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Thread: Düsterbruch – Regional psuedo-realistic Map.

  1. #11

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    Thanks again for all the feedback and questions and criticism.

    To answer some of the questions that popped up:

    1. The maps purpose is solely out of the joy of world building and further advancing my skills with photoshop, as well as creating a home-brew world for my private game of D&D.
    2. The technique I use could best be described as photo-bashing. Because I used probably around 150 real world satellite images and around 20 to 35 different textures and concept art brushes to create the look and feel of this map.
    I spend around 15 hours scavenging the web for the best fitting satellite recources and images. Then I spend around 25+ hours in photoshop alone to Frankenstein all these bits and pieces together (where most of the time each individual layer has around 3 to 4 additional color blending, speed paint and concept art brushes applied to it).

    The Iconography is clearly a homage to the Elders Scrolls Series and medieval Europe. But done with a more personal twist.
    The readability of the fonts is quite good in the original size (40x60 cm), but due to file size and resolution limitations here I had to resize the whole map down to around 25% and reduce the dpi to 74.
    The final look is a combination of some Highpass Filters, the actual "oil painting filter" from CC2020 and some tweaks within the layer visibility and blending settings.

    I hope I have answered all questions so far
    And thanks again for all the kind words, they are highly appreciated.

  2. #12
    Guild Journeyer Bretton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Legrandblond View Post
    Sure.

    So I created this map for a pretty singular reason: I wanted to see if I can.
    And I had the chance to create my very own home-brew setting for D&D in the process as well.

    My technique is a mix of photo bashing (real life satellite imagery) and concept art brushes and textures, combined with a lot of layer editing, color corrections and tweaking and of cause, blending everything together. I started out by laying down a topographic map within illustrator (just by adding layer after layer of different colored shapes) until I was happy with the overall form and feeling of the landmasses itself. I had a vision of what my world should look and feel like (northern european feel, around the medieval age - more modern fantasy game map than traditional fantasy RPG. A kinda combination of Skyrim and The Witcher as a kinda google.earthly map.
    And then it is just a lot like a huge jigsaw puzzle, with the difference that you actually don't exactly know what the end result will look like, and you have to cut and tweak the pieces together yourself. Many parts of the map created themselves by just adding another piece or layer onto of another.


    I do have a sneak peak into my process on my personal portfolio (with a lot more explanation behind the reason and my personal approach, but it is in German) and I am not sure if I am allowed to post links in this sort of matter.
    Thanks for sharing. I did a photo-bashing map once of Dune, but never came to the idea of mixing it later with brush strokes. It's a great result! I may try it some day. I guess there's nothing wrong with that link, but I'm new around here. End German is no a problem to me. Again, thanks for sharing.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bretton View Post
    Thanks for sharing. I did a photo-bashing map once of Dune, but never came to the idea of mixing it later with brush strokes. It's a great result! I may try it some day. I guess there's nothing wrong with that link, but I'm new around here. End German is no a problem to me. Again, thanks for sharing.
    Let's find out what the MODs think.
    This would be the link to the project: https://www.legrandblond.de/nerdcore

  4. #14
    Guild Journeyer Bretton's Avatar
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    Let's find out!
    Thanks for the link!

  5. #15

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    This map blows me away. I'm fairly early on in the process of working on a map myself and when I saw this I almost wanted to scrap it and learn how to photo bash like this from scratch!

  6. #16

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    Oh Thank you - but don't stop one creative process for another.
    Learn different techniques and don't be afraid to combine them.

    As part of my creative process and journey I already created and recreated this map 5 times so far. (Hexmap, Hand-drawn, 1st PS-Version, Vector-baed Topography map and now this Version)
    The next time I rework or refine this map I want to use 3D imagery and tools like Blender or Cinema 4D - to really enhance the overall realistic look and the feeling of depth and textures.

  7. #17

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    That's a great map and I like the style for the labels. The only thing I would suggest is maybe adding a heightmap under the mountains and set the layer above to multiply (or something like that).

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