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Show and Tell: The Green Belt

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2012 edited
     
    I've been running Paizo's "Kingmaker" adventure path for my friends since September and it's been a lot of fun. Since we're scattered all over the place, we use MapTool as our virtual tabletop. Anyway, exploration plays a huge role in the first part of the Kingmaker adventure path and I wanted to re-make the map from the book. Firstly because I thought it'd be good map making practice, secondly because I didn't want to have all of the 'secrets' on the map revealed to the players right away and lastly, I wanted an excuse to try out the 13th Age overland style.

    The map is primarily the 13th Age style with some of the symbols from John Roberts Overland (I wanted to use more than just dots to represent the settlements and such) and I feel, aside from the bridges (I'm not super happy with them) that they worked alright. I still need to flesh out the southern part of the map and I still need to fix the border of the map. I'd love to hear any feedback and suggestions on how I could improve the map

    The Green Belt
    •  
      CommentAuthorRalf
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Very nice, and I'm surprises how well the Jon Roberts symbols match the 13th Age style.

    I would perhaps experiment with the river colors a bit, I find the blue you've used clashes somewhat with the rest of the map. Perhaps use the same fill style as for the lakes?
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Colors are a pretty big challenge for me - where you see clashing... I can't tell. I'm colorblind :/

    If you'd do me a service and suggest a color by number, I'd gratefully change the rivers to that color.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRalf
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Ah, okay. Try changing the color to #58 or the bitmap fill to SeaLight_CA69.
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Thanks Ralf!
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Here's the edited rivers. I also changed the inner glow effect on the lakes so the rivers would blend a bit better.

    The Green Belt
    • CommentAuthorClercon
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Looks much better, but thorn rive looks more faded then the others. Is it a reason for that or is it a mistake?
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Hmm - well, the river is described as being a smaller affair but it seems that the sheet effect does cause it to appear a bit more washed out than the others. I'll probably increase it's line width to match the rest of them since aesthetically it'd look better. Thanks for taking a look Clercon!
    • CommentAuthorMoskva
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    The 2nd map looks way better.
    Just put the Thorn river on a seperate sheet and reduce the fade a bit :)
    • CommentAuthorDogtag
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012 edited
     
    Very nice! And, yeah, the 2nd version is much better.

    One thing I've been noticing about the 13th Age style, though — and this has nothing to do with your mapping skills — is that there seems to be a lot of very visible tiling. Does anyone know if there is a technique (or a technical trick) we can use to reduce tiling by fill styles?

    Good work, NLP!

    Cheers,
    ~Dogtag
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Moskva - fantastic idea and thank you for the feedback
    Thanks Dogtag - I really noticed it in the trees myself. I tried to break up the larger patches by doing them in smaller clumps but that didn't seem to help that much.
  12.  
    The easiest way to try to work around Tiling is to simply increase the size of the bitmap. (i.e. Fill Style Properties -> BitMap Files -> Scaled...increase this size.) Of course, with something like trees, then you run the risk of them getting too big and looking odd/pixelated/out of scale, etc.

    Otherwise, you could always take the existing bitmap file and throw it in photoshop or some other image editor, cut it into a bunch of square pieces, save each piece as a separate .png...and then individually place them in some random order as symbols.

    BTW...imho...I think your trees look good as is
    • CommentAuthorDogtag
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2012
     
    Yeah, I was thinking more grasslands and hills. I started a map in this style and I found the hills/mountains really, visibly tiled.

    I actually don't see the tiling so much in the forests of your map, NLP. Maybe it's because, from a distance, I expect trees to look similar? Hm.
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2012
     
    That's interesting about the hills... I used symbols for those... I maybe should mix them up a bit then :)
    • CommentAuthorMoskva
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2012
     
    I haven't worked with this style actually but what I usually do to avoid tiling is using small areas of forest/hills/mountains and use a lot of edge fade and a bit of opacity on them.
    • CommentAuthorDogtag
    • CommentTimeDec 5th 2012
     
    Sorry, NLP. When I said "hills" I meant the tan terrain fill.

    ~Dogtag
    • CommentAuthorHenrie61
    • CommentTimeDec 6th 2012
     
    Think you did a pretty good job with this map.

    Ans I wouldn't change the Thorn River. I like it that it looks a bit different.
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 8th 2012
     
    Thanks Henrie!
    • CommentAuthorBwenGun
    • CommentTimeDec 9th 2012
     
    Funnily enough a friend of mine is running a Kingmaker game as well at the minute so I have a fair degree of familiarity with the map and I must congratulate you as your one does a superb job. Indeed, I am surprised at how well the 13th age style works on such a comparatively close scale map.
    • CommentAuthornlp138
    • CommentTimeDec 9th 2012
     
    Thanks BwenGun - I hope I didn't spoil anything for you with this map!!

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