Reply With Quote
Those maps look absolutely fantastic! I'm not even sure what else to say, they're amazing.
Torentine: "Satellite" Collage Map
Obsessive compulsive disorder wins out and I decided I would have to go a different route to get the results I wanted. I feel kind of like god making this map... hmmm.. let's move these mountains over here.. and how about a valley over here.... Probably lots of impossible geological juxtaposing going on but that's ok.
This is one days worth of work... i work at twice this resolution so i can get a nice crisp effect when i reduce it. Much of the background is lain in (maybe) tentatively so i can get a feel for the type of environment i will be adding the detail to... then I after that I started with the central mountain range and plan to work downward in elevation by region. I will be developing each region to how i envision it and lastly will be the coast and the ocean then color touch ups.
Large rivers urban areas etc. will have to be edited out and then back into where they belong. The ghosted image of my rivers is just an overlay so i can build the landscape in a logical manner. I scaled the "true color" satellite images that i pulled from NASA to the correct scale (within reason) so they would look "right". If you look closely you'll see some repetition in the mountains as they are mostly of the alps and some carpathian mts.. I will try to edit that out minor stuff as much as possible near the end. As you can see in the attached picture of northern italy, the alps really aren't that big so i had to do lots of copy paste, flip and masking ... plus i used different pictures.. some more snowy than others.
Last edited by a2area; 12-18-2009 at 06:47 PM.
Those maps look absolutely fantastic! I'm not even sure what else to say, they're amazing.
That's coming along very nice! I've considered doing what you're doing for quite some time, but never got up the gumption to actually try itIf it's any consolation, it doesn't look look there's any repetition unless you *really* look for it, and even then you wouldn't notice unless you knew it was there. (then again i'm looking through a pain med haze, so i see all SORTS of things my wife tells me aren't really there, so take what I say with a grain of salt, hah)
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
looks amazing!
there are a few semi-transparent white patches and one blue one just south of the major mountain range that stick out from an otherwise seamless looking work of art!
great blending!
It looks really good but how are you going to reconcile the rivers between your coastline and real-world imagery?
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Good question.. actually isn't too hard.. the good old rubber stamp tool will work for the large rivers. the smaller ones are nearly invisible. Then i will lay in some of the larger rivers where they would be visible and/or create flood basins where they might be. The eastern coast is actually the southeast USA and i nearly conformed the coastline to this one (florida would have stuckout the east point of the continent) so the drainage all heads in roughly the right direction. Since i am working at double this resolution it is very forgiving when i shrink it back to size.Originally Posted by Ascension
As a bonus, this is turning out to be a great study in color as well as geographic/geologic scale for me because even though i've always looked at maps this forces me to consider more closely the "lay of the land" and the interrelation between geologic formations... hmm... that doesn't sound nerdy (-: There are so many random colorations in the land that are difficult to reproduce by hand without a lot of practice. Previously i was attempting to do this and was getting an ok effect but for this particular map I wanted a realistic feel. For the "physical" map i will use a more traditional atlas look but wanted to get this ironed out first.
If Fractal Terrains did a better job at creating "realistic" terrains (no flatlands or plains without human hand intervention) and details i wouldn't feel so inclined to do this and may just be happy laying in some textures... but... it doesn't.... and i might still do this anyway (0: I am attempting to adhere to the elevations of my fractal while creating this map and have overlays outlining each elevation.. this also makes me reconsider and think about the lay of the land in that.. just because it is 4000 feet high doesn't mean it has to be mountainous.. it may be a high plain etc...
This is still very much in its beginning stages so there are going to be funky white spots and water where there shouldn't be as i rough it all in... until i've had the chance to turn my attention to detailing individual areas.
moutarde: I didn't make the alps map.... it is one that i sampled from.. i only included it for reference to the size of the alps.
Last edited by a2area; 12-19-2009 at 02:50 PM.
Well there ya go! That's what I get for reading & posting while working
Either way, your map is off to a fantastic start - makes my work look like crap
I could not see the repetition in the mountains tho I saw that the rivers seemed a bit odd. I think that you need to work a little on the very edge of the coast though I reckon you haven't done that bit yet. The real map does not fall off so abruptly into the sea.
I thought it looked real good.
That looks really good! I was kind of puzzeled for a moment by the fact that the satellite image of the Alps was flipped horizontally
As always, really impressive work!
Mind passing along the NASA link that you've gotten all your satellite stock images from??
Posting Permissions
