Now we need to figure out who lives on these islands, and especially where and in wt do they live. I have tried to come up with some of this while working and here are some of my ideas:

Fishing villages, little trading town, inland fortress, farming community, a lighthouse or more of course, a temple to a god.

Now I want to hear your ideas!

Then I'll take my 10 or so favorites and create a Patreon Poll to determine the what should go on the final map.  

Here are the links to larger versions of the Island preview images:

Top down:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/axd49yoy2qa4e0e/Island%20top%20down%201.jpg?dl=0

Isometric:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mjmwiti2c6y8npj/Island%20Vue%20isometric%201.jpg?dl=0

Don't let the absence of posts here lull you into a sense that I'm slacking off. Its been busy times here with three different projects going in parallel, two commissions and the Island project. 

Our islands have had a difficult time to come out of what can best be described as render mayhem. The size, complexity and my determination to get the details out, seems to hit both hardware software and every other limitation my poor computers can conjure. So now I have a fairly good idea of the limits of current technology. 

After a week of trials and errors the results are very much to my liking and well worth the day or so of rendering it took me once I figured out how to do the setup.  

Left to do on the islands are settlements and roads, which will be determined in a poll coming up shortly. Then a little bit of world Machine work and export of all the data, final Photoshop touch up and Vue renders. 

My plan is still to have this project ready by the end of the month, so you can get to used it in your adventures soon. If all the troubles getting this project done is any indications, there will be plenty of great stories to be played out here!

Thank you all for joining me in this quest, and welcome to the new ones to arrive!

The Island Project is progressing just a little behind schedule. It took a lot of work and effort to bring all types of features into one project, elevation, texturing, lakes, rivers and vegetation, into a single map.

Here is a first look at one of tiny island of the group, the most rugged one. This is just the raw untouched elevation and textures from World Machine rendered in Vue, with no touch up and post processing at all. Despite this I consider this my best work so far.

Next step is to do a first complete render including masks. This is to be used as a base for placing settlements, roads and fields. There will be a poll coming up to let you all pitch in on where to add these features.

The goal is to have it all done and in your hands by the end of January.

I just had to make a quick shaded test as well...

This is a raw texture test straight from World Machine, and I must say I'm really proud of how this project is turning out. There are still a few things to tweak, lakes have some artifacts that makes hem all look shallow. I will remove them and generate a mask that makes it easy to add artifacts where needed later.

With some post work in Photoshop and shading applied it will be my best work so far I think. Thank you so much for making it possible for me to spend the time it have taken to get this set up!

Soon its time to start placing the settlements 🙂 

Texturing lakes and rivers on the agenda this evening. No I'm not suffering from a Holiday Hangover, its standard practice to use strong signal colors. It makes it lot easier to see if you're on the right track or not.

The main trick is to find the right data to tap into, and in order to see minute contrasts in the preview window its best to use strong colors that normally don't appear in nature.

World Machine basics continues, this time with the Coastal Erosion Device. It is a vital but often misused device that requires a bit of control to work properly. 

Figuring out a better way of doing things can sometimes take a surprisingly long time, and then all of a sudden strike you. I've worked with 3D terrain tools for over twenty years now and one of the main frustrations for me have been to try and create believable lakes and rivers.

The situation have always been like this: I have managed to make a great looking landscape. Then when I'm trying to place rivers and lakes they need to shape the landscape around them in order to fit in properly, but this inevitably messed up the geometry and required erosion to be applied again which had to be basked and so on. this It became a vicious cycle of refinement and masking over and over in order to create believable lake and river systems.

Over the years I've refined this five major times and made significant improvements, but to the price of more and more recalculations and masking, which take  time to render. Two days ago when I was working in Photoshop listening to music it just struck me to reverse how I did things.

Up until now I've always assumed it was best to mimic nature an have lakes and rivers affecting the landscape, but what if you instead started with the lakes and rivers and then let them shape the landscape around them. My idea was that this way you create a single set of elevation data and masks that can then be used throughout the rest of the landscape build.

I did a simple test build which kept me up much later than New Years, so now you know my priorities! It turned out really well so now I'm reworking my islands project to take advantage of this way of doing things.

So far my impression is that the results are better than anything I've achieved before and much improved performance, so it is a win win. Note that this only affects in which order the data are generated and processed, so nothing stops you from first creating the landscape and then adding lakes and rivers. World Machine will adjust the landscape will readjust to the added water.

One of the most striking benefits are the fast response you get when you edit river and lake shapes. The other is that now you can create both lakes and rivers using the same Layout Generator which means that rivers now are properly attached to lakes automatically, in most cases. You still have to make sure they are properly welded and on the same elevation.

I haven't extracted data and applied it to texturing yet, so there might be a snafu or two still to be worked out, but I can't see any reason why that should work. That is my mission of the day to put all that back together again using the new lakes and rivers.

Here is a link to my basic test file so toy can try it out:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cvqawlc2k71iuo/Rivers%20First%20-2.tmd?dl=0

Here is my new version of the Island Project using the new rivers:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/amknb5d11it2s8k/Islands%20Low-121%20Rivers%20Before.tmd?dl=0

I have to issue a warning for this file. The regular Views are no longer functioning. I've created temporary view here:

You can use this one until the textures are back in play again, which I hope to have fixed today.

One of primary my goals for my Patreon is to try and make some of my most desired fantasy mapping related wishes come true. In order for that to happen I need the help of other talented creators who can help me out in areas that are not my expertise.

The first one I'm ready to announce is Darlene, the creator of the iconic original Greyhawk map that sparked my interest in Fantasy Cartography back in the 80's. 

Her work have always been an inspiration to me, especially her calligraphy. So I've asked her to come and help us out in that field in 2018!

I have other creators in mind as well for other projects, but more on that later.