Isometric modern city scape symbols?

I'm not sure this question is going to make sense...but I'm going to attempt to ask it anyway. Does profantasy or cc3+ have isometric modern symbols that could be used to make a city map?

Let me explain for clarification... I have a client that may have miscommunicated their needs on the commission work they asked me to do. Based on the example they showed me (it was, in fact one of Lorelei's regional or continental maps), they wanted a regional map with some modern symbols.

Apparently, that's NOT what they want. What they may actually want is a modern city.... With mountains and rivers....something somewhat similar to the Themiscyra map I just completed. But it also sounds like they want it in isometric view, as opposed to the Birdseye view that one would normally create with city designer. And they want it done in the Herman Weilink style. Or, at least, they want the Herman Weilink style for the base. So I guess my question is...does city designer have any modern isometric symbols?
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Comments

  • There is Annual 103 for CC3+ that gives an iso view of a city, the other iso set is for dungeons.
  • Annual 103? Let me check that out.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    I may be confused and a little hazy about this, but didn't Vintyri say something about there being plenty of ISO symbols in one of the mapping collections, or available from the Dundjinni library?

    I can't quite remember now - been a bit busy with too many other things just lately :)
  • DogtagDogtag Moderator, Betatester Traveler
    edited October 2016
    CA103 is a pretty cool issue of the annual, but it isn't for modern cities. There might be a few symbols that could pass for modern but, really, it just isn't made for it.
  • Posted By: Loopysuedidn't Vintyri say something about there being plenty of ISO symbols in one of the mapping collections, or available from the Dundjinni library?)
    The Dundjinni Archives, Vol. 1, for CC3+ contains a good sized library of ISO symbols, biut they're basically for fantasy RPG maps, not modern maps. I know of no source for ISO city maps, and here are none in the Dundjinni Archives.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    We could do with a sort of master symbol index with about 50 major headings, like "ISO Modern buildings", "TD Modern buildings" and a list of annuals, symbol collections add-ons and folders where they can be found.

    Do we already have one of these somewhere (or do we just call him Jim?)
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Ah. Thanks Mark :)

    Sorry, then, Storm. Can't really help with that one :(
  • Posted By: LoopysueWe could do with a sort of master symbol index with about 50 major headings, like "ISO Modern buildings", "TD Modern buildings" and a list of annuals, symbol collections add-ons and folders where they can be found.

    Do we already have one of these somewhere (or do we just call him Jim?)
    Sorry, I don't work for Ghostbusters. Ya know, who ya gonna call, etc.

    I think a list of what is available in symbols would be a great idea. I don't know who would have time to do that though.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    Sorry Jim!

    That was a bit too tongue-in-cheek of me earlier, but still I don't think you can get away from the fact that you always, always seem to know just exactly where to find things ;)

    How would someone go about sorting something like that out?

    I mean, just what would be involved?

    @Storm - I've been churning this over and over all evening, and unless you can see your way to drawing in lots of shaded polygons I can't think of a way to resolve the ISO modern building problem :(
  • GatharGathar Traveler
    Maybe you can look into sketchup, at one time this 3D program was used quite a lot by people who wanted to add buildings into google map, and you can connect to some online user galleries, then you can set the viewpoint to whatever you want and render the symbol. This would require some time, but probably not as much as drawing it yourself. However, I did not see any easy way to know the license for those models.
  • Unfortunately, that's not going to work either, because the client wants me to use only profantasy products that they can also purchase. They were originally asking for CSUAC also, and then changing those to isometric view, but I had to explain that profantasy doesn't own the rights to those symbols....they changed their minds.

    So I'll do what I always do...find something that's close to what I want, then improvise!
  • Posted By: GatharMaybe you can look into sketchup, at one time this 3D program was used quite a lot by people who wanted to add buildings into google map, and you can connect to some online user galleries, then you can set the viewpoint to whatever you want and render the symbol. This would require some time, but probably not as much as drawing it yourself. However, I did not see any easy way to know the license for those models.
    This won't help LadieStorm much if the customer wants PF symbols only. However, what Gathar suggests can be done legally with the CSUAC 2, Bogies mapping Objects, the Dundjinni Archives and the Vintyri symbols, as long as one stays within the legal rules.

    With the Vintyri symbols, one can do it without problems. If one wants to distribute the modified symbols one also can do that, provided the OGL is included with the distribution.

    The situation is different with the symbols in Bogie's Mapping Objects, the CSUAC 2 and the Dundjinni Archives. These all are governed by their own EULAs. One can modify the symbols, as suggested, and use them in one's own personal and commercial maps, which may be distributed, but one may not distribute the symbol modifications except over the Dundjinni forums. How that works is explained in the users guides.

    Mark Oliva
    The Vintyri Project
    http://www.vintyri.org
    info@vintyri.org
  • Right...I knew that...but 1) I don't know the first thing about altering symbols, and 2) I'm staying away from ANYTHING that could come close to copyright infringement, 3) these people are hiring cartographers because they realized that cc3+ is a little more complicated that they expected....imagine trying to explain installation of the betas!

    Besides, they seem to be under the impression that any product on this website is owned by profantasy. Once I explained that the free stuff on the forums was owned by someone else...they didn't seem as keen for me to use it.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    General question to the forum:

    If I were to fill a map with buildings made entirely of shaded polygons, using only Profantasy textures and plain colour solid fills, then send it to Storm, would she be able to see them and copy and paste them to use in her own map?

    @ Storm - assuming the answer to the above is 'yes', what is your deadline?
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Yes, as long as she has the actual products you draw the textures from. And obviously, if she is going to use them in a map for the client, and give the client the .fcw, they also need the same products installed.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    Thanks Remy :)

    I would use only solid fills and textures from whichever template Storm had picked for her map, but I don't even know if there's enough time for this to be done. I will wait for her to get back to me about the deadline :)

    EDIT: I also don't know if my idea of modern city buildings and Storm's idea of modern city buildings are going to coincide - and then if they do... whether they will also coincide with what her clients want.

    Its all very much a huge maybe, but it is a possibility.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    Hey Storm :)

    I think I've just worked out why there aren't so many ISO modern buildings.

    Its because the only way to draw an ISO building is as if its been built in Perspectives... which means that its ok for one building, but once you get 5 or 6 in a row they start to look distinctly... odd, in terms of perspective, because there are no vanishing points.

    You can get away with ISO perspective (where everything is the same shape and size and viewed from the same angle no matter where it is on the map) with trees and mountains and the quaint little oddly shaped bundles of crooked little buildings that are often used as village or town symbols, but where modern buildings have a tendency towards right angles and extremely straight lines, its virtually impossible to cheat and make a whole collection of them look right together all the way across and up and down the map.

    I have a horrible feeling that what your client is after, is in fact a perspective drawing of a city, rather than a city constructed with ISO buildings.

    I can show you how to do a proper perspective drawing in CC3. Its not even all that difficult if we stick to just two point perspective (rather than three point, cylindrical or spherical), but it IS going to take a lot more time than I think you may have available.

    Up to you - if you want a quick tutorial on drawing simple blocks of flats and office buildings line by line and window by window in CC3, then I can do that for you without too much trouble.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    Here is a brief test building done in ISO. To me it looks distorted, but if this is the kind of thing you mean (more complex and detailed of course), then I can do a set of these for you without too much trouble. It will take a couple of days to do all the drawing, and they will be only drawings, not symbols. I will group all the various bits together so you can just copy and paste them...

    But they're no use to me, so I'd only be doing this if it was useful to you ;)
  • Posted By: LoopysueSorry Jim!

    That was a bit too tongue-in-cheek of me earlier, but still I don't think you can get away from the fact that you always, always seem to know just exactly where to find things ;)

    How would someone go about sorting something like that out?

    I mean, just what would be involved?

    @Storm - I've been churning this over and over all evening, and unless you can see your way to drawing in lots of shaded polygons I can't think of a way to resolve the ISO modern building problem :(
    My response is tongue in cheek as well. Actually, mine was rather silly.

    One convoluted way to see what symbols were where, when no symbol fcw was included, would be to make a fcw with the symbols after each symbol set was installed.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    A pictorial reference map. Neat...

    But it could only be done by someone who has everything Profantasy ever created, and that certainly isn't me.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Note that CC3+ has a built-in command to create symbol references (Symbols Menu -> Create catalog thumbnail file). This file will show all the symbols in the current map, so usually, you would load in a symbol catalog into the main window, and not regular map when creating this. Generated output will look similar to this.
  • DogtagDogtag Moderator, Betatester Traveler
    I totally forgot about that catalog thumbnail function!

    Also, I believe SS1, SS2, and SS3 have downloadable lookup sheet PDFs.
  • DogtagDogtag Moderator, Betatester Traveler
    edited October 2016
    I think the issue with that building is that the square used for the roof looks almost like an actual square, rotated 45°, but a true isometric projection distorts the view of a square aligned along the axes.

    Isometric projection uses a 120° angle between the X, Y, and Z axes. The building above looks like it has a ~90° angle between X and Y, and a ~135° angle between X and Z and between Y and Z. Also, and I can't be sure, obviously, the vertical viewing angle may be off. Again, in true isometric projection, the vertical angle (looking down on the X-Y plane) is just over 35° (I don't remember the exact angle) but this appears to be more, maybe 45? (can't tell for sure, obviously, but it might explain the ~90° angle around the Z axis.

    For example, the same shape in Perspectives looks like this, as well as two "building shapes" making up a mini city block. You can see the the angles between the X, Y, and Z axes if you look at the "closest" top corner of the building, where the sides and roof meet.

    [Image_6801]     [Image_6802]
  • guys, seriously, don't worry about it... I will figure out what I want do with this. They want something that looks futuristic.. but I've already explained that there IS NO such symbols currently out for cc3+. They understand that, and just asked me to do the best I could.

    @ Sue - hon, I really appreciate what you want to do... but the thing is... Not only would you have to be willing to to make all these, and put them in a catalogue so I could use them... I would then have to turn them over to the client so that they could use them... and this map is turning out to be complicated enough as it is!
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    @Dogtag - 120 degrees? Really? Oh my - now that's really embarrassing! LOL! (but actually quite funny as well, if you know that my life is all about art). Ahem... Well... No wonder I never managed to do a half decent ISO drawing in my life, and prefer to work with 'true' perspectives (ie at least 2 vanishing points)! LOL!

    @Storm - I get paid in 2 days time, and my broadband allowance is renewed on 22 October, so in theory I could get Perspectives with what's left of my prize coupons from Shessar's competition, and would then be able to draw them for you using a nice 120 degree grid (instead of a rotated square grid).

    I would do this for nothing if it was just for you, and your clients were only interested in having the rendered maps (and not also the new symbols I would be making for you), but I'm not so perfectly altruistic that I would simply give the actual symbols away to your clients. For that to happen I would expect at least a little compensation for my time - from your client, of course, not you.

    I am sorry if you think that mean of me, but you already know that I'm not in a position to just throw my time away for anyone but a friend, without at least trying to put a bit of bread on the table for myself. I am sure, however, that you will manage to find a solution to the problem. I have every faith in your resourcefulness :)

    It looks like between them, Remy and Dogtag have found a way that you can create or find a comprehensive catalogue of all the symbols you have at your disposal, which should be extremely useful ;)
  • no, Sue... that's what I'm saying... I would never ask you to do something like that... I wouldn't LET you do something like that! lol
  • Perspective drawing. I did that with paper, pencil, and a ruler. Oh, and a very large eraser, or a box of them. I sort of got it, but I'm glad those 'drawings' are lost. Ew. Ew. ew.

    Such drawings look great, but I could never do them well or even mediocre.
  • KenGKenG Traveler
    I started working on this type of thing a long time ago but never finished it.
    Here is my thread http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4877&page=1#Item_12
    Maybe this can help a bit.
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 39 images Cartographer
    edited October 2016
    Very impressive :)

    What you drew there is actually top down one point perspective, not Isometric, and is actually more difficult to draw than isometric. The vanishing point is in the z axis - all 'vertical lines' converging at a single point in the centre of the drawing (if you extend them with the eye of your mind).

    I once drew an entire town (Luton, Bedfordshire, UK) in this style as an exercise to show business development for a cartographic project - drew it, as in actually drew it with a set of Rotring pens and Rotring inks (precursors to the Staedtler pen) on something called Permatrace... a kind of plastic tracing paper we used back then - 30 years ago before the web ever even existed)

    It gets harder and harder the further away you get from that magical vanishing point, as the buildings lean further and further away from it. The end result is like looking down from an aeroplane through a fish eye lens.

    Wow! That WAS a long time ago - a trip so far down memory lane I had quite forgotten all of that until I saw your map...

    Thanks for the experience :)
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