"Bartokamous"--A Detailed Realistic Map

[Peter Toth]

Hello fantasy cartographers,

I've been working on this particular map for a week now, having finally reached the first stage of defining the continent's topography. The plate tectonics might be a little faulty (no pun intended, LOL); not to mention, the bathymetry is experimental, as I'm still learning this part of the trade. The continent does, however, have significant detail, and I'll be developing various aspects of it--temperatures, rainfall amounts, climate--in follow-up posts during the coming weeks.

CytheriaWilbur.jpg

Please feel free to criticize this piece, for my improvement depends on your constructive criticism.

Cheers,

Peter

[antillies]

Nice work, Peter. I really, really like the shape of the continent and the work you've done so far. I'd be curious to hear a bit of your process (I assume FC3/Wilbur?) and what scale you're working with? Is the continent closer to South America in size or Africa? My only thought may be perhaps each of the mountain ranges may be a bit too uniform in terms of appearance?

[Peter Toth]

Hello antillies,

Thank you so much for your positive reply. This piece represents a work in progress, the breadth of which I'll be deciding tonight and updating in a couple days. Yes, so far it's leaning towards South America or Africa in terms of scale, meaning the mountain ranges may be a bit out of scale and the oceanic trenches a bit too wide. I'm constantly improving my process, however, constantly thinking of new ways to represent physical features with limited resources and computer processing speed. Thanks to this wonderful site, I've found my home and finally connected with individuals who can teach and inspire me to push the boundaries of "realistic" fantasy cartography. This is one hobby I've discovered that I could do for hours and never get bored. Would be my dream job, certainly.

[waldronate]

I recommend taking a look at Wilbur's "V2 Shader" feature (Texture>>V2 Shader). You'll need to set your edges in terms of latitude and longitude via Surface>>Map Info to get things working correctly with that shader, though.

[antillies]

That’s wonderful to hear, Peter! Thank you for sharing that. I was wondering too your creation process for the map. Did you use a combination of Fractal Terrains and Wilbur?

[Mapsburgh]

This is a great start, I'm excited to see how this turns out. Echoing antilles, I would add some variation to the size and appearance of the mountain ranges. I think you could also do with more variation in the width of the continental shelf. For example, in the southwest coast where you seem to have a very active convergent plate boundary, I would put the trenches closer to the mountains on the land, with only a little shelf in between.

[kacey]

It looks great Peter, how did you come up with the land shapes? I really like the coast line on this map.

[AntonioFrade]

Great map Peter! What version of wilbur are you using?

[Peter Toth]

Hello to all respondents,

The map is a highly-modified FT simulation; I may one day reveal the exact process in a Youtube video or a tutorial on this site, once it's finalized (giving me desirable results). I realized I was using the wrong Wilbur version when I couldn't find the V2 shader feature mentioned by waldronate. I wasn't able to download the latest version through fracterra, however, so I'm using the second-to-most-recent version, v. 1.86. Thanks to all for your constructive criticism; I'll try to modify my process to create greater diversity with my mountian ranges, as well as vary the width of my continental shelf. I'm about to update this project in a few minutes with diagrams showing pressures and winds for the summers/winters of this imaginary world; a climate map will follow soon afterwards. Thanks to all for your interest.

[qhqhTerra]

Awesome map!
An array of diagonal, sharp and straight rivers brings me a pleasant excitement.