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Worldmaps, does anyone have something?

Does anyone have a program or resources or something like that (or the name of such a program) that you can use to make a worldmap image? Not a worldmap map for in the game, but an image with mountains, rivers, etc. Nothing too fancy -- just a program that allowed you to add simple mountains/rivers/etc., a bit like the Lord of the Rings worldmap. :)
 
Hmmm...no I've never heard of such a thing, but there may be one (or a few) out there, anything really is possible. :)

Most people just hand draw them, or use a image edited program like Photoshop to make those types of things. Do you have a particular interest in shape and size? Maybe like give an example of what you think a good world map should look like.
 

Kest

Member

I started a Photoshop mapmaking tutorial on another forum, but never got around to finishing it. Suppose I could start up on it again if anyone's interested.

You can see a few of my own maps in the sig.
 
Well, I've actually drawn a sketch of the whole thing (mountains, canyons, gorges, rivers, passageways, the whole outline, sea, underwater, etc.); I just have to put it in Photoshop, and I usually fail at making good mountains and such. >_<

And hey, that link's pretty cool. Thanks for that. ^^
 

Kest

Member

I have to ask before you start working... the rough draft does make sense, right? Rivers flowing into the sea, mountains not clumped in random places, etc.

The one I did for Wesnoth has a poor layout of geography in my opinion, but that's the information they gave me to work with.

:|

http://www.fantasymaps.com/101/
 
Hmm, well, I have wind coming from the north-west of the island usually. The island has the form of three circles, one top left (small), top right (huge) and middle bottom (medium). Of course, not exactly circles but you can make out the basic shape, though the top-left one runs out into a point at the top.

There are mountains along the north, north-western and eastern coast, as well as some small ones at the south-east. There are some streams coming down from the mountains due to melting ice and rain, which lead into small lakes. These lakes usually have a very long river that goes to one bigger lake, which is connected to the sea with several small rivers. There's a desert in the middle of the island, because there's already any rain there -- most of it is stopped by the mountains.

There are some gorges in the north-west, which have artificially created bridges and sloped used by humans and other species to travel safely across the canyon.

:P

By the way, I have a question about river deltas: is it possible, if a river branches, for those branches to not lead back to the sea or an other lake and instead lead up to a swamp? I read your swamp "tutorial" which made me come up with the question. Can a river branch lead to a swamp, or do swamps form around a river branch, and that river still leads to a lake/sea?

Nice world maps ya got there too. Interested in some additional practice? xP
 

Kest

Member

Twin Matrix":oe0whcbr said:
By the way, I have a question about river deltas: is it possible, if a river branches, for those branches to not lead back to the sea or an other lake and instead lead up to a swamp? I read your swamp "tutorial" which made me come up with the question. Can a river branch lead to a swamp, or do swamps form around a river branch, and that river still leads to a lake/sea?

Nice world maps ya got there too. Interested in some additional practice? xP
This is a useful guide to understanding the layout of some rivers.

Practice I could use, just keep in mind that my spare time is erratic - last week I hardly got anything done since I had only one night off work.
 
Hmm. An interesting read, but it didn't quite answer my questions. It didn't mention swamps, just backswamps, which isn't really what I mean.

Receiving Basin - the zone (a lake, Gulf, ocean, sea, etc.) into which the river’s water flows at its mouth.

I assume they mean that a river can mouth into a swamp?
 
Yea, how did you make that map? It ends up someone I know has Cartographer 3 + Dungeon add-on, and the trees look somewhat similair. The program is kinda hard to use though, because you can't import images without borders...
 

Kest

Member

That one was very tedious - I drew the trees by hand, then copied chunks of them to make forests, filling in the blanks and adding shadows afterward. Been thinking of using a different effect for forests in my WIPs, as that one is adds a lot of unneeded noise to the image, besides making it difficult to mesh with other terrain.

It was my first map done in that style, so I've been trying to improve on it.
 

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