Rheia: one final try at ground-up worldbuilding

[Naima]

Posting another semi-yearly update on this, now that I've finally made some progress on doing a shaded relief map. Still pretty much a novice at Photoshop so this is the result of a great deal of trial and error with lighting effects and various filters. Still need to go through and work on some of the climate boundaries to make the map look a little more "natural" but I'm starting to be happy with the general style. I'm not going to be able to make the detail necessary for a proper realistic-looking DEM so instead I tried to make the shaded relief a little more artistic- sort of like the older style of physical maps National Geographic used to put out (albeit not nearly as good).

Attachment 137197

On a related note, has anyone using Mac OS had any luck recently using G.Projector? Mine crashes as soon as I open it. Have tried re-installing numerous times but it's always the same problem. Kind of a drag as I'd like to have the final product in a more aesthetically pleasing projection than equirectangular...

Looks very good congratulations!

[Peter Toth]

Very impressive!

So you've switched to Photoshop for the creation of your latest WIP? I remember you telling me that vector-based programs such as Illustrator are much more effective at creating detailed maps such as these; also, vector-based files are smaller and thus easier to handle. You previously sold me on Illustrator but now I'm not so certain.

Do you use real life DEMs in your work, or is it all hand-drawn? And, finally, in your opinion, could I achieve good results with only Photoshop and not Illustrator?

Again, fascinating work!

Peter

[Naima]

Very impressive!

So you've switched to Photoshop for the creation of your latest WIP? I remember you telling me that vector-based programs such as Illustrator are much more effective at creating detailed maps such as these; also, vector-based files are smaller and thus easier to handle. You previously sold me on Illustrator but now I'm not so certain.

Do you use real life DEMs in your work, or is it all hand-drawn? And, finally, in your opinion, could I achieve good results with only Photoshop and not Illustrator?

Again, fascinating work!

Peter

I think the best is still Photoshop , I do not understand how illustrator, inkscape or other vector programs could halp in making a realistic DEM .

[Tiluchi]

Very impressive!

So you've switched to Photoshop for the creation of your latest WIP? I remember you telling me that vector-based programs such as Illustrator are much more effective at creating detailed maps such as these; also, vector-based files are smaller and thus easier to handle. You previously sold me on Illustrator but now I'm not so certain.

Well that's a complicated question... I used Illustrator for hand-drawing the elevation map, and I think it's unmatched if you're wanting to have a zoomable master-map with lots of detail thanks to the vectors and smaller file size. That said, for making an actually presentable, somewhat artistic map there are some things you can only do with a raster program like Photoshop. In this case it was the lighting effects that I combined with the DEM to make the shaded relief, as well as the various filters. I expect I'll transfer it back to Illustrator soon to work on things like graticules, labels, etc.

Do you use real life DEMs in your work, or is it all hand-drawn? And, finally, in your opinion, could I achieve good results with only Photoshop and not Illustrator?

Again, fascinating work!

Peter

Honestly I think that depends entirely on how you're doing your DEM. If you're hand-drawing a DEM, either as a standalone or something to input into Wilbur, then Illustrator or another vector-based program will allow you to get way more detail and is generally easier to edit. If you're patching together real-world DEMs then I think Photoshop is by far the better option. I hand-drew my DEMs which I enjoyed since it gave me full control over the world and felt like it was something totally original, but I don't necessarily recommend it as it was probably about a hundred hours of work for something that still isn't as detailed as what I'd have if I just got DEMs from Earth and repurposed them. Depends entirely on your tech-savviness and your philosophy of mapmakling and worldbuilding...

[Tiluchi]

Just a quick update that I was able to figure out a workaround for G.Projector- for those using Photoshop just a heads-up that Flexify is a very useful plug-in with a free trial!

[MrBragg]

Glad to see you're still working on this, these updates are great!

[Tiluchi]

Another update- worked on refining the shaded relief a little more and added some insets to the map. I'll probably keep fiddling around with the relief for a while but for now I think I'm about ready to switch over to Illustrator for the lettering.

[Peter Toth]

Beautiful presentation! I especially love the bottom left panel showing tectonic boundaries and volcanoes, since this information is so rarely depicted in maps found on the Guild. Did you make use of Artifexian's tutorial videos to create your tectonic history and plate movement? I don't recall him showing how to determine the plate boundaries but I could be wrong.

What information is depicted in the upper right hand panel?

At any rate, very beautiful work, Tiluchi!

Peter

[Naima]

Another update- worked on refining the shaded relief a little more and added some insets to the map. I'll probably keep fiddling around with the relief for a while but for now I think I'm about ready to switch over to Illustrator for the lettering.

Congrats, the orography looks very realistic and well made especially since it was made manually without using Dem sources.

[Tiluchi]

Beautiful presentation! I especially love the bottom left panel showing tectonic boundaries and volcanoes, since this information is so rarely depicted in maps found on the Guild. Did you make use of Artifexian's tutorial videos to create your tectonic history and plate movement? I don't recall him showing how to determine the plate boundaries but I could be wrong.

What information is depicted in the upper right hand panel?

Thanks Naima and Peter! I did my tectonics based on the tutorial by worldbuildingpasta, with the main exception being that I "only" did about 400 million years' worth of tectonics. The GPlates animation is way back in the first post here. The upper right panel depicts the levels of magic in the world, with red being stronger ambient magic. This is a fantasy world after all...