Fantasy Cartography

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Working progress...

Hand Drawn


Photoshopped (This is a rough draft)

3D renderings sans textures


[img][800:1054]http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9618/islandscreenshot2.jpg[/img]

[img][800:1080]http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3018/islandscreenshot3.jpg[/img]

Hey kxmode! Love the maps. I am an obsessive map drawer and fantasy world creator. What program are you using for the 3d? I'd love to be able to do something like that; all of mine are hand drawn.

Island's Heightmap (flipped horizontally and vertically so that it will orientate correctly in Unity)

Here's something I made in Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3:

I'm using Unity. It's an awesome free engine for creating 3D games for browsers / mobile apps. This video series teaches you how to use Unity. I used Photoshop to create the Heightmap. This video series teaches you how to create Heightmaps in Photoshop then import them into Unity. You can find a whole bunch of samples Heightmaps on Google Images.

When I have time I'm going to learn how to use Blender. It's a free open-source 3D modelling and animation suite; like Maya. Check out what you can do with it:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ[/youtube]

Oh, if you get a chance check out Filter Forge. You can create awesome looping textures and normal maps.

Nice! Now all you need to do is get Unity and convert that map into a real landmass! Watch the tut videos on how to use Unity and how to create Heightmaps. Links are in my previous comment. It's going to take about 10 hours to get comfortable with Unity.

I don't make maps of my own (though I did try recently to make an automatic adventure-exploration map generator thing, but didn't get too far - it always makes me want to program, and I haven't programmed properly for too long to do anything I want to do justice, and I can never work up the enthusiasm to learn to do it properly these days) but I've always liked making maps of places in books that don't already have one.

My problem is that I am much more creative than I am computer savvy, not a programmer. Second issue is I strive way too much for realism and get bogged down in details. I make the plate techtonics, the rain shadow effects, etc,etc, and at some point it becomes very very complex and I make a mistake and just walk away......sux .

These are fascinating! You guys are really talented

With textures. I reworked a LOT of the landscape and tried to make the mountains look like they're naturally part of the landscape. In case your wondering about the harsh texture separations... remember the following is Outer space view.



This is still a working progress. Going to keep polishing the textures.

At closer view textures blend very well.
[img][800:1049]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3346/islandscreenshot4.jpg[/img]

First person view (yes, you can actually move around on the island)
[img][800:914]http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/404/islandscreenshot6.jpg[/img]

I made this Snowy rock styled texture/normalmap for the mountains were I plan on placing snow effects. I honestly don't know what it will look like. I hope it looks great.


Update: It looks awesome! :) I liked it so much I made another version with a brighter bluish tint to make some of the rocks appear like icy gems.

Really good stuff. If only this allowed me to make a living...... drawing fantasy maps for fun AND proffit!