Beyond Sosnasib

[Greason Wolfe]

Beyond Sosnasib - The Boguildurie Peninsula

Thanks to a suggestion by a certain someone that we won’t call out by name (he does have a lot of bling, a sparkly gemstone of a name, and runs the main monthly Challenges, thank you very much ), I am going to attempt to take my March/April 2018 Lite Challenge Entry to the next level. Not that I really needed the suggestion. As the challenge came to a close, while I was fairly happy with what I had accomplished, I still didn’t feel as though my entry was truly finished. The simple fact of the matter is, in the sixth hour, I completely revamped the approach I was taking, and, ultimately, ran out of time. If only I had started with that approach to begin with... But, as my father used to say, if the wolf hadn’t stopped to mark his territory, he’d have caught the rabbit.

Now the wolf is chasing another rabbit, but this time he marked his territory before he started the chase.

There are three bits of software I am using for this map;

1) Terragen 0.9.43 (it’s an old version, but I have it fully licensed so I can use all of it capabilities)

2) Wilbur (by and far my favorite height field editor)

3) Paint Shop Pro (again, an older version, but it has everything I need it to have)

For those that didn’t follow the Challenge, my work process went like this (short version)

I took the DEM data for the western portion of North America, (technically speaking, it was a portion of the W140N90 DEM of the GTOPO 30 Dataset that came with Fractal Terrains Pro) raised the sea level by about 900 feet (260 meters to be exact, and even more in some areas), and went to town with some height field editing (in Wilbur) as well as texture and coloring schemes in Terragen.

For the most part, I will be doing the same thing here, but I will be using a larger portion of the data. That being said, I am, for all intents and purposes, starting from scratch. I will have to redo the lakes and rivers, I will have to replant the forests, and, if I follow the vision I have in my mind as I am typing this, make some changes to my height field editing process. And I don’t mind any of that because I am actually excited about this map, and, after working my way through the Challenge, a little better armed to see it through to completion. YAY!!!!!

It is my intent (as per the original Challenge rules) to use as many CG member names for locations and points of interest as I can, however, many of those names are likely to be “re-purposed” in order to get a more “thematic” distribution than was evident in my Challenge entry. I may also end up including a number of random names as well, but only if they are needed to flesh out the last little bits of the finished map, because (and lets face facts here), not every member name lends itself well to such purposes. Still, if I can find a way to use a member name creatively, I will do so over the use of a random name.

Lastly, because a small amount of interest in it has been expressed, I will be, from time to time, taking little side trips to explain how I am getting from point A to point B to point C. I will try to keep these side trips from happening to frequently as well as fairly brief. However, if they become too distracting, please let me know, and I will save them for another time/thread for any who still have an interest.

So now that I’ve lulled all of you into a false sense of hope (insert evil laugh/howl and wicked smile/baring of fangs), I’ll post my “final” map as it appeared for the Challenge so that we can judge whether or not I reach the next level (or maybe even more than the next level) with this map.

[Mouse]

Oh good!

I was hoping you would carry on

[Azélor]

I felt like the area was familiar but could not tell.
I'm eager to see what you will do with this.

[Greason Wolfe]

Not a huge update, mostly some test work. Did isolate the area to be mapped and started working the shore lines, but took a bit of a side trip to try to figure out how to represent scale for this map. The grid that is currently in place represents 1 degree chunks of the world's surface and my thought is to label them as such and then add a mileage ratio along one latitudinal segment. Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?

Oh, this render was done on a curved surface rather than a flat surface, and being a rather quick and dirty render, is fairly fuzzy at the moment. It will get better as I get deeper into the height field editing.

[Naima]

Thats really cool , how did you do to give that curvature? . My only criticism would be that mountains are a little tiny and hard to distinguish ,perhaps a more decise shading would help ? Other than that looks great .

[Greason Wolfe]

First significant update. Yay!

Spent some time today (or yesterday depending on your time zone) refining the selected area and working the coast lines. They're not 100% just yet but getting closer. Also shifted a few islands around to get what I hope will be a more pleasing aesthetic. May have to work them a bit more as well. On the whole, though, I am fairly happy with this so far, but I am also working on the easy stuff right now. When I get to the mountains (not going to change much, just want to get a bit more of a riged look to some of them and, in some areas, expand their bases), I expect progress might slow down a bit. And, of course, those evil forests, but I have a new plan for them.

Anyways, here is the latest WIP



Edit: For anyone that might be interested here is what the current version looks like on a curved plane. The curvature is pretty close to accurate for the area if it were on an Earth sized globe given that I have scaled the area pulled from the DEM file to about half of its real world size.

[Ilanthar]

Glad you keep working on this! Still looking great.

[Greason Wolfe]

I'm trying. Being a bit of a rough week at work. Lots of product rearrangement and messes to clean up, but hope to get something accomplished on this over the next day or two.

[Greason Wolfe]

Although my He!! month at work isn't over yet I got a chance to work on this a little bit today. Mostly laying out rivers and lakes in the northern tip and east of the main mountains. Thinking that I might need to widen them a bit, but this is also a low detail render, so they may be fine when I rack up the detail level. Labeled a few spots with their real world names just as a point of reference for anyone who might be curious.

[Ilanthar]

Will you add some halo/glow around the labels? If not, you might want to choose a different color for legibility.