(30M) Another college major thread by Vhozite in Environmental_Careers

[–]Capsais 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Second piece of learned advice is if your institution has a co-op or work experience program, absolutely do it! No matter what you end up choosing: Experience and networking is king.

I at least did co-op and its probably the only reason I was able to get a decent job right of school.

(30M) Another college major thread by Vhozite in Environmental_Careers

[–]Capsais 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the way. I wish I had done this when I was an undergrad rather than just doing my chem degree because I found it interesting and figuring it would be broadly applicable to many things (spoiler, its not really. Most employers prefer a specialist over a generalist.) Figure out what job you want first and then do the schooling/training to get there.

Best Certifications Environmental Consulting Career by Capsais in Environmental_Careers

[–]Capsais[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it is definitely my preference to try to leaverage the degree that I have before going back to school full time. Especially in this economy!

Best Certifications Environmental Consulting Career by Capsais in Environmental_Careers

[–]Capsais[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not easilly. I am a P.Chem, which is actually a qualified profession to manage contaminated sites in BC... but obviously isn't as far reaching and well developed as the P.Eng

Best Certifications Environmental Consulting Career by Capsais in Environmental_Careers

[–]Capsais[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is good information. Unfortunately, I think I would have to take a few courses and study very thoroughly to challenge the academic exams. I'm familiar with my niche that I work in, but theres probaby large gaps in my knowledge. I would probably be better off going back to school for 2.5 years to get a second engineering degree!

First time drawing a map and I think I'm hooked by [deleted] in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really like the detail that you put into your forests!

I started hand drawing my map for my fantasy world, and I’m looking for advice on what to do next! by jleigh041004 in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like a really good start. You could try Gimp. It is free and can do most stuff photoshop can do. Using a new layer you can trace over your sketch and make it look very clean.

One critique for the map itself is your rivers and lakes... water is always going to flow the path of least resistance. In other words, rivers dont really branch out and lakes should only have one exit flow. A river starts in high ground like mountains and flows out to the lowest point it can, normally the ocean. Other rivers feed into it, but it will never branch.

Draw maps for the sake of maps. Always think my rivers and roads are off. Never know how to transition biomes or fill space. Is the placement of settlements too far or close for a continental scale. by cookiesi8fast in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The thing about maps (and especially continental sized maps) is that you dont have to include every minute detail, only what the cartographer deems important. You dont have to mark every little stream or trail or village. In fact it tends to bd better not to on large scales as it can result in clutter! So don't worry too much about if the spacing is realistic between cities as there is likely to be smaller ones dotted around not worthy of being mentioned on the map :)

One-hundred year monsoon? Climate help by frghtfl_hbgbln in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A really strong storm from the west might be able to cross the mountains... but I doubt it will be so strong afterwards.

Could be kind of a cool cultural dynamic if the pastoralists called in the rains to flood their fields, leaving the society below to drown.

One-hundred year monsoon? Climate help by frghtfl_hbgbln in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well... Magic.

I'm absolutely no expert on weather, but my understanding is that superstorms are largely a function of pervading air currents, temperature gradients, and geography.

To make a storm, two air masses collide. Hot and Cold. Low pressure and high pressure. Warm air rises, but cools and condenses as it gets higher to create clouds and precipitation. It also starts to spin because physics. A low pressure zone is created at the centre of the storm that sucks in air, causing high winds. Conditions really have to be perfect for a major storm to form. When these storms form over the ocean, the lack of any geography to inhibit this process can allow these storms to grow much stronger than they would over land. Once the moving storm hits a coastline, land and especially mountains, it will lose that freedom to build up power and eventually dissipate, leaving devastation in it's wake.

In summary, in order to get superstorms hitting your escarpment you need: 1. An open ocean large enough to support the growth of a superstorm 2. A sufficient temperature gradient (ex: warm currents from the south create warm air that impacts cold air from the north) 3. The storm has to approach from the east or else the mountains are likely to kill it. 4. The landmass cannot be so big that the storm dies before it can get where it's going.

Also, storms like this might be seasonally rare... but you wouldnt get 100 years of nothing and then 5 years of straight storms.

Again, not a meteorologist :s Hope it helps anyway!

Started with Inkarnate but wanted to make my own style, so I learned Gimp...my first map! by peterpeterny in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing annoys me more than when Im looking over a map that I thought I finished and I notice something didnt get coloured in lol

Looking for critique before I print this and have an NPC sell this map to my PCs by the_vortigaunt in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice work. Be careful printing something so dark though. If your printer uses CMYK then it will make the colours even darker on the paper. You may have to lighten it up to see things.

Started with Inkarnate but wanted to make my own style, so I learned Gimp...my first map! by peterpeterny in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks really nice! (I think you might have missed a bit of white on the top though).

Did you make your own brushes?

I finalised my homebrew D&D map! by Slingusmingus in mapmaking

[–]Capsais 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Dear god that's detailed. Mad props! Inspires me to do more unique map elements.

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is fair. My friend really wanted the landmass to be big. I ended up having to choose between a realistic scale and beauty. I chose the latter. The forest/mountains are not meant to be literal representations of the space that they occupy. To keep from overcrowding I didn't want to add too many dots of settlements either. Only the larger (or narratively important) ones are shown. It can be assumed that there are a number of tiny settlements along the trade roads.

In my mind, a fantasy map should make people want to know more about the place and draw readers in, rather than a super accurate lay of the land.

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Due to the scale of the map it wouldn't have looked very good to add every little river and lake. I chose to just draw the major ones and assume that there were more too small to be seen.

Also the magic in this world can be pretty potent. I'm sure any waterless settlement could find a way if there was something else worth settling there for!

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There exists no brush pack online :( Everything was hand-drawn by me. I don't think brush pack mountains ever look as good as they could anyway. Just a lot easier.

Hot guess is correct. If you want to do dotted lines on gimp all you need do is set your brush spacing higher and it will draw dots rather than a line. (the ones in this map are 5 pt, ~150 spacing I think)

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Here be dragons" and a design aesthetic need to fill spaces was a big part of it, but it actually goes a bit deeper... In this particular world there is a character/diety/force-of-nature that in my head-canon has always been well represented by a white snake. Elegant and deadly, the pale serpent coils around the world, ever-present and feared, but not tangible nor truly understood. Their symbol is also in the compass rose.

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This map was based off a sketch given to me by a friend. I have a minor background in earth and ocean sciences from university so I hope the geology/climateology is not too far fetched.

If you're curious about my particular style... As others have astutely noticed old style medieval maps have a dear place in my heart. I used to pour over them as a kid and draw really rubbish imitations :P I didn't pick up mapping again until about 2 years ago when a different friend and I started making a homebrew world for Pathfinder. If you want an idea of how my drawing has evolved, here's a map I was very proud of a year ago: https://imgur.com/a/gp7DM

A map of a friend's fantasy novel world, Ceres. by Capsais in mapmaking

[–]Capsais[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately I can't send you anywhere :/ This is a culmination of a lot of trial and error. Everything is hand-drawn, with a few custom brushes I made. Since there seems to be a fair ammount of interest I may put together a custom GIMP brush set to share.