OpenGeofiction
Okay, so on another forum that I frequent, there is a thread for OGF maps. I’ve posted mine here and there asking for advice. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone is telling me stuff I already knew - my mountains and rivers don’t make sense whatsoever. I for some reason, despite looking at countless maps, guides, whatever, cannot figure how to lay out geographic features to save my life. I’m a roads and highways guy, but I didn’t think I would be that bad. It’s partially the reason my country has sporadic updates.
So, I would like [brutally] honest criticism here, and any other advice to help me fix my country so it’s realistic. If need be, I would love if people drew natural features in Hiltonia so I didn’t have to, because they all suck anyway.
Here’s the link to my country… http://opengeofiction.net/#map=7/-34.814/21.281
Thanks guys.
Discussion
Comment from tom_m7 on 22 March 2015 at 01:01
Draw your roads around natural features, not the other way around. If that makes any sense. Before I started mapping Akinyaka, I had a rough outline of where the mountains would be and where the valleys and rivers would be. (Of course, having a rough outline means that it’s been changed a LOT over the last 11 months I’ve been mapping Akinyaka.) I’ve been drawing my roads and highways up and down mountains, not mountains flanking the roads.
Also, your river and lake systems look weird. Specifically:
They seem unusually big in comparison to your metropolitan areas. Reduce the width of your rivers when they’re nearer to their source and add more detail at a lower zoom level. The detail part applies to lakes as well.
This delta. Add more detail at a lower zoom level and reduce the size of the delta itself and its channels. It helps to look at real life deltas (Mississippi on a large scale, Snohomish River in northwestern Washington on a lower scale, etc.) or places where rivers flow into oceans or seas and model your deltas or estuaries on those.
That’s all. I look forward to seeing Hiltonia develop further. Tom
Comment from tom_m7 on 22 March 2015 at 01:04
A footnote - you shouldn’t copy other maps verbatim.
Comment from histor on 22 March 2015 at 10:35
Your boundaries of your provinces (states) are strange. Some looks like country-boundaries. That is, that you did not tag the boundaries as [boundary = administrative] and [admin-level = 4].
By the way = In the OGF-wiki at “Help and ressources” are a lot of tutorials, to make a better mapping.
Comment from Zeffy on 22 March 2015 at 17:46
@Tom: Yes, my water systems make no sense whatsoever. The one you linked is kind of an older one, but still, it’s a result of poor planning. I looked at real-world examples, but I can’t wrap my head around them well enough.
@Histor - Some of those state boundaries are when I just drew static ways for each state instead of using relations. I forgot to change the old ones into using admin_level = 4 because I haven’t worked in that area in a while. Also, I’ve looked at the help and resources section countless times.
Is there a way to start over..? I honestly feel like if I didn’t have to look at my mess I could take more time to plan it slightly better.
Comment from Egen on 22 March 2015 at 20:00
I don’t know if my mapping justifies my advice or feedback, but even if it’s bad advice, maybe it will spark some ideas.
The hardest part for me when trying to map things is visualizing the topography, which affects pretty much everything. I have a sketched map of my territory where I’ve marked mountains and hills. It’s not very detailed, but gives me an idea of where things are, and which direction the water should flow.
You might try something like this:
Not saying this is what you should do exactly, but you could print out a copy of your territory, sketch in some hills/mountains/highpoints, and use that as a guide to determine the low points where the rivers should be.
You may have to move some of the rivers around a bit, but your results should be better if you have a plan from which to work.
Comment from Luciano on 23 March 2015 at 01:45
As others have said, the important thing is rivers and mountains. You have to have an idea about these before placing towns, highways, etc. For Ardisphere, I had sketched, on paper, something like the image here before doing almost anything else. For Mahhal, I have basically prohibitted myself from developing any more towns or human-made elements like rail and highways until I complete the hydrology (water systems) and contours (mountains) for the country. You don’t have to be that thorough, but you should at least have a rough idea, like I did with Ardisphere.
For an understanding of how to draw rivers / mountains, the key concept is that rivers are “dendritic”. You can get a lot of ideas and an understanding of how this works, visually, by googling “dendritic pattern” in image search: https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=dendritic+pattern&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch
There is nothing wrong with copying abstract patterns (as opposed to copying specific maps, which is discouraged). Since starting OGF I have used patterns of tree branches for rivers, fractals for landuse (farms and forests) and broken glass for streets (nice random-looking “old world” streets).
Hiltonia clearly has the shape of a river drainage basin. So figure out where your main river flows - Paxtar’s suggestion is good. Then start adding in the branches (dendrites) to as much detail as you have the patience for. Then you will know where the moutains are (i.e. between the rivers). Finally, you can start placing towns and roads - see Isleño’s write-up on country growth patterns: http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_countries
Comment from Zeffy on 23 March 2015 at 03:50
@Paxtar - Actually, that helps a lot. I’m more of a visual person, so illustrations will always do me better than just text.
@Luciano - So most rivers are dendritic patterns? That’s extremely helpful to know what the general pattern should be. I assume that the tributaries are the branches, and the main stream is the “trunk” (for lack of a better term)?
I’ll take some time out and try and make something like Paxtar did, which I like a lot, or maybe even hand-draw it. The latter would look awful because I can’t draw to save a life.
Comment from Zeffy on 23 March 2015 at 18:00
After taking a bit of time to plan it out, I came up with this using GIMP and a screencap of my country. I’m not sure how realistic it is, but I think it’s an improvement of what I have now:
The thicker the strokes the more “major” the waterway is. The darker green represents the higher points of mountains.
Comment from Luciano on 23 March 2015 at 23:45
The one area where I see a potential problem is that you have some major rivers running into a lake (near what looks like Bedford on the map). And that lake has no “outlet.”
This type of situation is not impossible, but keep in mind that it only occurs in very dry and desert climates (for example, the Great Salt Lake in Utah has no outlet, or the Dead Sea between Israel and Jordan, or the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan). Unless you mean for that part of your country to be a desert, you need to think about where the water in that lake at Bedford goes. Does it flow into your neighbor? That’s ok, but you need to coordinate with your neighbor (when you get one… and be prepared to make compromises and adjustments).
Comment from Zeffy on 24 March 2015 at 20:25
I’ll extend that river whenever I figure out how to proceed with these changes… my old giant OSM file I use in JOSM is a bit outdated, and the moment I try to publish changes to the server it’ll end up erroring out, so…
If a country is marked for withdrawal, are edits in that country still verboten until it actually gets re-activated or withdrawn? My plan would be for that river to slink all the way down into the ocean, of course that’s dependent on if my neighbor wants it like that or wants it to end at a lake or who knows.
Comment from histor on 24 March 2015 at 21:46
Logical is, that from the lake near Bedford the water runs to the south to the sea. At the moment your neighbour in the south has time til 31.5.2015, to be active again. And in the area to the south of your lake is nothing.
So I think, you can plan, that this lake has it output to the south. If the owner will not edit in this area remarkable items, then draw the river from Bedford-lake to the sea after 31.05.2015.
Comment from PColumbus73 on 30 March 2015 at 18:11
When it comes to building towns, I prefer using the default ID editor. I think it helps make towns look more natural and less ‘copy-paste’.
It’s actually not that difficult for me to build a good looking grid system, my problem is building curvy, meandering subdivisions.
Here are a couple of my cities, Duranth and Arlington:
Duranth, a freeform town:
http://opengeofiction.net/#map=13/21.9365/4.1185
Arlington, my best ‘Gridiron town’
http://opengeofiction.net/#map=13/21.8300/4.0964