# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  My world in creation: fygl

## zhar2

Hi these are a few pics showing me world proyect, wich ive been modelling for a while (from people to plants and animals), i normally do general maps like topography, climate, political and so on, but ive been inspired by sorol to include regional maps too.

This is my basic world map and one regional in progress:




Ive used the gimp, fractal terrains, wilbur, inkscape (oddly enough ive got the cs4 package but rarely use it).

Hope u like them and if u desire give me any tips  :Smile: 

phill

----------


## Bohunk

Looks good.  You got a lot of work ahead of ya.

----------


## altasilvapuer

Nice style in your maps!  Welcome to the guild!

When posting your maps, though, try to use the 'attach' function in the advanced reply.  That way it automatically generates thumbnails and eases load times for people on slow connections.

-asp

----------


## Lathorien

> Ive used the gimp, fractal terrains, wilbur, inkscape (oddly enough ive got the cs4 package but rarely use it).


lol same here! although I have yet to start using Inkscape...

I like your world map, very interesting and varied. (Tho the mad patch of mountains in the "north-east" looks a little odd..)

----------


## Steel General

I really like the first map... looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

----------


## zhar2

Umm haven been here a while, but im still working on this.


Here isnt a map in it self but ive made the planets texture:



and how it looks in laid in google earth (for ease, max would have been better)



hope you like them

----------


## ironmetal250

very nice, a whole lot of land compared to water though.  I'm not sure how that would affect the climate or anything.

----------


## MadLetter

Woah, how did you go about doing this? I wanted to get a little into projection and similar stuff once my exams are over  :Very Happy:

----------


## zhar2

Ironmetal250 the climate would be quite different to earth, the planet would see quite a dry equatorial region, specially around the middle of large landmasses with the exeptions where there are mayor water bodies.

The polar coasts in the contrary would be drenched by heavy rain, overall there arent any seasons due to an almost negligible tilt, pressure its a bit higher than earth plus shorter days, this would make a rather turbulent atmosphere while minimising large temperature gradients from the poles to the equator.

But i suppose besides the high and strong winds it would be a pleasent world full of islands and warm climate, and for people who like cold alpine waether it contains quite alot of mountains (though not as high as earths due to a gravity of 1.3 g) caused by high volcanism.

mad letter, im quite pleased with my method but its time consumming as most of the maps i make are at around 8192x4096 pixels.

----------


## Ascension

I'm gonna hit ya with some rep because I love the satellite style and yours looks great.  Since I have moved to the more artistic side it makes my heart smile to see this and makes me want to go back.  Very nice job.

----------


## Steel General

Come Back...Come Back Ascension! ...back to dark err... back to the less artistic side.  :Very Happy:

----------


## zhar2

Ty for the kudos, but there still loats of work for the scenario it self (im just doing the scenario, no stories as im terrible at story writting as they feel more like a statement or a historical account).

ive been working on this for a while, so im in the process of bringing togeather and digitalizing all the relevant drawings & concepts, latter on ill explain the scenario idea.

----------


## zhar2

A incomplete map of the planet systems (theres still more data to be put on plus move stuff about a bit, plus im still tweaking the colors)

----------


## MadLetter

Just out of curiosity: What is the spectral class of the system?  :Very Happy:

----------


## zhar2

Its a G1 V, though im o used to know the nearby stars spectral class by memory i forgot to put it down, assuming people knew it too lol, just remember theres lot of info missing.

----------


## MadLetter

I really really like this project... Esp. the system-map. Could you give a small info how you went about creating that one?

----------


## ravells

I really like the method of presenting the information - very clear.

Have some rep!

----------


## töff

This is really cool. Good work, zhar2!  :Smile:

----------


## zhar2

Well i decided to go for a more clean & less trek TNG (which i thought it looke like) look, its more complete & has info yay plus a max rendering of the main world in the sys.

Oh and you might be able to guess this is the bad guys of sorts world.

----------


## Steel General

Neat Stuff!

----------


## zhar2

This is another satellite image i put togeather this morning for the landfall &
first colony area on the planet, im using this image to create a map (original res is 4000X2529 px).

----------


## slovakism

This is gorgeous, really what I'm hoping to do with my own map.  How did you get your map into Google Earth?

----------


## zhar2

Second update on he above map:



Im also doing one or 2 digital paints for insets to give an idea of surface conditiond though its time consuming.

----------


## Gandwarf

Stunning work zhar2, have some rep.
When looking at your latest update I felt myself dreaming away... imagining being a part of the colonization of that world. So much to explore...
Very cool!

----------


## Steel General

Very cool!

----------


## AgentFox

That's really awesome! You should do a tutorial for noobs like me  :Razz:

----------


## MadLetter

> That's really awesome! You should do a tutorial for noobs like me


Agreed, I'd love a tutorial for this style of things  :Very Happy:

----------


## zhar2

Well if people want one i guess i can do one, but its rather simple, just one of the main things to rember when trying to get photorealism is that earth is not the blue,brown,green world, it is infact the blue,brown, GREY world & if you sample the above map i removed all the green that i could remove and its basically reds, yellows & greys (some grays are at the extreme yellows where it starts to change to green).

----------


## Redrobes

Wow theres a lot going on there that I could comment on but ill restrain myself to more important bits.

We had a galactic / solar system type map challenge recently which you might like to check out and either of your two I would have voted for. They are first class. I don't know why you crossed over the lines to the legend in first map but its all laid out in sequence in the second.

The antialiasing is very nice in all your work. I guess thats from the high res that your using. I thought that there was some hint of illustrator / inkscape in there because of the neat lines then I changed my mind and went for a 3D app. Is it all 3DMax or similar then ?

I like satellite maps too and I write some stuff to make them. The erosion in your land mass looks like a wilbur but the erosion on the mountains looks like something else. Also the lowlands seem to be done by a 3rd method but I cant be sure. The result is terrific. If your able to just slightly tone down the river start (mountainous regional bits) then it would look more realistic but probably less useful since at satellite range you cant see small rivers. I like the flow of silt out to see too.

The labeling of the world going from almost transparent large text up to more opaque white small text is something I haven't seen for a while. I think I remember that Zaon maps doing this and its a really cool way to do it.

I will look at your green / grey thing and take some notes there. Thanks for showing and have some rep !

EDIT -- are you able to post a small section of some of that land at full res. Zooming it up its still fine detail in there at pixel level. Just curious to see how far you take it to.

----------


## amoliski

Awesome Work!
I want to play in whatever campaign you use that for.

----------


## zhar2

> Wow theres a lot going on there that I could comment on but ill restrain myself to more important bits.
> 
> We had a galactic / solar system type map challenge recently which you might like to check out and either of your two I would have voted for. They are first class. I don't know why you crossed over the lines to the legend in first map but its all laid out in sequence in the second.
> 
> The antialiasing is very nice in all your work. I guess thats from the high res that your using. I thought that there was some hint of illustrator / inkscape in there because of the neat lines then I changed my mind and went for a 3D app. Is it all 3DMax or similar then ?
> 
> I like satellite maps too and I write some stuff to make them. The erosion in your land mass looks like a wilbur but the erosion on the mountains looks like something else. Also the lowlands seem to be done by a 3rd method but I cant be sure. The result is terrific. If your able to just slightly tone down the river start (mountainous regional bits) then it would look more realistic but probably less useful since at satellite range you cant see small rivers. I like the flow of silt out to see too.
> 
> The labeling of the world going from almost transparent large text up to more opaque white small text is something I haven't seen for a while. I think I remember that Zaon maps doing this and its a really cool way to do it.
> ...


Wow i havent seen those maps before, they great, i wished i had been there for that solar system challenge.

Well the lines over the legend ? im not sure what u mean there.

For the tidy lines bit i actually used both raster & vectors, and i have used max for the planets, Yes i do use wilbur quite a bit & in my opinion its just one of those less known programs out there that are just a miracle, the low lands ummm, there really isnt a 3rd method its actually the main method (i use satelite images as stock which i cannibalise & prepare to give me stock earth materials, which mainly involves bluring, trimming & makking tileable, i try too to remove all trace of cities and earth landmarks so i can make totally not earth related maps).

I remember only one zaon map, which was the galaxy one, is that the one you mean?, but yeah i like using white, specially for high contrast.


Amoliski: well its really not a campaign, its more of a setting intended to be developed to detail ranging from biology, technology & social stuff, though im sure that a campaign could be made out of it though i wouldnt know how to go about it as ive never done or played a role play campaign, most of my maps and graphics are for stories or settings.

Anyway ty everyone for the kudos.

----------


## slovakism

how did you import your map into google earth?

----------


## Redrobes

> Wow i havent seen those maps before, they great, i wished i had been there for that solar system challenge.


You must have joined right at the point it was running.




> Well the lines over the legend ? im not sure what u mean there.


Its no big deal but ill attach a pic anyway. I just wondered why you didnt just put them in reverse order and keep the lines from crossing.




> For the tidy lines bit i actually used both raster & vectors, and i have used max for the planets, Yes i do use wilbur quite a bit & in my opinion its just one of those less known programs out there that are just a miracle, the low lands ummm, there really isnt a 3rd method its actually the main method (i use satelite images as stock which i cannibalise & prepare to give me stock earth materials, which mainly involves bluring, trimming & makking tileable, i try too to remove all trace of cities and earth landmarks so i can make totally not earth related maps).


Wilbur is a great program and lots of people use it a lot around here. I dont use it much - just for some file format transforms but I understand it has a palette. I use a program I wrote to do a similar task and also have a selection of terrain types as tilable swatches which get blended (not blender tho) together to make the final based on various parameters. I was checking out your image and sampling the RGB and most of the green looking pixels are green but I see what you mean in that they are only just a bit more green than grey. I will definitely look again at my colour balance based on your tip cos it looks very good in your pic.




> I remember only one zaon map, which was the galaxy one, is that the one you mean?, but yeah i like using white, specially for high contrast.


Yeah it was that galaxy poster map. I was just looking at it again. He used a big version of the font but in outline mode instead of filled. I think its also semi-transparent too but then I think all the text was. That was one amazing poster map tho.

----------


## zhar2

Oh yeah i see what you mean, it was becouse the planets too where in order of ordit & if i had done it the other way the first planet would had been pointing to the third orbit.


Oh you are the programer of geotersys, i actually wanted to buy it a while ago but the page doesnt have a link to where i can do it.

----------


## Redrobes

> Oh yeah i see what you mean, it was becouse the planets too where in order of ordit & if i had done it the other way the first planet would had been pointing to the third orbit.


Ahh I see now. Its because the lines connect to the orbits on the left side of the sun so must be reversed to keep the planets in order.




> Oh you are the programer of geotersys, i actually wanted to buy it a while ago but the page doesnt have a link to where i can do it.


Yes I have that dubious accolade. Its a useful and powerful program but its insanely hard to control. Its a terrain language really so runs a kind of shell. Its designed to be put into makefiles and automated which from this point of view it does real well. The idea is that at some point I should write a user interface that actually drives it by writing the scripts for it and in that way you can interface with it in a slightly more sensible manner. At present there are times I have to get the program debugger out to see why its doing what it does. Almost always its right and its user error but a small problem with one setting can make a big difference to another seemingly unrelated item which is hard as a user to figure out. So it is in a kind of permanent pre-release state unfortunately. Also you need a heavy box to run it. 4Gb of ram and a quad core is the kind of thing and even then its not super quick. Both myself and Waldronate who does Wilbur are waiting on OpenCL to get a proper interface to graphics card accel. I have looked into CUDA which is very similar but I feel as though I might as well get it cross vendor instead. I always planned to change the name from GTS to GTX - the extreme edition - when that happened but I doubt I will.

----------


## RobA

> how did you import your map into google earth?


The instruction for creating an image overlay in google earth are here (that starts with a right click, btw):

http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4...eoverlays.html
Here are the quick steps to cover the whole globe with an image:



-Rob A>

----------


## zhar2

> Ahh I see now. Its because the lines connect to the orbits on the left side of the sun so must be reversed to keep the planets in order.
> 
> Yes I have that dubious accolade. Its a useful and powerful program but its insanely hard to control. Its a terrain language really so runs a kind of shell. Its designed to be put into makefiles and automated which from this point of view it does real well. The idea is that at some point I should write a user interface that actually drives it by writing the scripts for it and in that way you can interface with it in a slightly more sensible manner. At present there are times I have to get the program debugger out to see why its doing what it does. Almost always its right and its user error but a small problem with one setting can make a big difference to another seemingly unrelated item which is hard as a user to figure out. So it is in a kind of permanent pre-release state unfortunately. Also you need a heavy box to run it. 4Gb of ram and a quad core is the kind of thing and even then its not super quick. Both myself and Waldronate who does Wilbur are waiting on OpenCL to get a proper interface to graphics card accel. I have looked into CUDA which is very similar but I feel as though I might as well get it cross vendor instead. I always planned to change the name from GTS to GTX - the extreme edition - when that happened but I doubt I will.


Well shame its at that stage becouse its neb of the programs id love to use, but i think i can manage the requirements as im using a high end gamming pc.

Ah so wilburn is still being updated, i hope he sorts out some bugs though (like it crashes when doing insise flows for maps larger than 9000 px wide).

Well but i will keep an eye on program so i can get it as soon as it becomes available (please price reasonably lol).

----------


## slovakism

> The instruction for creating an image overlay in google earth are here (that starts with a right click, btw):
> 
> http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4...eoverlays.html
> Here are the quick steps to cover the whole globe with an image:
> 
> 
> 
> -Rob A>


Thank you!

----------


## pasis

You sure have a bit of a project going on here...huh...and looking good. Repped of course...

----------


## waldronate

> Ah so wilburn is still being updated, i hope he sorts out some bugs though (like it crashes when doing insise flows for maps larger than 9000 px wide).


Bugs which are never mentioned are slow to be fixed. I take it that the crash problem for very large maps is with the 32-bit version?

----------


## zhar2

Yes im using the 32 bit version.

----------


## zhar2

New map, for relevant space to the setting:

EDIT: I borrowed the concept of the improbability drive from the hitchikers guide, not sure if thats a copyright violation (if it is ill change it)

----------


## cereth

This is a very impressive project. Some really great looking maps are coming out of it.  :Smile:

----------


## silverhead

The first maps were good, but the one with the earth-like texture is awesome. Looks like the map of a real planet. Could you elaborate a little on your method?

----------


## Redrobes

> I borrowed the concept of the improbability drive from the hitchikers guide, not sure if thats a copyright violation (if it is ill change it)


The infinite improbability drive was invented by the Galactic Government's research team on Damogran - so you can claim prior art !

----------


## zhar2

would that be a yes or a no?

----------


## waldronate

> Yes im using the 32 bit version.


Wilbur has a lazy programmer that just used the Windows memory management system and didn't bother to handle out-of-memory conditions in a reasonable manner. When the program hits 2GB of total memory usage including undo buffers and scratch buffers then it dies. The 64 bit version has the same behavioral limitations, but the memory ceiling on the x64 versions of Windows is 8TB rather than 2 GB so it takes longer to make it die.

Implementing a disk-based system will take some work and is unfortunately lower on the priority list than many other features.

----------


## zhar2

Yes i clearly understand, but its still a wonderfull program & ill find a way of getting around the problem.

----------


## RobA

> Wilbur has a lazy programmer


***snarffl***

-Rob A>

----------


## ironmetal250

OK, this latest map is just too awesome... I've been trying to create something just like it for ages.  By all the mighty powers in the universe, PLEASE provide even a low-detail tutorial for this!  It's simply amazing and this is the perfect type of map for one of the major projects I'm working on

(also repped, obviously haha)

----------


## selden

> Woah, how did you go about doing this? I wanted to get a little into projection and similar stuff once my exams are over


There are quite a few programs which can draw a map on a sphere for you, although, of course, learning how to do it from scratch can be rewarding in itself.

For example, using Celestia ( http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ ) the map on the left can be used to draw the planet on the right:

----------


## zhar2

ill post some more maps soon, ive just been a bit side tracked creating the progenitors in max and some other bits for it.

----------


## Teancum

This is great! Can I use this for a project? And is there a higher resolution for this?






> Umm haven been here a while, but im still working on this.
> 
> 
> Here isnt a map in it self but ive made the planets texture:
> 
> 
> 
> and how it looks in laid in google earth (for ease, max would have been better)
> 
> ...

----------

