# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  My attempt at making own Atlas

## santos

Hi!

For years I had a dream to make my own Atlas, pretty much in a modern style atlases of Earth. I was struggling for bit amount of time with projections as I prefer vector maps, and re-projecting was a nightmare, but luckily I was able to transfer my world map in QGIS. Now I have one "small" obstacle, which is topography as I'm too picky and nothing really satisfy me and I'm not too god with drawing topography by hand. I'm keeping close eye at all GANs developments as I think there is a future of fantasy mapping.

Anyway some of maps of my planned atlas.

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## Ryan Pourchot

Very impressive work Santos. I love the topographic detail, and the modern map style here. 
I've been struggling to finish my own world map, going on 3 years now. 

Looking forward to seeing more, and the inspiration for other cartographers. 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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## zoqaeski

This looks really cool so far.

How did you transfer your vector files to QGIS? I'm yet to figure out a way to georeference SVG files, and Inkscape doesn't seem to want to work with linked images so I can separate out logical layers into different files.

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## Meton

Looking really good!

As a great fan of atlas style maps I have to say I like your colours and shading a lot. Maybe the coastlines would need a little cleaning, as the are maybe a bit too similarly rugged in every part. But the terrain and mountains look great, I would be quite satisfied!

How much information are you going to add to the topographic maps? As some suggested also in the other thread, it would be nice to see roads, cities and borders on top of the terrain.

Anyway I'm looking forward to where this project will lead!

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## casper1997

looking very good! 

the amount of detail of the mountains, lowlands, rivers and the coastline is very great.
it is looking very accurate

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## Robulous

Can you tell me more about QGIS for fantasy mapping - is there a tutorial or anything? I have my own world of Helevos in Photoshop but the file sizes in bitmap are just getting unmanageable, I've been thinking I need more of a vector solution.

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## Pixie

Your work and expertise look great and a tutorial about porting fictional topographic maps to GIS would be a great resource here at the Guild. You should definitely consider that.

Now, as to your world. I would love to see more. Can you show more? It seems inspiring.

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## santos

Thanks for great reviews guys! 

My world was generated in FT3 so that's why coastlines may look strange, but I like quality and process of vectorising is very easy. 

I will try to make small tutorial how I put my map from FT3 in to QGIS

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## arsheesh

This looks fabulous so far!  Can't wait to see more.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## santos

I made small tutorial, hope it will be understandable

Didn't know how to attach pdf to my post sadly 

Attachment 116480

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## santos

Testing new color palette,

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## santos

Trying sth different, but i think the future looks bright

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## Jean-Abdel

I don't really like the level lines but the colors are great !

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## santos

^^^

Yeah I think level lines are not working.

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## Harrg

Very sweet maps!

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## Hardacre

A really cool idea with what I can only imagine is backbreaking amount of work in the detail. Good luck with the next parts really looking forward to seeing them.

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## chateauferret

> ^^^
> 
> Yeah I think level lines are not working.


These look stunning.

Can I ask how you're producing your mountains and valleys? You mentioned FT3 but these are clearly not just the simple fractals available there, they look much more real and they're in the right places. It looks like tectonic and erosion procedures, or did you just paint them all by hand?

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## santos

^^^

Glad you like it, I'm testing Quadspinner Gaea, it's amazing software but fairly new so there is not many tutorials about it. Roadmap looks promising for the program so hopefully I will be able to start using it properly.

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## Robulous

> ^^^
> 
> Glad you like it, I'm testing Quadspinner Gaea, it's amazing software but fairly new so there is not many tutorials about it. Roadmap looks promising for the program so hopefully I will be able to start using it properly.


Just look at it, looks amazing. Do you know if it's possible to import heightmaps for pre-existing terrains? Can't find anything on it.

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## Jaxilon

Looks like some of the stuff out of Wilbur. Thanks for sharing the journey of this. It will be interesting to see where you end up.

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## santos

> Just look at it, looks amazing. Do you know if it's possible to import heightmaps for pre-existing terrains? Can't find anything on it.


Yes you can, just drop file node and import your terrain

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## santos

Still testing, but finally I got around cliff coastlines

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## Tiana

Looks pretty cool.  :Smile:

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## Kellerica

Wow, I love those mountains! That's some damn sweet relief work.

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## santos

Guess I'm finally happy with results

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## Falconius

Looks really good.

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## santos

Experimenting with GAEA, and I really like the progress. Still need to find a way to soften the erosion in some parts. 

Importing highmaps to QGIS from Wilbur is amazing, setting coordinates in Wilbur save a lot of time and makes work quick and simple.

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## santos

And some more tests

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## Veldrin

Great and innovative work !
Coastlines and lakes are just perfect. I wish I could draw things like that but I guess my brain doesn't want to help my hand doing this...

I agree with you about softening some of the reliefs, but on the other hand it is very accurate this way. I wouldn't sell it too fast  :Wink:  

By the way the level line map presented in page 2 looks awesome; unfortunately you're not fond of it, but it's a pity to me ^^

Need to see more of this with labels and stuff.

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## KMAlexander

I am loving the look of these. Wow!

Really interested to see how you do other hydrological features like rivers and streams.

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## santos

^^^ THX guys, 

New tests, and I'm more and more happy (ignore the coastline it's just a test)

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## Falconius

Wow those are really fantastic results.  Looks really natural now.  No evidence of Wilburs diagonal or horizontal river cuts either.

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## santos

Guess I really like the look of this, so I can move to new challenges. For me mapmaking is moving from one problem to another it seems

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## Veldrin

Yep I agree, I think you reached the right settings on the last one !
We're just waiting for a map now...  :Very Happy:  please go ahead with this !

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## arsheesh

Ooh, that is just fantastic!  I don't have any idea what settings you used but the results speak for themselves.  Look forward to seeing more updates on this project.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## glasswork

These are really cool!, can you explain your process with Gaea? I've played with it but im not sure how you're getting it to model whole continents instead of just singular landforms?

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## shadixdarkkon

I'm with glasswork here, I would absolutely love to learn how you did this in Gaea.

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## santos

> These are really cool!, can you explain your process with Gaea? I've played with it but im not sure how you're getting it to model whole continents instead of just singular landforms?





> I'm with glasswork here, I would absolutely love to learn how you did this in Gaea.


It's mostly experimental so you can try to work with other nodes, but here are all my nodes:



First File node is my mountain mask, second file node is land shape. I combine it with cracks on 'Subtrack' method, erode it with 'Large Mountain Range' pre set. Rest is prete much default, you can skip terraces easily.

Saving as PNG 16-bit is broken for now in GAEA so it better to save it as TIFF. I convert it to png, then in wilbur fill basin and incise flow to shape it

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## Vigilus

> It's mostly experimental so you can try to work with other nodes, but here are all my nodes:
> 
> 
> 
> First File node is my mountain mask, second file node is land shape. I combine it with cracks on 'Subtrack' method, erode it with 'Large Mountain Range' pre set. Rest is prete much default, you can skip terraces easily.
> 
> Saving as PNG 16-bit is broken for now in GAEA so it better to save it as TIFF. I convert it to png, then in wilbur fill basin and incise flow to shape it


So is that the Quadspinner node layout?  I backed GAEA in Alpha and I'm happy it's maturing to this degree so fast!  I have to finally get it to work now that it's in a stable build!

Can't wait to see more of your maps Santos! LOOKING LEGIT!

Maybe you'd like to go CO-OP Solar System up with me?  You know two passion projects together equal twice the market impact.  PM me for more!

LOVING IT!

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## Kaja

Just wanted to pile on to thank you for the tutorial.  The results look fantastic so far- looking forward to seeing more.

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## Redrobes

That GAEA does look interesting. I think that I need to have a look into that one. Good mapping santos !

(https://quadspinner.com)

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## PainPerdu

I'm just a beginner, but I can say this: this looks to me very professional! The coasts are so clear, and the colours so like the modern world maps we see. It looks very hard to do, good luck with the rest of the world!

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