Mediterranean Tile Set Testing and Topo Testing. II

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On third of the boarder, canyons and gorges.

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Ready for the final push to get the canyon land in and the terrain boarder transitioned into the terrain.

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Painted the footprint for the base elevation layer at 6500ft. There was a reason for the 5000ft checkerboard pattern in green that now gives me the contrast to see my erosion canyons.

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Country-2 done, now Country-3.

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Contry-3 finished and now cleanup and finishing work then painting.

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First attempt at working the runoff canyons into a gorge. Since there is a minimum of 100 in each country, I should come up with something I like in the cleanup phase and painting painting after.

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Getting closer.

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Some tiles will glare out under the sunlight and make it hard to create large structures. I've painted the whole canyon land work area in a non-reflective light green to make it easier to see what I'm doing.

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Sped up the work.

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Low elevation ridges and water runs are easier to create if you map the out and mark them on the terrain. Then you can pull the cuts and raise the ridge and small side runs if you have the room.

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Just like with the last rift valley I mapped and pulled the ridge line then used the bulldozer tool to pull angles down to the runoff lines creating ridges. I'll create the actual features in another pass with the raise hill tool.

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Because this corner is the first work on the canyons and transitioning down into the lower basin area around the lake, it's become a test to how to accomplish that. I'm being forced by how I designed the terrain to use definition lines to describe the ridges and water cuts to make everything fit smoothly. Free handing whole topo features stops being easy when you are not building something huge where huge it's easy to see everything. When you are creating a ridge that runs from 5000 down to 2000 a few miles by a few miles, it's easy to make it's features out sized of the actual proportions with too much free handing with the mouse. Guide lines give you a physical scale guide to stay inside.

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There is always a conflict between artistic, random and speed when you craft something like these canyons. They are chaotic and seemingly random so running through and rapidly cutting the raw foundations edges back or just using a smoothing tool should wrap it all up in minutes. If you spend a little time looking at pictures of the real world geo formations you are trying to emulate, you will see repeating features due to the nature of the rock type and how it weathers. Water being the strongest eroder and sculptor.

Ask your self what will water do to this, then run through with a cutting tool and rapidly erode the walls and pull water cuts. Spending too much time will cause you to get lost in artistic dead ends and blow away more material than you intended. Faster but not careless ends up with a balance that looks sort of like real world chaotic. Since this is all about the illusions you are limited to by the size of the polygons.

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There will always be some kind of a transition that will require you to work it before you can work a whole other element. I was going to finish this canyon land corner and I had to create the lower slopes to the lake before I could start shaping the walls.


Before with the ridge lines and water runs defined.








After with the ridge and water runs lines connected waiting for texture finishing.

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Here is what is left in this first corner.