|
Post by SteelRain on Aug 27, 2016 18:06:34 GMT -5
Click to embiggen (be warned - embiggening is 5000px across) I've had a loose concept of this piece on my hard drive for the better part of six months, but chatting with Falcarius (plus some amazing reference materials and translations, thank you!) prompted me to dust it off and do it up properly. This was made in Photoshop CS5.1, Illustrator CS5.5 and Wilbur, over about eighteen hours solid work. It's a conglomerate of several canon maps, with some edits to fix things like 'official' map artists not knowing how rivers work, or what rain shadows are, or that the equirectangular projection is useless for giving an actual sense of how a planet looks*. Later on I'll upload a version with place names and suchlike, but for now, here's just the blank version. *I have very strong opinions about fictional mapmaking, you may have noticed.
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 27, 2016 18:44:57 GMT -5
What was wrong with the official maps? And I know a rain shadow is the area on the side of a mountain that gets very little to no rain because the mountains block most of the precipitation. The deserts of the American SOuthwest and California's Central Valley are good examples of areas created due to rain shadows. And if you wanted to make this more accurate you would cut it up a bit. THouse north and south areas are probably under a heavy Greenland Effect.
|
|
|
Post by SteelRain on Aug 27, 2016 19:10:51 GMT -5
Several maps, particularly the post-meteor Delpoi one, show rivers splitting rather than converging, lakes having multiple outflows, as well as general wonkiness on the positioning of forests and deserts in relation to prevailing winds. As for the Greenland effect, it's mostly an artifact of the Mercator projection. I used the Winkel Tripel projection for precisely that reason.
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 27, 2016 19:31:42 GMT -5
Still seems to ahve some stretching, but unless you projected it on a globe it would be hard to fix that and still have the map easily readable. Also, what's interesting is that the meteor disaster might actually have saved Zi, since the moon that was blasted to pieces was slowly spiraling down towards the planet.
|
|
|
Post by Falcarius on Aug 28, 2016 1:57:51 GMT -5
This is pretty awesome, and I agree that the official maps have a lot of geographical silliness, but I really think you should find some excuse to keep Red Rust as a desert, since it's where a lot of the early-NJR desert battles take place. Come to think of it, Zi seems to have little if any rainforest in any of the maps I've seen - something to do with different astrophysical parameters or metal-rich vegetation, perhaps? Your climates for Delpoi clash with established Battle Story events too, but those were in the OJR, so I'm sure we can blame the climate shift on the meteors somehow (EDIT: In fact, looking through the official maps, Zi seems to have a rough climate/biome progression of desert (0-20°) -> temperate (20-40°) -> tundra/polar (40°+), compared to Earth's rainforest (0-20°) -> desert/savannah (20-40°) -> temperate (40-60°) -> tundra/polar (60°+). All despite having a hotter sun and a slightly higher axial inclination than Earth. Weird.) Also, Delpoi seems rather skewed compared to most of the official maps, and Hippocrene Lake seems to have been eaten by Pluton Lake >_> I've got some other maps that I could send you sometime, if you want. In fact, this might be a good place to dump a list of known maps of Zi... *Delpoi physical map ( History of Zoids, also seen in Zoids Data 1 and a couple of magazines) *Delpoi physical map (All About Battle Machine Beasts - somewhat stylised, but includes latitude and longitude) *Zi outline/topographic map (All About Battle Machine Beasts - gives contour lines for Delpoi only) *Delpoi physical/road map (Battle Story 3 and School Grade Magazine ( Grade 3, September 1987)) *partial Delpoi/Nyx outline maps (Battle Story series etc - generally simplified and stylised) *Delpoi/Zi physical map (Battle of the Central Continent - heavily modified for gameplay reasons) *Delpoi/Zi physical map (Counterattack of Zenebas - different, but almost as heavily modified for gameplay reasons) *Europa outline map ( Chaotic Century episode 63) *Europa physical map (Official Fan Book 1+2 and Battle Card Game Note Map) *Zi outline map (Official Fan Book 1, parts used for various catalogues and model boxes, adapted versions used in Official Fan Book 2+3 and the Chaotic Century manga (see note)) *partial South Europa physical map (Jashin Fukkatsu) *partial Delpoi physical maps (Empire VS Republic) *Europa outline map (Battle Card Game PS2) *partial Europa physical maps (Helic Republic VS Guylos Empire) *Zi physical map ( Zoids Bible) *Delpoi physical map ( Zoids Bible) *Nyx physical map ( Official Fan Book 3+4) *Zi outline map (Official Fan Book 4 - the only time the entire Northern and Southern Continents are shown, I think) *Zi outline map (Zoids Book 2002 - somewhat stylised) *Nicaidos Island physical map (Infinity series - highly stylised) *Delpoi physical map ( Official Fan Book EX 1~5+8 - somewhat stylised) *Delpoi outline map (Dengeki Hobby ( June 2004) - somewhat stylised) *Delpoi physical map (Concept Art III - noticeably different from Battle Story-universe Delpoi) I'm discounting anything massively different from the above world maps (e.g. Saga series, New Century, Genesis), but let me know if there's any others I've forgotten. Note: The map in the Viz Media translation of the Chaotic Century manga isn't actually in the original Japanese version, and neither is the timeline. Viz adapted them from Official Fan Book 1 in a misguided attempt to give some backstory to the manga, despite it having even less connection to the Battle Story than the anime does. In the process of adapting the map, they made the latitude lines horizontal instead of curved, giving it a Wagner VI-style "apparent projection" instead of the Winkel tripel-style original (I say "apparent projection" because I doubt either map-maker gave any thought to the actual distortions).
|
|
|
Post by SteelRain on Aug 28, 2016 4:58:03 GMT -5
*squints* Cripes, you're right about Red Rust and Lake Hippocrene, that's for sure. That's what you get for masking your water bodies late at night, and painting your biomes for that matter. I was pretty much on auto-pilot while painting, following mountains and winds rather than canon, which apparently results in majorly important deserts up and disappearing. Thanks for catching that - I've uploaded a corrected version. Problem is, based on the prevailing winds, the Red Rust area should be lush forest - here's the wind map I worked from. Basic rule is, winds rising from water bring rain, winds rising from land are dry, which is why Delpoi is so agonisingly arid. I tried to lift a bit of water from the channels between the three fragments, but if you're following the rain there's nothing you can do for the 'canon' biomes. (also everything's actually kinda horizontally skewed - I worked from the teeny tiny little Fan Book map that's in the weirdest projection possible, which in hindsight may not have been the best idea but oh well)
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 28, 2016 10:59:17 GMT -5
Apparently I don't know *Watch your language!* about Zi's Geography because I don't know what Red Rust and Lake Hyppocrene are. You are also forgetting Human/Zoidian influence on geography though. Humans have turned rainforests into plains and plains into deserts. See: Inner Mongolia for an example of grassland to arid.
Also, salts and even high-intensity weapons fire can render plants unable to grow. Especially if the top soil is baked/vaporized.
|
|
|
Post by greengai on Aug 28, 2016 14:17:30 GMT -5
Love that Eastern Continent. Pretty close to mine back when I attempted a Goode Zi. For deserts-that-should-be-forests, I've always given a handwave of fantasy drier ice-age (post meteor at least) combined with more extreme altitudes than Earth, potentially denser waters and differing biology. Sometimes I add a dash of geologic sluggishness into the mix of thought too; not Mars-level dormancy obviously, but not as lively as Earth either. Because considering it's smaller than Earth & much water the landmasses of Zi should look like the lovechild of Kashyyyk and Degobah and yes it drives me nuts that we ended up with so many arid zones too. Also, pardon the phone-cam crapiness, but I have this faded old thing to add to the map pile. Falcarius wouldn't happen to be one of your un-linked ones would it?
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 28, 2016 15:25:14 GMT -5
It would aslo have to be denser than earth, since it has as much if not more metal in the soil. I always wondered why there was so much desert. Best answer I can think up is "you would ahve trouble seeing the mecha if there were trees all over for our boxart and other media"
|
|
|
Post by SteelRain on Aug 28, 2016 15:48:44 GMT -5
Thanks, GreenGai! Thing is, some of the geography is actually pretty accurate - apart from the Red Rust desert, most of Europa actually works pretty okay, which makes it all the more frustrating. Plus several (read: most) maps don't contain the far north and south continents, so latitudes (and thus winds) are different depending on which map you're looking at. Oh, the hardships of fictional mapmaking, eh?
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 28, 2016 16:10:25 GMT -5
Yeah, it's all kind of a mess.
|
|
|
Post by Falcarius on Aug 29, 2016 0:00:03 GMT -5
Apparently I don't know *Watch your language!* about Zi's Geography because I don't know what Red Rust and Lake Hyppocrene are. You are also forgetting Human/Zoidian influence on geography though. Humans have turned rainforests into plains and plains into deserts. See: Inner Mongolia for an example of grassland to arid. Yeah, but human influence rarely increases the amount of forest (or sea ice, for that matter). I wasn't exactly expecting most people to recognise the place names, though, as translated official maps of Zi are practically nonexistent. Other than the ones I translated for SteelRain recently, the only ones I can think of are the world map from the CC manga and Hanyoutai's translation of the Europa map from the BCG Note Map (oh, and my translations of the Official Fan Book EX maps). Basic rule is, winds rising from water bring rain, winds rising from land are dry, which is why Delpoi is so agonisingly arid. I tried to lift a bit of water from the channels between the three fragments, but if you're following the rain there's nothing you can do for the 'canon' biomes. The Zoids Bible claims that the westerlies caused intense temperature changes and thus harsh/arid climates on western Delpoi, while the eastern side was protected by the Central Mountain Range and therefore milder. Then again, it's hardly the only instance of terrible, terrible "science" in the Zoids Bible... For deserts-that-should-be-forests, I've always given a handwave of fantasy drier ice-age (post meteor at least) combined with more extreme altitudes than Earth, potentially denser waters and differing biology. Sometimes I add a dash of geologic sluggishness into the mix of thought too; not Mars-level dormancy obviously, but not as lively as Earth either. Because considering it's smaller than Earth & much water the landmasses of Zi should look like the lovechild of Kashyyyk and Degobah and yes it drives me nuts that we ended up with so many arid zones too. Also, pardon the phone-cam crapiness, but I have this faded old thing to add to the map pile. Falcarius wouldn't happen to be one of your un-linked ones would it? Speaking of terrible science, the Zoids Bible also implies that there's no plate tectonics on Zi, which is... probably not feasible. For one thing, there shouldn't be any mountain ranges left >_> As for the density thing, the 10,026km diameter from the Zoids Bible would give Zi just under half the volume of Earth (and the "70% of Earth's diameter" sometimes seen in older stuff would give it only a third of Earth's volume), so I'm assuming Zi would be much denser in order to maintain roughly Earth-level gravity. (My headcanon is that the gravity is noticeably lower, maybe 0.7g, to better allow for leaping Ligers and other such physical improbabilities.) That map is the one from All About Battle Machine Beasts, which I've also seen on an old artboard (I'm guessing that's where your photo is from). It's got a decent amount of detail, and I'm pretty sure the NJR maps (and therefore the manga map, indirectly) were based on this one, so I'd recommend using this one as a base if you decide to redo the map. The info underneath states that the Central Continent mainland extends from 6° to 59° N (around 4500km) and 5° to 92° E (around 7000km), with the Helic Republic capital at 41°N 78°E and the Zenebas Empire capital at 19°N 16°E. EDIT: While we're being all scientific, might as well drop these here. I did some calculations based on Zi's orbital speed and the fact that it orbits an F-class star (1 to 1.4 solar masses) to get a distance of about 168 million to 235 million kilometres between Zi and its sun (compared to about 150 million for Earth). From there, we can use the orbital speed again to figure out how long one orbit takes: 1.19 to 1.66 Earth years, or 433 to 606 Earth days. As far as I can remember, there's nothing to confirm how long one Zi day is, but they seem to use a 24-hour clock and a 12-month calendar. More food for speculation! (One day I might try to figure out how much solar radiation Zi gets...) And yes, I know someone else already posted the same calculations on Zoidspoison, but they vanished with the forum.
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 29, 2016 0:28:25 GMT -5
Apparently I don't know *Watch your language!* about Zi's Geography because I don't know what Red Rust and Lake Hyppocrene are. You are also forgetting Human/Zoidian influence on geography though. Humans have turned rainforests into plains and plains into deserts. See: Inner Mongolia for an example of grassland to arid. Yeah, but human influence rarely increases the amount of forest (or sea ice, for that matter). I wasn't exactly expecting most people to recognise the place names, though, as translated official maps of Zi are practically nonexistent. Other than the ones I translated for SteelRain recently, the only ones I can think of are the world map from the CC manga and Hanyoutai's translation of the Europa map from the BCG Note Map (oh, and my translations of the Official Fan Book EX maps). Basic rule is, winds rising from water bring rain, winds rising from land are dry, which is why Delpoi is so agonisingly arid. I tried to lift a bit of water from the channels between the three fragments, but if you're following the rain there's nothing you can do for the 'canon' biomes. The Zoids Bible claims that the westerlies caused intense temperature changes and thus harsh/arid climates on western Delpoi, while the eastern side was protected by the Central Mountain Range and therefore milder. Then again, it's hardly the only instance of terrible, terrible "science" in the Zoids Bible... For deserts-that-should-be-forests, I've always given a handwave of fantasy drier ice-age (post meteor at least) combined with more extreme altitudes than Earth, potentially denser waters and differing biology. Sometimes I add a dash of geologic sluggishness into the mix of thought too; not Mars-level dormancy obviously, but not as lively as Earth either. Because considering it's smaller than Earth & much water the landmasses of Zi should look like the lovechild of Kashyyyk and Degobah and yes it drives me nuts that we ended up with so many arid zones too. Also, pardon the phone-cam crapiness, but I have this faded old thing to add to the map pile. Falcarius wouldn't happen to be one of your un-linked ones would it? Speaking of terrible science, the Zoids Bible also implies that there's no plate tectonics on Zi, which is... probably not feasible. For one thing, there shouldn't be any mountain ranges left >_> As for the density thing, the 10,026km diameter from the Zoids Bible would give Zi just under half the volume of Earth (and the "70% of Earth's diameter" sometimes seen in older stuff would give it only a third of Earth's volume), so I'm assuming Zi would be much denser in order to maintain roughly Earth-level gravity. (My headcanon is that the gravity is noticeably lower, maybe 0.7g, to better allow for leaping Ligers and other such physical improbabilities.) That map is the one from All About Battle Machine Beasts, which I've also seen on an old artboard (I'm guessing that's where your photo is from). It's got a decent amount of detail, and I'm pretty sure the NJR maps (and therefore the manga map, indirectly) were based on this one, so I'd recommend using this one as a base if you decide to redo the map. The info underneath states that the Central Continent mainland extends from 6° to 59° N (around 4500km) and 5° to 92° E (around 7000km), with the Helic Republic capital at 41°N 78°E and the Zenebas Empire capital at 19°N 16°E. EDIT: While we're being all scientific, might as well drop these here. I did some calculations based on Zi's orbital speed and the fact that it orbits an F-class star (1 to 1.4 solar masses) to get a distance of about 168 million to 235 million kilometres between Zi and its sun (compared to about 150 million for Earth). From there, we can use the orbital speed again to figure out how long one orbit takes: 1.19 to 1.66 Earth years, or 433 to 606 Earth days. As far as I can remember, there's nothing to confirm how long one Zi day is, but they seem to use a 24-hour clock and a 12-month calendar. More food for speculation! (One day I might try to figure out how much solar radiation Zi gets...) And yes, I know someone else already posted the same calculations on Zoidspoison, but they vanished with the forum.Actually, to have so much metala it would need higher density than earth. It's also possible they just guessed at numbers that sounded okay. And without plate tectonics there probably wouldn't even b e continents. Since the oceans would slowly erode them away...if any formed to begin with. It also wouldn't haave a very strong EM field to repel solar radiation. SInce a molten, spinning, core amplifies the EM field. WHich is what creates the stress on the crust and creates plate tectonics. At least if I remember my basic earth science correctly. At the very least, ZI has VOLCANOES. You don't get volcanoes without plate tectonics.
|
|
|
Post by Maethius on Aug 29, 2016 12:53:18 GMT -5
The metals controversy is interesting, but here is even MORE food for thought on the current map of Zi:
1) "Metal" does not necessarily = increased density/mass/weight. If Zi Metal is closer to titanium or aluminum than iron (our most common metal), and is the dominant metal on Zi, then metal masses would be considerably lighter than Earth's. If those metals were more similar to osmium, masses would be terrifyingly high.
2) There is no saying that "Zi metal" is the only exclusive metal (let alone ELEMENT) on Zi! There could be dozens of elements not located on the Zi periodic table that we have no knowledge of. For all we know, the basic structure of the dirt itself could be of a light weight, crystalline nature even a mountain on Zi could weight half of what an equivalent Earth mountain would weigh.
3) Zi metals do not necessarily = ferrous forms. We can assume so, based on magnezzer technology, but we also don't know for certain if magnezzer technology is based on Zi metal or simply based on different metals found on Zi. That in mind, we cannot assume the weight/magnetic attraction of Zi metal vs. these unknown forms.
4) All of the above could directly affect how geology reacts over time. After all, we see mountains due to tectonic plate shifts, but we also see mountain ranges form due to impact with celestial bodies (which Zi is apparently known for). Mars has evidence of NO tectonic activity, but has evidence of past tectonic activity. It is perfectly reasonable that Zi HAD tectonic activity as well, but that activity ceased long ago.
5) We can't really ascertain the nature of Zi's plant life because we don't know enough about its molecular structure, nutrition requirements, environmental adaptations, etc.
In other words, when creating your own world... GO FOR IT! Have fun, and make it look cool! Sure, have some scientific basis for things and include features that we can readily identify as logical, but don't be restricted by what we know of Earth's sciences. (Avatar: floating mountain islands... 'nuff said!)
|
|
CeilYurei
Captain
100%
Behold the power of the Gojulas Giga!
Posts: 591
|
Post by CeilYurei on Aug 29, 2016 13:41:45 GMT -5
The metals controversy is interesting, but here is even MORE food for thought on the current map of Zi: 1) "Metal" does not necessarily = increased density/mass/weight. If Zi Metal is closer to titanium or aluminum than iron (our most common metal), and is the dominant metal on Zi, then metal masses would be considerably lighter than Earth's. If those metals were more similar to osmium, masses would be terrifyingly high. 2) There is no saying that "Zi metal" is the only exclusive metal (let alone ELEMENT) on Zi! There could be dozens of elements not located on the Zi periodic table that we have no knowledge of. For all we know, the basic structure of the dirt itself could be of a light weight, crystalline nature even a mountain on Zi could weight half of what an equivalent Earth mountain would weigh. 3) Zi metals do not necessarily = ferrous forms. We can assume so, based on magnezzer technology, but we also don't know for certain if magnezzer technology is based on Zi metal or simply based on different metals found on Zi. That in mind, we cannot assume the weight/magnetic attraction of Zi metal vs. these unknown forms. 4) All of the above could directly affect how geology reacts over time. After all, we see mountains due to tectonic plate shifts, but we also see mountain ranges form due to impact with celestial bodies (which Zi is apparently known for). Mars has evidence of NO tectonic activity, but has evidence of past tectonic activity. It is perfectly reasonable that Zi HAD tectonic activity as well, but that activity ceased long ago. 5) We can't really ascertain the nature of Zi's plant life because we don't know enough about its molecular structure, nutrition requirements, environmental adaptations, etc. In other words, when creating your own world... GO FOR IT! Have fun, and make it look cool! Sure, have some scientific basis for things and include features that we can readily identify as logical, but don't be restricted by what we know of Earth's sciences. (Avatar: floating mountain islands... 'nuff said!) We DO know that the "Ancient titanium" armor on the Giga is apparently extremely light weight as well as being heat resistant like nickle-iron alloys. Otherwise they wouldn't have used ti for the entire external frame or the power of it's 32-gat z-core nuclear cannon might melt the fins and armor around them off. Plus it has a rocket accelerated tail attakc, rocket exhaust can melt or weaken conventional titanium alloys, so we can assume "ancient titanium" is NOT titanium but some kind of other element. Also the sheer speed of zoids suggests that they're armor and frams are exceedingly liight comparatively. They would weigh a lot more if made of steel.
|
|