Rivers Tutorial
ArgoForg
Newcomer
A couple people had mentioned they really liked the way the rivers on my overland country-scale maps looked, so I thought I'd take a little time out to create a quick (or not so quick, as the case might be) tutorial of the sort of technique I use to create them. If nothing else, maybe it will give people a few ideas, and if so, that's never a bad thing. Enjoy!
Comments
Thank you soooo much!
I just have one point I'm not sure to understand. You say: "First, because we’re going to want to connect the next section as close to the midpoint of the previous section as we can."
Does that mean that each segment overlaps the previous one on half of its length?
And yeah, I can definitely understand where that might cause a question, but no, I meant midpoint by width, as opposed to by length. Basically, trying to get it as close to your previous segment's endpoint (the line you use for construction, I mean, or to select if you need to select a river segment), which should lay in the middle, width-wise, of your segment.
The basic idea is that you will be making each segment smaller (or larger) than the one before by changing its line width, so connecting it closest to the midpoint (width-wise) of the previous segment will make that change the least conspicuous... especially since CC3's line width will calculate from the center width of the line.
Looking over what I just wrote, that might sound confusing. Tell me if it doesn't make any sense and I can see if I can throw up a quick visual if need be!
One thing I like to do, which will work with your method as well, is to put sections of a river on different layers. That way, I can turn on/off sections based on zoom level. When I'm zoomed in I may want to see every single stream and tributary. But when I'm zoomed out I may only want to see the main body (leaving out the tiny bits in order to keep the map view from being overrun with rivers).
As others have said, your tutorial is well written and fun to read. Kudos and thanks for the great technique!