Moonsea Progress Screens...anyone got a good map?

indio · Post by **indio** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 8:54 pm

And finally I get to turn my attention to the Moonsea. I've been looking forward to it.

Now I haven't got anything to show yet, but before I can build anything, I need a good map of the area. I've looked at the latest WotC offerring from Mysteries of the Moonsea, and frankly, it's a little disappointing.

So, can someone please post a good map of the region for me? And then I'll get started.

hollyfant · Post by **hollyfant** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 11:37 pm

This any good?

indio · Post by **indio** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:35 am

Very nice.

I'll get started now.

Thangorn · Post by **Thangorn** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:03 am

yo.. I'm moving house so I havent been about much..

I used Ruins of Zhentil Keep map for the south ward/old city and the Mysteries of the Moonsea map for the north ward/new city..

that Moonsea map isnt too bad though some things are in off places but overall not too bad..

indio · Post by **indio** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:40 am

This is my 7th stab at the north west quarter of the Moonsea region....there will be another three 9 area sub-regions coming soon, but here's something I'm happy with for now.

This is the flats approaching the dragonspine mountains, and the first slopes of the range itself.

If Than likes the basic look I'll proceed to the next sub region, but all feedback is welcome.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:51 am

Looks brilliant to me- with that lighting it looks especially nice. Are you planning to do several travel-type areas, or one large one?

indio · Post by **indio** » Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:20 am

I think both probably, because Than is already working on a travel map and I'll make 36 connected 24x24 areas the takes in the major region west of the sea itself, stretching from Zhentil Keep to Teshwave.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:46 pm

Looks real nice.

Just a quick question from a YATT noob - is it easy to control the level of "noise" in the terrain? Looking at those pictures, it looks like there are a lot of dips and bumps everywhere, more than what looks truly natural to my eye.

indio · Post by **indio** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:09 pm

Yeah, it is, and the same thing has been bothering me about the area terrain.

Basically a bitmap image is what defines the height variance based on the shading gradient....darkness in the image results in dips in the area, lightness results in bumps.

The easy fix for these shots is to get a large Smooth brush onto them which will quickly even the terrain out without changing the overall lay of the land.

The proper fix would be to get the bitmap image back into Photoshop and blend more seamlessly the dark/light variations in it.

AcadiusLost · Post by **AcadiusLost** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:18 pm

I think it depends on the scale- the "noise" in those screenshots looks pretty reasonable for a scaled travel map, though for a 1:1 exterior it might "feel" odd.

indio · Post by **indio** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:41 pm

I'll hit them with the smoothing stick and see how they fly then.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:45 pm

That or "smudge" it in photoshop. For some reason I can't explain, I just love that tool!

indio · Post by **indio** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:05 am

I've laid out Moonsea in YATT. Here are the results.

Travel Map - West

Hillsfar - 4 areas

Phlan - 4 areas

Voonlar - 4 areas

Zhentil Keep - 4 areas

indio · Post by **indio** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:14 am

I'm really conscious of the style Thangorn builds with, which I find difficult to match, so my feeling at this stage is that I'll let Dez (or a volunteer maybe) populate them with placeables.

That way Dez gets essentially complete artistic control and a stable base to operate from. It's not all I'd hoped to get done for Moonsea, but it's all I've got the juice for at the moment.

Thangorn · Post by **Thangorn** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:06 am

Thanks Indio.. That is wonderful effort and I really appreciate the work you have put in, thats going to help me tremendously with rebuilding after the corruption :/

two questions incidentally -:
1. what size areas are those maps?
2. are the city areas linked with ATs?

Thanks once again mate..