[WIP] Atlas map of the Antuzan Empire

[morne]

Hi all,

Long time lurker first time poster. I've been experimenting for quite some time, trying to figure out the best techniques and tools to create nice looking topographic atlas-style maps in the vain of vorropohaiah and artifexian. I think I've finally landed on a workflow/process that works for me and produces nice results. This process has involved using GMTED2010 SRTM heightmaps to create the base terrain in photoshop, GDAL for projecting high resolution heightmaps to various projections, World Machine and Wilbur for some minor terrain manipulation and locating rivers and lakes, G.Projector for figuring out projections and creating graticules, VulgarLang for generating names, G Plates for figuring distances and scaling, Songs of the Eons for generating Köppen climates, and finally Affinity Designer for creating the map in vector format.

All that said, here is an in-progress version of the first map of the world, the Empire of Antuza, a nation that acts as the antagonist of a series of novels I am working on:



Still working on the ocean depth heightmap, and I need to fill in the adjacent nations and a few other minor details before I can call this done.

Would love to hear feedback on city/road placements, as I mostly did it by feel---placing intial settlements near rivers, cities are closer together near the capital, etc. Most of this part of the continent is a tropical monsoon climate.

[Redrobes]

Wonderful map - coming along real nice. I like the font and text placement especially. Its all really neat. If you asking for crits the only thing I personally dont like is the lower case 'r' or 'l' for river and lake as you have the river names capitalized and the 'l' looks like a bar or 1 symbol. But the colour and fonts used are really clean and professional looking.

[morne]

I personally dont like is the lower case 'r' or 'l' for river and lake as you have the river names capitalized and the 'l' looks like a bar or 1 symbol.

Yep, that definitely makes sense. The formatting makes it a little unclear. Looking at some other atlases, using capital initials following the name looks better, and is less confusing:

[morne]

Wonderful map - coming along real nice.

Also, thanks! That means a lot coming from you. Your work on ME-DEM is awe-inspiring.

[Impesio]

Fantastic map! I know it's a bit pretentious, but consider doing a tutorial one day! I'm sure it'll be appreciated.

[morne]

Fantastic map! I know it's a bit pretentious, but consider doing a tutorial one day! I'm sure it'll be appreciated.

I don't think it's pretentious, but I do think my process is probably super inefficient and tedious. I am about to start the same process of building the heightmap for a new continent, so at the very least I'll start a progress thread to document the progress from start to finish.

[TheRedTurkey]

Can I ask how much time you have put into this?

[morne]

Can I ask how much time you have put into this?

I don't even think I could give you an accurate number... maybe 50+ hours from when I started making the heightmap? But that doesn't factor in the countless hours testing different techniques, time spent making the many maps I've thrown away before this one, and figuring out how to use gdal and QGIS (why does it seem like everyone that uses gdal already knows how to use it?). I am doing the heightmaps one landmass at a time though, so the topography has already been finished for about 5 other maps besides this one. The next landmass I'm starting on is probably 4-5 times bigger than this one, which is relatively small.

[morne]

Here’s a topo-relief style map of the entire continent.

[Impesio]

I don't think it's pretentious, but I do think my process is probably super inefficient and tedious. I am about to start the same process of building the heightmap for a new continent, so at the very least I'll start a progress thread to document the progress from start to finish.

Very cool! I home to find it when you’ll make it! Maybe write here after. I look after to se how you managed to do this!