticks' seem to have left you out, I'll get your ball rolling. Nice map.

Welcome, BTW.

[beriothien]

Hi JDRam, I am an admin for the - admittedly slow going these days - MeDem project which is at www.me-dem.org and we try to make Middle Earth as a DEM. Theres a lot of really good info on there about it. Now I am not in the creation of the dem side. I do the procedural expansion and texturing stuff. So my advice is to pop over there and see some of the articles about how to do it. The guy Monks there and here in fact too does the dem stuff using Global Mapper which he rates very highly after trying just about everything there is on the planet to do this sort of thing.

The last Middle Earth map we did here...
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4055

I do some terrain creation too and I generally use contour lines and greyscale fill them and turn them into height maps when trying to model a known terrain. If going for a more random terrain and getting what your given and improving it then there are lots more ways to do it. I have my own tools but several people here use Fractal Terrains which is written by Waldronate on these boards too.

Oooh, this has captured my interest! I am a long-time Tolkien fan
I even have a map of Middle Earth, which may help. But you all probably had such info already. Signing up anyway. And if its not in there, scanning the map. Even though some of the names have been translated into Dutch. But since this is a DEM, that would not matter.