Merelan City
Loopysue
ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
Merelan City is a map I've been working on for a while. It goes with the novel I've 3/4 written, although the map is only about 2/3 completed at this stage.
The map has 130 Sheets and approximately 3-400 sheet effects in operation. I am using the CD3 building symbols with several of the fills from the Bogie Mapping Objects collection and about 5 of my own fills (the rocks, seaweed, smoke, ground vines on top of the island and the wood for the frame that I haven't rendered in this image.
The map has 130 Sheets and approximately 3-400 sheet effects in operation. I am using the CD3 building symbols with several of the fills from the Bogie Mapping Objects collection and about 5 of my own fills (the rocks, seaweed, smoke, ground vines on top of the island and the wood for the frame that I haven't rendered in this image.
Comments
LLAP
Nacon4
I'm no master. I've only been working with CC3 for about 5 months, and on this particular map for just over a month.
I also have a trees thread (the name of which I've forgotten), but that's not really about maps
https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=34721&page=25&p=313040&viewfull=1#post313040
You know... In some ways, I think I like it even better! It looks a lot more put together, now, more natural? No...more cohesive, I would say. Anyway, I am so looking forward to this map being complete!
You and me both - on getting it finished. LOL I'm growing increasingly keen on the idea of being able to start something new. City building in a hybrid city/dungeon style like this isn't something I plan on doing again any time soon. Those I have in me waiting to come out will be a lot more simple and quicker to draw
- The vineyards job is fantastic. They really look great.
- The new windmills size makes them harder to notice. Maybe they´re more realistic but depending on what size you´re watching the map, it misses sharpness.
- The label works better than the old one, as it doesn´t disturb the spectator as much.
- The walls are also fantastic. If so, maybe the western part of the wall should be lighted as the sun would hit it (considering your shadows).
All in one, this is one of the best city maps i´ve seen, and surely the most detailed one. Keep up the great job Sue!!
A lot of the appearance of the map is down to the very fine qualities of the Bogie Mapping Objects collection of fills. In fact, take away the two grass fills and the sand fill that I'm using here and there wouldn't be much of a map left to look at. I don't actually have more than 10-12 textures in the entire map, including the five of my own that I'm using. Most of the colouring is done by HSL effect on different sheets. This is definitely going to be a bit of a shocker when I render it 'with and without effects' to show off to the PS community over at the Guild when its done. Hehe! I don't think they realise just how powerful CC3 really is. Thank you Medio
There are certain limits on image size on this forum which make the larger maps a little tricky to present - and I never do small maps. If you want to have a look at a higher res image the identical but larger version to this one can be found over at Cartographer's Guild here:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=34721&page=25&p=313040&viewfull=1#post313040
This one here is 1250x1250 pi, the one on the Guild is 2500x2500 - the maximum on both sites.
(To avoid any confusion, my name over there is 'Mouse'. I chose Loopysue at a time when I didn't think very much of myself or my life, so went for something different over there when I joined, but I'm ok with it.)
The windmills haven't been reduced any more than the buildings, and should perhaps be even smaller now that I've shrunk all the manmade features. I decided to reduce everything to emphasis just how big the temple really is, and to make the island itself big enough in comparison to the buildings to warrant the relief detail I've given it. I'm hoping to sweet-talk a certain Guild friend of mine into making one of those web maps out of it that you can zoom and pan around like a Google Earth map, but we'll see if the closer detail warrants that kind of inspection when we get there (thinking here of the trees I have yet to draw, and which still look so much like grey modelling clay when you zoom in to 'fill a screen' size)
As for the walls - the city wall is a graphic I drew for myself and is done in a 'universal' way with internal shadows to distinguish the battlements from the walkway, but I've just noticed that I seem to have lost the directional shadow effect for some reason. I'll go and have a look see where its got to. The compound wall on top of the island is a Bogie texture... Brick 08 I think, drawn as a line and given width of about 10 units then bevelled. There is a difference between the two sides of the bevel, its just that you can't really see it in this map.
Off to add a few more houses now... TTFN
Sue, you and I apparently bought our programs about the same time... But I don't think I could create a city like this if I tried!!!
I sit here in envy of a great many of your maps, so I am... most definitely... not alone here - whatever I am
EDIT: Oops - that was directed at everyone, btw - Storm included
I have always relied very heavily on the advice and suggestions given to me by others here on this forum, and it has occurred to me that none of you can see the problems I'm having with this map, so I've done a couple of enlarged sections to show you.
The first image shows the tiny land-locked bay near Somnee. To me the land STILL looks like its floating above the sand, but I'm wired a bit different to 'normal' and have a strange way of processing what I see, so it may or may not be the case. The irony here is that I once spent a lot of time trying to create a floating island, while here I'm trying to ground one! Any advice would be welcome.
The second image shows the fuzzy road problem. I've tried all different kinds of ways to make the roads look good at close quarters, but I think that glow (in this case) isn't really working at anything other than medium zoom. All advice welcome.
The third image shows the unnatural appearance of the vines at close quarters. I'm working on a transparent fill for this problem - one that works a bit like the seaweed fill, but its taking a while. When I've done it I will upload another close up shot of the vines and ask you what you think.
Its taken a while today to add all the detail to the north facing cliff beneath the observatory, complete with 90% of the paths in that area. I'm hoping to get far more done in the next 24 hrs - maybe even complete all the housing. the top of the island won't have very much on it - too dangerous to live there, except near a windmill (the movement deflects screamers in the same way that spinning DVDs deflect birds from a strawberry patch)
For the sand and land: Its like two different pictures are placed next to each other, without the frames, and of way different scenes. There is no sand on the land, and no rocks out in the sand. Wind alone would move sand onto the rocks.
I'm not familiar with effects... but could the blending be too much ? Have you tried less blending ?
In the zoomed samples I showed the land had no edge fade inner on it, which I've since corrected in Version 45. I think I may have gone a bit too far in the other direction though. This blurs the line between land and sand (sample shot below)
I'm going to add rocks in the sand when I get down to the detail work - trees, tents and so on, but thanks for the reminder
I think I will have to have another play with them today, but for now I'm just trying to get as many of the buildings set in as possible.
I know this might sound insane (since I haven't made any of the trees or tents just yet) but I'm trying to get it finished in the next 12 days.
Thanks for commenting
As I said, I'm unfamiliar with effects. But I have done a bit of them. How about the width of the effects on the roads/paths ? The paths look blurry to me. So, I'm not sure how to explain it otherwise.
Yes, the sand does zoom out onto the land... I did spend a few decades living near Biloxi, Missisippi. They had miles of beaches. When it gets windy, lots of that sand winds up a mile or more inland. Most of it lands on the coast highway and people's yard for around 500-1000 feet from the beach. That scattering of sand is what I was more refering to. Its not a wave of sand coming ashore, but patches of sand. So I don't think an effect will fix the look. (I hadn't eaten when I first posted and I have now, along with some exercise.) My suggestion would be patches of sand on the rocks and a bit past the rocks. Some with glow, and some without.
I will probably continue to mess around with them.
No map tonight, btw - I'm busy trying to lay out a new and rather ridged Blucran road system on the upper reaches of the island, in juxtaposition to the lax and lazy curves of the Merlish parts of the city.
I live in a seaside resort, so I know what you mean about the piles of blown sand. They just drift into existence like snow drifts all over the place, and being caught walking up the sea front in a gale is just downright unpleasant. You don't exactly need any fancy face treatments to remove old skin around here - you just go for a walk down town on a windy day LOL
If I need the sand drifts just one more sheet should suffice for them, if I need them by the time I've finished jamming this map full of boats, trees and tents...
1) Fractalize at a strength of less than 5.
2) Use a poly to draw the paths, with a sand or grainy bitmap fill. That is, if you aren't already using a polygon to draw the paths.
The paths are drawn with a variety of tools depending on the size and function of the road. Footpaths are drawn with the hand drawing tool with a width of 3 or 5 map units, while town roads around the harbour are drawn as straight lines and the big roads wrapped around the island are curved lines, all with a width of 10 - the biggest of 25 or 30.
With the roads Its not the straightness of the edge but the definition. I need the edge of the road to blend into the grass, but giving it either an edge fade or a glow causes the texture of the road to look fuzzy in comparison with the grass and houses at close zoom levels.
I'm working on it, and I'll let you know how I did it when I find the solution
And I rarely fractalize more than 3 clicks. I think 1 might work for your paths.
Thanks again.
The real problem was that although a nice sharp dark inner glow works pretty well to define the roads and sink then into the ground, my roads and tracks are on 8 different sheets, so when I try to join them you can see the join around the end of the road that's on the higher Sheet (lower in the list). What I've done is create another sheet (132) with the same HSL settings as the other 8 road sheets, but with no glow on it whatsoever. This "Junction" sheet is set highest of all above all the others in the map, and can be used to 'blend over' the join with smaller lines - like stitching the roads that are on different sheets together. Its a lot of work, and its not something I'm going to do until the rest of the map has been completely finished, but at least I know how to solve it now.
I know I said there wasn't going to be a map today... er, this morning (its 4.30 am here), but In this version I'm showing the process of planning the road structure on an area of map where they have not yet been defined. These are the thin white lines in the south west of the map. The strange colours on the land beneath them are a temporary transparent markers that help me see at a glance which of the sheets I need to place the roads and houses on when I get to the point of making everything final.
All these marks are just an idea, since many of the roads are in ridiculous or impractical places, but they help me think where I'm going when I have the snaking end of an actual road attached to my cursor, and I'm laying it down on the land - one click at a time