May
26th
2018
Worldbuilding - Map to the Future · 3:00pm May 26th, 2018
A lot of people really like my Map of Equestria. I've recently made a new map in another style that some of you may enjoy. The map is blank for now, but the natural features are all there and I would like to know what you guys think of this art style. How does this make you feel? What does it make you think of?
Full map rez here.
Oh, and I can make maps do this now. (Not sure if this is comparable with mobile browsers).
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Meep the Changeling · 443 views
· Story: The Adventures of Flesh and Bone
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#map
#worldbuilding
#cartography
Looks impressive
Really land'y. Wouldn't it be too dry? I mean, beyond magical shenanigans. Lots of straights, how big are them? Short enough to build bridges? To have artillery pound the other side? Navies would probably abound, those many narrow seas would probably allow people to circumnavigate with early tech ships. Scratch that, without oceans to generate storm systems it wind certainly happen. Globalization would be a reality really soon. No late contact for diseases to devastate new continents either.
Curious, what more can you tell us about it?
Hmm. This looks like a world that would favor many small nations in any given area rather than big, continent-spanning empires, given how many natural borders there seem to be. A bit like Europe after the fall of Rome -- with all the seas, straits, peninsulas, islands, mountain ranges and rivers fragmenting it, many smaller nations could form and hold each other off at easily defensible areas or isolate themselves, while conquering armies and empires would have to navigate around seas, mountains and rivers getting in the way of travel and communication. A lot of Europe's nations still use these features as borders -- the Alps and Pyrenees, the Rhine and the Danube, the British Channel and Irish Sea, etcetera. So, since your map here has so many islands, straits, peninsulas and small inland seas breaking up the landmasses and mountains and deserts scattered around the bigger continents as well, it looks like something similar would arise here -- the abundance of natural barriers would favor the growth of many comparatively small nations, states and cultures each in its own "cranny" of the geography, and hinder the ability of one or a few cultures taking over significant portions of the world.
On the other hand, sea-based travel and trade would likely be favored. With all those narrow seas going everywhere, once ships advance past the oar-powered galley stage there would always be a convenient strait or arm of sea to take you to any corner of the world you might care to visit. Long-distance travel and exploration would probably arise earlier than in our world, with its huge oceans and more compact landmasses.
On a similar note, this also has the look a world that would be high in ecological diversity -- lots of isolated environments and barriers to migration to allow all those the islands and peninsulas and subcontinents to develop their own specialized, endemic flora and fauna. New species arise when an original species' populations are no longer able to breed with each other for whatever reason, and geographical barriers are an excellent way to do that.
As an example, take the north-central continent and let's assume it's roundabout the size of Eurasia. Any given species of large mammal -- say, deer or moose or wolves or bears -- is able to remain a single species over the whole of Eurasia because individuals can travel over the great north Eurasian plains and keep the entire continent's populations in contact with one another, so that -- for example -- if a mutation arises at one end of the species' range and a different mutation at the other, these will spread through the entire continent's populations after a while and keep the species mostly homogeneous. Here, however, there would be a lot of barriers -- in this case it looks like four or five mountain ranges and an inland sea, in addition to any group of animals living on any of the islands -- in the way of migration. If a new characteristic develops in a population it's likely to stay there, since those barriers will be in the way of animals wandering between populations. In short order, you'd expect to see many different species arising from each isolated population as mutations keep building up.
... ah, sorry about the text dump. Sciences major and all that. :twilight blush:
The much higher proportion of land to sea than here on Earth makes me think that this would be a drier world, but perhaps the closeness of any given stretch of land to a sea might counteract that to some degree.
Are you using some sort of map generation program to make these or is this pure digital painting/editing like Gimp or Photoshop? Because if it's the former then I'd be really interested in what you're using for one of my own Non-Pony stories.
It reminds me of a stylised random generated map from Sid Meier's Alpha Centaurus.
Looks cool on the globe.
I wonder how the flat version would look in Dymaxion projection?
4869945 I use both. The terrain shape is created by a program known as Fractal Terrains 3. I then edit it in Fractal Terrains, raising and lowering terrain to create more sea/land or make mountains pop up where there should be. The program also gens/lets you create rainfall and temp maps and will use those to work out biome placement. From there I export the map to Campaign Cartographer 3 or Photoshop. Photoshop if I want to do a satellite map as it's done (FT3 makes sat maps) save for the map features and labels. CC3 if I want the map to be stylized.
CC3 is a program meant specifically for creating professional quality maps in many styles. It does a LOT of things, world maps, town maps, floor plans, deck plans, star systems, galaxies... You have to hand-paint the map, but you can trace over the maps FT3 generates to use its coast shapes. Then export a biome map and use that to paint on the biomes, contour lines, place mountains, and so on. It's got built in styles so you can tell it to use only tools which would let you make a map that looks like pen and ink, or a sketch, or a modern atlas map, or an old timy sepia tone map and so on. Those are not like Instagram filters. It changes out what each drawing tool does and you cant change them mid-mapping and "cycle" through styles to see what it looks like. It's like having purpose-built markers.
CC3 can also handle putting down map markers, and everything else a map needs, bordors, compasses, scales, etc. But I prefer using photoshop for those. It's less... late 90s UI design XD
4870106 Fun fact, my mapmaking program has one click projection changes... It dosnt have that specific projection, but this one is close!
orig00.deviantart.net/9f8c/f/2018/146/c/8/pointymap_by_meepthechangeling-dccm0hz.png
4870086 Thats kinda the style I was going for :3
4869919
Dont appologise! Science dorks unite!
Yes, this is a bit of a dry world. YOu'll note that large chunks of it are savanah, and that the forests are either tropical (near big bodies of water) or alpine. I wanted to play with water levels to see what the lowest land to water ratio would be that still had biome verriety (The terrain generator program I use to get the outlines of continents has climate date you input. By climate data I mean you pick the adverage temp, greenhouse effect, angle light hits the world and so on.) Making Dune is way too easy XD
I also was shooting for something that would have high bio-diversity. ESPECIALY with hominids. YOu know how fantasy worlds always have multiple sapient beings on one rock? You'd need a world like this for them to have diversified that much. I'm thinking that goblins might have adapted for life on the grassy planes of this world. Short green humans who live in tall green grass. Seems ligit to me, provided the common ancestor could be green in pigmentation or mutate to be green. 4869817 may be interested in that too.
As for elves... What ecological conditions cause holier than thou nature loving dicks to evolve? Whole Foods. There's one in every jungle... (jk :P)
Hmm I dunno about isolation. Seas are one hell of a barrier, but are those big and deep enough for that? As it stands it seems like at least plant species would be quite able to propagate between continents. Not to mention any sapient would have an easy time crossing them in canoes, maybe not for commerce but certainly for colonization.
Well, there is the Monster Factor going, too. Until a species becomes advanced enough to deal with magical monsters those can severely limit their mobility. Give it a couple hundred thousand years of separation due to dragons and a single sapience surge could become two distinct species. Or allow two different ones to develop without ever knowing about the other. Indeed something to think about.
4870132
Thanks for the tips. I'll have to look into those programs.
4870150
Oh, that's an interesting point. I never thought about that issue with having multiple species in one world, but you raise a fair point. So elves in jungles, goblins in tall-grass prairies, humans in savannas like here on Earth, dwarves in mountains or caves or similar, stuff like that? Sort of like our world if the Neanderthals, Denisovans, erectus and possibly the Flores hobbits hadn't all gone extinct or merged with one another and our ancestors -- and if anything diversified and specialized even further. And by the time two species of hominids managed to spread into each others' territories, they may not even be reproductively compatible anymore.
Hmm. Would this world, by any chance, also include non-hominid sapients?
4870195 That's the idea. Monsters kept people from loving till tech got good enough. But dont forget that magic would change how sapient creatures evolve too! Evolution may happen "faster" ie more radical changes can occur more quickly.
4870530
At the very least half-______s wouldn't be able to reproduce, but there'd differently be some "Ligers" out there.
I always have at least one! What kind of non-hominids do you think make for good intelligent lifeforms? I like ceflopods and insects. IRL there's a chance that the blue ringed octopus is human-level intelligent (we cant tell due to "language" issues. How do you even talk to one? But they do LOOK as smart as us.) As for insects there's a small group of entomologists whoa re confident that as a COLLECTIVE the Honey Pot Ant colony could be thought of as sapient. They plan, make tools, reinforce nests with "concrete" in ways which are surprisingly sturdy. They also set traps like pungie steaks to defend their nests, and can make hinged gates. But those traits are not present in individual or even small groups of the ants. It seems only present in a colony of at least 400.
4870594
Don't forget cetaceans. They don't have tools due to their environment, but they do have culture. In a world with magic it would be possible for them to change the former and then become a proper civilization, even if one with a small headcount.
Hydras would make for a hilarious sapient species though. Way too many opinions in each citizen but enough mouths and flexible necks to double as crude hands. I wonder, how would a Hydra City look like, if they ever built one?
4870594
I always thought there is good potential in corvids and elephants. They're the only non-human animals that regularly display mourning behavior for their dead (and I also heard apocryphal, by which I mean largely unsourced, stories of elephants displaying these behaviors for deceased humans too). Corvids also have stunning memory for faces and incredible learning skills -- National Geographic ran an article on bird intelligence a couple issues back and the opening story was about a girl who befriended a neighborhood flock of crows: she gave them dog food and peanuts in bird feeders and they brought her shiny stones, crystals, lego pieces, little toys and other colorful or sparkly objects they found, and stayed to watch her reaction to each gift to learn what she liked the most to improve the quality of future gifts. They also have ridiculously complex flock dynamics, and as far as I know magpies are the only birds that regularly pass the mirror test. Elephants I believe have been know to score higher than apes in some tests meant to assess cooperative behavior.
In general, insofar as vertebrates go (I don't know about cephalopods or arthropods), high intelligence is very strongly linked with social life. The bigger and more complex your group grows, the smarter you need to be to navigate successfully within it. All the really big-brained vertebrates -- apes, cetaceans, elephants, corvids and parrots -- live in groups.
Oh, that's interesting. Never hear about that before. Do you know anywhere I can read up on this?
4870675 A good place to start will be the ant wiki entry :3
http://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Myrmecocystus
At the very bottom you can read in detail about the MULTIPLE species of insect they are known to ranch.
I think it would be interesting to add Equis (the first map) onto the second as a landmass, but I can see why it wasn't -- I also wonder what the scale is; because I have no idea if it is a big map or a couple of meters wide. All in all, the terrain looks nice and I can't wait to see more details added (cities, et cetera) and the possibility of new lifeforms and kingdoms (territory?).
Yes, the map seems pretty good, only problem is that the landmasses seem pretty reduntant, almost like what you'd see in a Randomized 'New World' in Europa Universalis 4, if that makes any sence... Another thing you're clearly missing that needs to be added is a large Diamond Dog empire called the "Mongrolian Empire" that spans the majority of the East. No good map is complete without the Mongrols...
4873292 By redundant, do you mean the land's SHAPE or the biome placement/shape/variety? Because this map is kinda just practice :3
As for that pun, well <3 I think I'll do just that.
4873299
I don't know, It's a bit hard to explain personally. The map almost looks like something you'd see from an archipelago rather than a map of the world (judging by what looks like ice-caps at the top and bottom of the map). There's no "central" landmass, and that kinda makes it look less like a map of the *world* and more like a map of a group of islands, like Indonesia. Then again, I'm not an expert in how land is formed and in what ways, so all I have to base my feelings on are the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, and the continents of South and North America. But still, like I said, the lack of a main landmass makes the map look wrong, but that might just be from having lived on continents that usually form with one large main part. I know it might be weird suggesting this, but think about combining one or two of the larger islands to make a central "island," that could help give a feeling of familiarity, and thus make it feel better. In my own opinion, of course!
Another thing, from what it looks like, there seems to be WAY to much land on that map. There are no large oceans or annything really seperating the lands, with the biggest body of water being more akin to a large lake than an ocean. With so little water, it's likely that there wouldn't be much life on such a planet, since it seems like there simply wouldn't be enough space for an aquatic-based life to begin on the planet to eventually evolve to become a land-dwelling creature. Not only that, but considering the size of the forests, and apparent lack of rivers and inland lakes, it looks like many areas of trees have no right surviving so far from the "oceans." My suggestion for this? perhaps shink many of the islands to a FAR smaller size in comparison to the map (while keeping a few to make the "central landmasses" from my first paragraph), add some more space between lands, and perhaps create some clusters out of the islands you'd shrink to make some archipelagoes.
Also, for the mountains, I think it would be better if instead of having mountain ranges scattered across the map seemingly randomly, it would be better to have many of them together, cutting off areas of land from one another, like the Ural Mountains, the Himalayas, or the Alps, since mountain ranges are usually formed from Tectonic Plates slamming into each other and pushing under or above other plates, which would happen almost entirely along the border of the two plates rather than in small areas of the borders.
Sorry if I sounded like I was just repeating the same point over and over again, or repeating some that other people said, just wanted to make sure I explained what I meant in my first post to the best of my abilities to prevent and confusion, and give my opinion on some things as well.
P.S. Thanks for considering that Mongrolian Empire thing! I actually thought about making a whole story about it (A HiE with the human becoming the Khan of the empire), but since I can't write to save my life, it'll just stay a daydream in my head to play out! But if you ever decide to do anything like write a story about it in your free time, don't be shy about asking me to give you my ideas for it, I'd be happy to help you make it!
4873708 You make many good points. When I generated the landmass for this map, I specifically told the program to cover the globe with only 45% oceans. I wanted to see what would generate under different parameters. The software I use does basic geological processes and fractal generation to create landmasses. This is the hottest and least amount of water I could do that had any plantlife at all emerge (It calculates that too as it does rainfall and biome maps).
I rather like this map for how Not Earth it is. But I fully understand your opinion. Howeaver the lack of lakes and rivers and seemingly poor placement of mountains is an art style thing. I left off rivers for this map because seriously, what old school hand drawn world map shows rivers? That's what I was trying to emulate with this style, only colored instead of ink and parchment. Like this kinda:
i.pinimg.com/originals/2a/27/8c/2a278ccef3dea962e30156f3f1c793a6.jpg
Here's the map rendering without any of the art I drew on top of it.
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/362377724855320587/451981663484772354/Cylender_Map.png
You can see the mountains are more logical. That's a fail on my end when taking the sat-map and doing an artistic rendering of it by hand :P It's also got rivers that are visible on the 1px=5km scale. so. holy shit. Dem's big ass rivers! Also a scale might help. This planet is about 33% bigger than Earth is, so there's more saltwater than you'd think. But you still do make some good points about things in general.
Even still, you've got lots of good points. I just wanted to give a more complete picture.