How important is the map of the Land to you?

[iQuestor]

AWESOME work blackhawke. I'd love to hear SRD's comments on your map of the Land -- gorgeous!

[Blackhawk]

AWESOME work blackhawke. I'd love to hear SRD's comments on your map of the Land -- gorgeous!

Thanks iQuestor,:biggrin: in the gradual interview on his webpage he said this.

Thank you for sharing this. The way things look to you is not the way things look to me--but that's not important. What I like best in your efforts is your ability to make these places look alive.
(03/22/2008)

eventually i am going to work on a new map to show the changes in Runes and Fatal Revenant, hehe.. i should be done with it before he is done with book 3 probably not that long.

[Ur Dead]

I too have high praise for Blackhawk on the relief topo map of the land..

But being a person who has used CAD for 20 years there are a few tweaks that could enhance the existing map further. (but not much overall)

I have no doubt the time and effort BW has put into his work was long, painstaking and took alot of motivation. I personally don't have the time or the software to generate such work. (not untill I retire in May) And I do believe BW has tried to make the map as perceived from the previous map as accurate as possible. It is very good work by itself. Nobody else has undertakesn such a task.

Also some very nice pic's Vain has.. This one:

kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/album_pic.php?pic_id=883

Particularly caught my eye for a logo.. Nice design and picture change.

[Blackhawk]

I too have high praise for Blackhawk on the relief topo map of the land..

But being a person who has used CAD for 20 years there are a few tweaks that could enhance the existing map further. (but not much overall)

I have no doubt the time and effort BW has put into his work was long, painstaking and took alot of motivation. I personally don't have the time or the software to generate such work. (not untill I retire in May) And I do believe BW has tried to make the map as perceived from the previous map as accurate as possible. It is very good work by itself. Nobody else has undertakesn such a task.

Also some very nice pic's Vain has.. This one:

kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/album_pic.php?pic_id=883

Particularly caught my eye for a logo.. Nice design and picture change.

thanks everyone, let me know what needs to be done, thanks for your comment also Ur Dead, recently i have been re-listening to the books on audio and LOL!!!... I have compiled quite a list of changes or additions that i had overlooked. and with recent updates to some programs ive been using made things a little easier , Please let me know any changes you would make Ur Dead, im trying to make this as accurate as i can, and am finding out that minor but important things need to be changed to be accurate - when your looking at the map while reading the book or listening to it in my case anyway. I did try to make it as accurate as i could from the paperbackmaps and tried to change a few of the discrepancies like Doriendor Corishev needing to move north and the Hills leading to Coerci, Troth guard had gone from ruined waste to the lords healing it then it got blasted again in IEW, not sure how to deal with that area the list goes on.

[Ur Dead]

What software did you use Blackhawk??

[Blackhawk]

What software did you use Blackhawk??

actually 4 programs...mostly Vue d'esprit alot of Bryce and Photoshop..I started with Terragen but it was limited with the free version i was using so i mostly stuck to Bryce and Vue, all of the shots were close ups that i downsized and connected piece by piece, the 3d was too taxing on my Processor so i couldnt make the whole scene as one piece, not even close . and then used Photoshop to touch up color etc and connect the pieces.

[Brasidas]

Wonderful map Blackhawk!
I wish I was fluent in computerspeak!

[Ur Dead]

What software did you use Blackhawk??

actually 4 programs...mostly Vue d'esprit alot of Bryce and Photoshop..I started with Terragen but it was limited with the free version i was using so i mostly stuck to Bryce and Vue, all of the shots were close ups that i downsized and connected piece by piece, the 3d was too taxing on my Processor so i couldnt make the whole scene as one piece, not even close . and then used Photoshop to touch up color etc and connect the pieces.

Good gads!! Now that is impressive... That was a massive amount of time, effort and alot of love that went into it. It makes me appreciate your map so much more.

Salute!

[Blackhawk]

Thankyou very much Ur Dead I appreciate that alot, it did take quite a while, 8 months of rendering and re creating stuff i didnt like once it was downsized, at first i wanted something quick and realized its not going to happen fast to get what i was looking for, so mainly i worked on it weekends and after work when i had time, and still I am in the process of adding and replacing things on it, thanks again..

thanks to you too Brasidas.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

I posted the first part of this in the Mordant's Need Forum and thought it might be worth it to also put it here:

The curious thing about Mordant is that I don't really feel a map of it matters much to me. Since people could use mirrors to "jump" to almost any place in Mordant, that makes the realm feel like one large amorphous whole connected or punctured at various points by mirrors, rather than a land of distinct, separate regions. Er, does that make any sense?

It's not like the Land, where there is so much travel by foot (or Ranyhyn!) to get from A to B. So we have a sense of the scale of the Land, that it has very distinct areas separated by large distances. I wonder how differently - or not so differently - I might have seen the Land in my mind if there hadn't been a map in the books.

So, how about the rest of you? What if the Chronicles books had never provided a map inside? How well do you think you would have coped with trying to see all the regions of the Land just in your mind? Would SRD's prose been enough to draw a decent picture, or would you have been horribly confused? Or would you not have bothered with the books at all because a map is one of the first things you check when browsing a fantasy novel?

The first time I read LFB I couldn't make heads or tales of the descriptions and locations, so I really never was sure where "we" were at, I just raced through the dialogue sections.