r/inkarnate • u/Alkaponer • 1d ago
World Map Map Tips
Long story short, I am making an island for this campaign I'm working on (think like Pangea). But I struggle with making the bodies of land look... natural. I find myself get several hours in and scrap my world because it feels too far gone.
Please, any tips are welcome, even rude ones lol
(Picture as an example of my latest failed attempt)
7
u/WhiteGrayV 1d ago
If you’re looking for natural, your rivers might be your most glaring problem.
Your rivers seem to defy physics and flow from one sea to another. Rule of thumb, a river begins in mountains/glaciers/hills and ends at the sea, possibly stopping at a lake to two along the way. If they are covering a great distance or find themselves on flat plains, they tend to meander quite a bit and do not flow straight.
3
u/marsh_man_dan 1d ago
Some tips:
1. Definitely could use some work in the rivers. They are the only things that are “wrong” (as in their morphology don’t match Earth’s). Try starting them in your mountains. When close to the mountains, they should be fairly straight, over larger flat areas have them meander.
2. Also your landmasses seem a little disconnected. I find that can happen with default shading in inkarnate. Try creating shallows between close land masses. Also, it’s good to add smaller islands to sort of visually limit your landmasses. You have some on your higher up islands but because they stay so close to your bigger ones, they still feel separate.
3. Try making your forests less dense; some of the areas almost look like a solid color when zoomed out. I also like to “fade” my forests out. Have the forest get sparser on the outer edges where it transitions into the plains.
4. Add some size variety to the size of mountains. Right now they look pretty homogeneous. The locations look good though. I also like to fade the mountains into the plains too, with some tiny mountains and with hills.2
1
u/Alkaponer 1d ago
These are all quality tips. Thank you. It's always nice to get a perspective from someone with more experience lol
2
u/CatapultedCarcass 9h ago
Or much more easily, change the name from River Kingdom to Strait Kingdom. 😎
3
u/tryxrabbyt 1d ago
I found that having some negative space on the map helps it feel better. My first many (and even some newer) maps were identical to this and that's the biggest thing that helped me. And breaking up landmasses. They're a smidge chunky. But I wouldn't scrap it, definitely good bones in there
Edit: even adding some smaller island land masses that you have no intention of the players ever going to helps make things like the northeast area look more natural. Little rinky dink things that help break up the shoreline
3
u/Intelligent_Night653 1d ago
I don't know if you have the subscription but I use the line tool to make rivers, it makes them a bit smaller. Also I use black lines with high blur and transparency to make changes in elevation like valleys. doing this also helps you place your rivers as you'll be able to see where the lowlands are
1
u/Alkaponer 1d ago
Never thought of using lines for elevation. Do you have any maps/links showing this? Think it could be a real game changer
2
u/Intelligent_Night653 1d ago
Reddit doesn't seem to want me to send pictures here so I'll send through dms
2
u/thebluerayxx 1d ago
Looks great. Gives the players a varied yet consice view of the world. A bit hard to read the smaller settlement names but other than that I think it will do wonders to guide your players around the space you created.
2
u/Dralctig 1d ago edited 1d ago
La placa continental puede ser como sea, sólo procura dejar algunas siluetas parecidas para simular la fractura de las placas. Luego dibuja las montañas, recuerda que se forman donde las placas colisionan, así que deberían ir en lineas paralelas a las fracturas continentales que pusiste. Luego imagínate un circuito de viento, donde pasa por el mar recoge agua y donde choca con una montaña la descarga, eso provoca que un lado de las montañas tenga mucha humedad y vegetación mientras el otro lado tiende a ser seco (salvo por los ríos). Los ríos empiezan en las zonas más altas, para cada río, dibuja una sola línea que vaya desde una montaña hasta el mar o un lago, la gente suele trazar a partir del río más lineas hacia el mar, pero eso es un error. Las lineas son otros ríos que vienen desde una zona alta y se van uniendo en zonas bajas, cada vez que unas dos ríos has un poco más gruesa la línea. Ya definiendo las zonas húmedas (por las montañas) y los ríos, pasas a poner la vegetación, entre más agua, más verde. Después siguen los asentamientos, principalmente en torno a lagos y ríos, luego identifica puntos de interés, ya sea por acceso a recursos, posiciones estratégicas, religiosas o intersecciones comerciales entre diferentes ciudades, por supuesto hay que trazar una red de caminos para encontrar esos puntos. Luego hay que barrer un poco la vegetación en las inmediaciones de los asentamientos y los caminos. Por último, imagina algunos conflictos politico-territoriales, destruye algunos de los pueblos que hiciste, crea ruinas, luego crea otros cercanos que pudieran surgir como resultado del conflicto, imagínate lugares de interés de acuerdo a la historia del mundo, locaciones especiales para tí.
7
u/TheRealFluid 1d ago
My first maps in Inkarnate look eerily similar to yours. Honestly, you have a pretty good foundation just looking at the area variation and the way your land is spaced. In my own experience, improvement in Inkarnate just involves making a lot more maps. Inkarnate is a tool that just requires more familiarity implementing different sub-tools and techniques.
For actual tangible advice you can implement immediately, try shading in different colors in your landmasses and water to give some more color variation. Additionally, try using some labels behind your text to have them stand out more.
For reference, here's a city map I made about a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/inkarnate/comments/1p1bew0/portcity_of_yoetsu/ . In no way do I see this as a masterpiece, but more so I'm trying to show how Inkarnate allows you to find your own distinct style given enough time and effort.