# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  WIP - Eredane. Home made version of Midnight RPG's world

## Dain

Hi everybody,
After a while sneaking around, asking tons of questions about how to do this and that, I found the courage to openly post a WIP.
I first want to thank all the guys I've annoyed with my questions and hope I'm a good listener and that the maps I'm going to show will give them credit.

Fantasy Flight Games made a map for their game, Midnight, which is really nice, obviously. (http://wiki.rpg.net/images/1/14/Eredane-Map-2E.gif). But I just wanted to make one more traditional, which could be the start of a global map about the world of Midnight, which has other continents not developped by FFG. Since I'm not quite sure about what style to use for such a big project, I just picked one of the 3 styles I'd like to master and give it a try. 
Enough talk, here is the "first"  step. Not quite the very 1st, but I'm sure I'll get plenty of comments since the style is very commun in here  :Smile: 

Just for infos:
The original map is 4700X3700 and weights 350Mo, 15 layers, so far...


Any comments are welcome

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## GygaxLives

Looks great so far!

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## arsheesh

Overall I like it so far.  One thing I would suggest however is to break up the forests/trees a bit.  It is difficult to make out the individual trees within this dense mass.  Also, your map seems to be dominated by the dark green mass.  Breaking up the trees a bit would, I think, help to make for a more balanced looking map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## Natai

Very nice style. I love the parchment look you've put together here; what sort of texture did you use? My only suggestions, really more of a curiousity, might be to lighten up the lines around the coast. Making them more subtle and allowing the color difference between the land and sea to be more apparent along the coast might produce a nice result.

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## Diamond

Arsheesh and Natai hit on what I was going to say: forests and coastal rings.  For the forests, well since this is a compressed image, the full-scale one might show more detail.  Maybe try lightening the color a bit?

And I fully agree with Natai about the rings.

And repped for posting your first WIP!

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## tilt

Really nice map - I do think that it looks like the forest is as it should be but only "clashes" since the map is reduced in size, I can see the tiny holes in there  :Smile:  Love the colors, or lack there of, it has a nice used look. I hit thee with my sword +2 of cool repping for your first map  :Smile:

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## Dain

> Overall I like it so far.  One thing I would suggest however is to break up the forests/trees a bit.  It is difficult to make out the individual trees within this dense mass.  Also, your map seems to be dominated by the dark green mass.  Breaking up the trees a bit would, I think, help to make for a more balanced looking map.
> -Arsheesh


This is something I should indeed do. It will make more room as well for adding special places. Good point  :Wink: 




> Arsheesh and Natai hit on what I was going to say: forests and coastal rings.  For the forests, well since this is a compressed image, the full-scale one might show more detail.  Maybe try lightening the color a bit?
> And I fully agree with Natai about the rings.
> And repped for posting your first WIP!


The rings of the waves do contrast too much with the rest. I'll something about this, thanks  :Wink:  




> Really nice map - I do think that it looks like the forest is as it should be but only "clashes" since the map is reduced in size, I can see the tiny holes in there  Love the colors, or lack there of, it has a nice used look. I hit thee with my sword +2 of cool repping for your first map


There is a big difference between low resol and high resol versions, indeed. I believe/hope that breaking up the forest a bit will help that.

Thanks for the comments guys, it helps. And for the 1st WIP/ map, it makes me feeling not alone in the wild  :Very Happy:

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## silverhead

And you call this "a WIP"? My WIPs don't look like this even when finished :-)

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## Ascension

About the only thing that I can think of is that the forest looks too solid and really dominates the image.  I'd chop some holes into the forest to break it up or maybe make some "arm" type things.  Looks great, though.

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## Coyotemax

Not bad so far!  I can't add anything that others haven't already added - but I will say it reminds me a lot of my Mercenaries map (The New Empire).  Great texturework going on too  :Smile:

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## Dain

All right, next update,
So why did it take so long?
Let's summarize:
- I've redone the coastlines, in order to match a heavily detailed maps in a sourcebook
- Redone the sea waves
- Redone the mountains using a really time consuming technique (a technique borrowed from here, of course!  :Very Happy:  ). That allows them to overlap and make the pack more dense. Hope it looks better.
- Redone the forest, broke down as much as possible the tree packs. I'll do more "clearing" when I do some close-up work.
- Redone the hills, closer to the forest now.
- Added over 100 names of towns/ cities. Was quite a work.
- Added the northern part of Eredane

There are still many things to do but I keep going. Again, any comments are welcome, either good or not  :Wink: 

All right, next update,
So why did it take so long?
Let's summarize:
- I've redone the coastlines, in order to match a heavily detailed maps in a sourcebook
- Redone the sea waves
- Redone the mountains using a really time consuming technique (a technique borrowed from here, of course!  :Very Happy:  ). That allows them to overlap and make the pack more dense. Hope it looks better.
- Redone the forest, broke down as much as possible the tree packs. I'll do more "clearing" when I do some close-up work.
- Redone the hills, closer to the forest now.
- Added over 100 names of towns/ cities. Was quite a work.
- Added the northern part of Eredane

There are still many things to do but I keep going. Again, any comments are welcome, either good or not  :Wink: 

About the pics:
1) Close-up at 1:1 scale
2) Resol: 1920X1672

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## Dain

Last screenshot of the day, to let you have a better idea of what I get so far.
http://www.ombredunord.com/materiel/...creenshot4.jpg

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## Steel General

This is quite nice, my only little 'nit-pick' is that the shading on the mountains seems a bit heavy/dark and tends to dominate things.

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## Dain

All right guys, the map is now waiting to be called "finished". I'm just waiting for your approval. 


2 resolutions, small one (1920X1672) and a big one (4716X4108 )

If the links don't work, follow this one:
http://www.ombredunord.com/midnight/ 

Please, comment as this piece of work is my first digital map and I am eager to do better  :Wink: 
Hope you'll like it
Cheers

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## Jaxilon

That's excellent for your first digital map. I can see the influences of some of our more polished artists and this is a complement to them as well as to yourself. I really like the font you used. 

There are a lot of labels on this which must have taken quite some time and as I was rolling around the map I was left wondering what the stories were behind such places as the "Bay of Sorrows", etc. That is what I love most about a map, when it pulls me in and makes me think about events that may have took place there. I think you accomplished that in this work.

Prepare for a wave of Rep coming your way - Nice job.

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## tilt

Thats one beautiful map + what Jax said  :Wink: 
Can't remember if I allready repped you - but have some anyway  :Smile:

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## rdanhenry

"Arhipelago of the Eywulf" is missing the "c" in "Archipelago". (Not sure about eywulfs [eywulves?])
"Spire of the Ocean song" -- "song" should be capitalized
I like the choice of symbols for settlements. They're unusual enough to be interesting, but not so far out as to seem strange.
"Plains of Eris Amman" and "Foul Bog of Eris Aman" seem like they should agree in spelling.
"Baelstone gate" -- capitalize "gate"
I generally like the name. Good use the brushes. Overall layout looks good.
Some might say you're using too many different fonts. I don't think it's a problem here, myself, but I know it bugs some people.

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## Steel General

This has turned out quite nicely...well done!

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## Diamond

That turned out spectacularly well.  I like the font choice, especially in the oceans/seas.  And the little hints of red in the map are just enough to give the whole thing some 'zing' without overwhelming it.

Repped again.

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## Dain

Thanks for your feedbacks, very appreciated.

There one thing I wanted to achieve but didn't manage to get it, because of a lack of know how. It is about the labels. Initially I wanted to make something old style and to use a handwritten font that would enhance this "hand made" style. But I didn't find a good one or a way to  make it nice. the issue comes also from the high contrast background. When a label is above a light area, that's fine, but above a dark BG, it becomes ugly and hard to read.
So I decided to go for a glow effect that would make the labels readable whatever the BG could be.
Anyone has an idea to make it possible?
The problem with the glow effect is that it seems too bright when a JPG file is created. It doesn't seem too bright with a PSD file ... :/ 




> "Arhipelago of the Eywulf" is missing the "c" in "Archipelago". (Not sure about eywulfs [eywulves?])
> "Spire of the Ocean song" -- "song" should be capitalized
> I like the choice of symbols for settlements. They're unusual enough to be interesting, but not so far out as to seem strange.
> "Plains of Eris Amman" and "Foul Bog of Eris Aman" seem like they should agree in spelling.
> "Baelstone gate" -- capitalize "gate"


That's what I call an eagle eye! Thank you, I change all that straight away 
 It is hard to stick with only one font, especially when you have so many different things to label. I spent countless hours on dafont.com to find the one font that will fit. I'm glad you enjoy the result  :Wink: 

The font are (from dafont.com)
- Cities: handserif
- Regions: Rosemary
- Rivers/ Roads: Trinigan
- Mountains: Brubeck

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## Diamond

> There one thing I wanted to achieve but didn't manage to get it, because of a lack of know how. It is about the labels. Initially I wanted to make something old style and to use a handwritten font that would enhance this "hand made" style. But I didn't find a good one or a way to  make it nice. the issue comes also from the high contrast background. When a label is above a light area, that's fine, but above a dark BG, it becomes ugly and hard to read.
> So I decided to go for a glow effect that would make the labels readable whatever the BG could be.
> Anyone has an idea to make it possible?
> The problem with the glow effect is that it seems too bright when a JPG file is created. It doesn't seem too bright with a PSD file ... :/


One thing you might try is to actually erase the terrain features directly underneath the text in the dark areas.  That way you have the effect of an outer glow, that is, making the text easier to read, but you don't sacrifice any 'authenticity' by adding text effects.

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## tilt

or you can choose to make an outline instead of outer glow cause an outline doesn't get transparent, its solid. And experiment with outline width as many just make a thin one, but sometimes a really thick one where the outlines flow together works really well  :Smile:

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## Dain

Thanks guys,
I tried that but there were always a bug somewhere that annoyed me. After testing different things and  trying to find the best solution, I ended up with something completely different from what I wanted at the begening. I guess this kind of thing happen very frequently  :Razz: 
I found some nice banner scrolls on Devianart and decided to use them.

I must admit I like the style and the color scheme is kept so It was all set and done.

What do you think?

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## Will Phillips

Those banners are ridiculously awesome.

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## tilt

very nice little banners you got there  :Smile: 
two minor things - I feel the bannerstyle would look better centered on top of the town/city because of its shape... sorry  :Smile: 
and I feel the color of the banners are a little to bright in comparison to the rest of the map and the rest of the texts...

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## Ramah

Very nice looking map, Dain. The little scrolls under the labels look great.  :Smile: 

I noticed a small problem: If you take a point between "Kazak-Dur" and "The Vale of Tears" then head due west you'll see there is a hill brush showing through a mountain. Small point but you might like to fix it.

If I had one criticism with the map it would be that some of your elements don't gel together seamlessly. The mountains are very dark and quite sharp, the hills are a much more muted, browner shade and are more blurred, the trees have a sharp, almost jagged edge to them. None of them look bad in themselves but they don't look like they belong next to each other on the same map.
I think the hills look they match the colour/texture of the map the best. Although I also like how the sharpness of the trees make them stand out in an almost (and I hesitate to use this word as it is obviously completely against they style you are shooting for) 'cartoonish' way. But the trees make the hills look too blurred. And the hills make the trees look too sharp. Personally I would pick one of these two elements and try to get the others to fit in more with the style. I think you need to try blurring slightly and playing with blend modes/opacity on the mountains.

Sorry if that sounds too critical. I really like the map but I think you could make it even better with a few changes.

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## Dain

> I noticed a small problem: If you take a point between "Kazak-Dur" and "The Vale of Tears" then head due west you'll see there is a hill brush showing through a mountain. Small point but you might like to fix it.


What an eagle eye!
found it, fixed it  :Wink: 




> If I had one criticism with the map it would be that some of your elements don't gel together seamlessly. The mountains are very dark and quite sharp, the hills are a much more muted, browner shade and are more blurred, the trees have a sharp, almost jagged edge to them. None of them look bad in themselves but they don't look like they belong next to each other on the same map.
> I think the hills look they match the colour/texture of the map the best. Although I also like how the sharpness of the trees make them stand out in an almost (and I hesitate to use this word as it is obviously completely against they style you are shooting for) 'cartoonish' way. But the trees make the hills look too blurred. And the hills make the trees look too sharp. Personally I would pick one of these two elements and try to get the others to fit in more with the style. I think you need to try blurring slightly and playing with blend modes/opacity on the mountains.
> Sorry if that sounds too critical. I really like the map but I think you could make it even better with a few changes.


Look, I was actually hoping that you would add a comment, so no offence at all. I came up with this map because of yours and any comment you may have means you got across these points way before me with your own maps. It is in fact very nice that you share your thinking.
I already lowered the transparency of the mountains a bit but now that you pinpoint the thing, I'll do something about it again, and for the forest as well. I tried (meaning didn't succeed so far) to also change the color balance of the hills/ forest because that didn't match the blueish tendency ot he mountains. I'll work on that.
Thanks again  :Wink: 





> very nice little banners you got there 
> two minor things - I feel the bannerstyle would look better centered on top of the town/city because of its shape... sorry 
> and I feel the color of the banners are a little to bright in comparison to the rest of the map and the rest of the texts...


Now that you show me the point, it is actually a bit to crisp and bright. I'll do something about them  :Wink: 
Thanks for that  :Wink: 

It's amazing how blind we can become after hours of work on a same map! 
Thanks anyway  :Very Happy:

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## Ramah

> Look, I was actually hoping that you would add a comment, so no offence at all. I came up with this map because of yours and any comment you may have means you got across these points way before me with your own maps. It is in fact very nice that you share your thinking.


No problem. I would have commented before now but yesterday was the first time I've actually seen this thread. I've not been around as much for the past month or so and this had totally slipped past me.

I also noted another problem with your hills but it is very small and hardly noticable and because it involves one hill being over the top of another hill I figured they would be on the same layer and thus very awkward to rectify. If you want to take a look at it though it is due south of where the other problem was and west (and a little north) of a place called Eamon's Pass.  :Smile:

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## Dain

I'll have a look.
The hills and mountains are actually on 2 different layers. That'll make the correction easier  :Wink:

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## Dain

It's been a while since I work on this one. Based on what you all advised me I managed to fix the details that were wrong, well hopefully
I tried some blur with the the trees and other things but was never as happy as with this version. I think I'll call it finished as soon as I've got your feedback. 
I believe I could probably do more and actually never stop adding something else every single time but there are other projects I'm eager to work on  :Wink:

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## tilt

look really good to me - nice work Dain concider your self repped by my mace of nice repping +5

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## Dain

That's all I needed to make me happy  :Wink: 
I'll post a thread in the finished map section then.
My first map finished here, Yey!  :Very Happy:

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## tilt

congrats on that... and now - quickly on to the next  :Smile:

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