Thanks for adding our images to the wiki!
Yeh, I mean like a flash animation in 2D. You could probably morph between the maps and show an evolution in time. One way would be to use Photoshop (or Gimp?) warping tools and create some intermediate steps from the existing maps. Then run the maps through an image morpher. You might not even need to create the intermediate maps to get ok results. It's all possible in 3D too but you'd need maps with height information.
In my experience, working with converting 2D to 3D maps, you don't need artitstically well
drawn maps, or maps of huge detail. Detailed maps can be produced after you have the 3D detail in place. Not everyone likes contours on a mps though- especially folks who prefer the olde worlde styles like Fenlon, but I seem to remember Tolkien did have some contours on his maps, albeit more impressionistic contours.
In the case of mapping the rest of the globe and turning it into 3D, I'd take exising maps nd
warp them in Photoshop. You could do that with either 2d maps like yours of maps of the world, or you could even warp the heightmaps from satellite data. You'd need to downsample quite a bit though, but I think you could probably work at something like a 40K pixel resolution for the entire globe in Photoshop. That would be enough to get you started.
Another way is to work with vectors, I know a workflow for both methods.
I couldn't really see a striking resemblance between Barl Syrnac area and the northern coasts you mentioned, but it's safe to say Fenlon would have used those. Maybe you can point out in more detail which areas you mean?
The next step for us is to create very basic sites that fit precisely with the terrain. Then
those sites can be developed into full detailed 3D models. We're waiting for biomes to be
developed, but we're also waiting for stuff like lakes and rivers and some kind of vector import so we can place roads and stuff much more quickly. I'm not even going to attempt to create roads in there without that functionality!
The developers also want to develop underground areas too- again vector import coupled with a procedural tunnel, cave generator, would enable huge areas like Moria to be created.
monks
