Regional: Archandus: work in progress

Calibre · December 2016

For your critique and advice:

First, this is a regional map in my ongoing campaign which I run on a MUSH. I use the maps for my players' reference. The nomenclature is Tolkien-based simply because I like the language.
Second, I am a trained graphic-artist (traditional as well) and typographer, though as has been stated many times, CC3, et al, does not operate like the programs I've been trained on heh heh.
Third, Rivers and Roads: yeah, I need serious help.
Fourth, if someone can give me a step-by-step of how to attach the .FCW, I will do so.

thanks
Cal

JimP · December 2016

the red lettering is hard to read on the green background.

'Lesser sea of Flux' ? Or does it say more than that ?

Calibre · December 2016

Yikes! double post of map! Argh

Yes, JimP: Lesser Sea of Flux

Calibre · December 2016

Interestingly enough, the red letters outlined in black show up well with that shade of green background when employing the full version PNG. However, I'm not married to it :P

What colors would you suggest?

thanks
Cal

JimP · December 2016

i did not see the second one earlier, but you can always edit a post and delete/add to it.

A light red, if you want to keep it red, would work. But not a pink.

A rectangle of white under it would help to. That would need to be on its own sheet.

I made an example where the red lettering overlaps the edge so you can see the contrast.

Of course, you can adjust the size of the white rectangle to match better the lettering, but not too close.

Calibre · December 2016

There, tis done.

Thanks, JimP. Fixed.

I'll experiment as you suggest. I wish I could show you what it looks like in the original PNG, but it's way too large for this forum.

My primary failing is, as you see, the Rivers and the Roads.

I used to do Fenlon style maps using traditional media: pen, ink, various paints and the like. Tedious, but satisfying

I love this program, but it's fighting me! heh heh

thanks
Cal

Calibre · December 2016

I'll try it! Thanks

Cal

cobra mustang · December 2016

On first impression; lots of occurrences of text becoming lost in instances of similar color. Text position can make or break a map. It's a lot of trial and error. Luckily it's not to difficult to re position.

Calibre · December 2016

Ok, can you be more specific where text is lost in similar color?

thanks
Cal

Loopysue · December 2016

Overall that's a really nice looking map

IMHO the text would look better if it was all white, and had a black glow effect on that sheet to lift it off the map and make it clear and easy to read.

The red is very jarring against the green because its more or less but not quite the opposite colour, and opposites always jar if they are placed right next to each other without some kind of buffer zone (like a glow), or one being much less saturated than the other to the point of being very nearly grey. Grey would fail to stand out in this case, however, so go for white.

cobra mustang · December 2016

Bak n Thil or whatever is really hard to discern.
The lake on the left side, can't even make heads or tails of it.

Most of the ones that cross from land to water are tough.

The red text is tough too. I mean it would probably look better zoomed in, but at this resolution those are really difficult and I am looking at them on my 55" tv. So that picture is coming across at 2' x 1'

Shessar · December 2016

This is a beautiful map! I really love how you did the cliffs with the waterfall.

Loopysue is correct that a white text with a black glow, (or black text with a white glow} is the best option for visibility. Here is my favorite example of this.

Monsen · December 2016

Posted By: CalibreFourth, if someone can give me a step-by-step of how to attach the .FCW, I will do so.

That would be the exact same way you added your image. Just hit the Browse button below the attachment heading and add it.

Posted By: CalibreI wish I could show you what it looks like in the original PNG, but it's way too large for this forum.

For larger images, I recommend you host them at an image hosting or cloud storage service, and provide a link to the hi-res version from your post (I still recommend attaching an actual lower-resolution to your post in addition though)

Calibre · December 2016

Thanks all.

I'm going to try it. I believe I did white with a black outline overall before and reverted to red because it reminds me of a map I saw as a kid of Europe heh.

Could you guys help with the rivers and roads? with suggestions, I mean...

thanks for the critique, guys

Cal

Calibre · December 2016

Well, here we go. The quality is really bad. I'll toss in the FCW as well (thanks, Monsen)

Calibre · December 2016

Notes:

scale bar is thrown up there because I'm taking rectangle PNGs for player maps and needed it there temporarily
everything southwest of Gelion is deliberately left undone to not spoil surprises for players; likewise to the north

Observations:

I notice the map really looks better in smaller rectangular PNGs which I pull out for the guys when we play heh.
The green highlight contour keeps changing color back to standard palette even though I keep changing it. Not sure why. I save the palette and color keeps reverting.
I really suck at rivers and roads :P

thanks for all the advice!

Cal

Calibre · December 2016

As an aside, my group of players just informed me they prefer the red colored lettering

:S

Cal

Loopysue · December 2016

Maybe your players get to see the map a lot larger than we do?

At the scale it is here, the white lettering is definitely far more readable, but I think you need to increase the black glow around it a bit more for this scale.

I don't understand why on earth you seem to think you have a problem with roads and rivers. Perhaps if you show as a close up extract of the problem we might be able to say a bit more?

Wyvern · December 2016

Lettering styles, sizes and colouring are always tricky, because it depends heavily on what you need them to do (is the text colour important in labelling certain map features, for example), with some fonts being easier to read than others even with near-identical colours and letter sizes. As Loopysue most recently noted, just adding a thicker glow to lettering can make all the difference sometimes. Depending on your font, for instance, adding a thick white glow around coloured lettering can be almost like adding a white rectangle behind the text, as JimP mentioned, but one which follows the outline of the lettering. Of course, with other fonts, this can make it illegible, so as ever, trial and error!

I agree with Loopysue too regarding your roads and rivers query, as I'm also not seeing what problem you have with them that you're needing help to solve. The changed river lines now stand out just fine; the roads might benefit from a colour change, or maybe just an increased external glow, to help them stand out a little more, but that's about the only thing I can spot. Again though, this does depend on what you most need the map to show. For instance, if the rivers are navigable, you might want to show them more clearly than the roads in some cases, especially where the players may be travelling along them, rather than going on foot.

cobra mustang · December 2016

Remember in fantasy settings they don't have huge earth moving vehicles and explosives. Magic is too costly to manipulate huge environments. So roads will follow earth contours, give berth to large obstacles and stay away from forests wherein ambushes lay. Straight roads are few and far between, except in rich kingdoms where they serve a purpose of showing the kingdoms might, and moving troops.

Crazy roads can serve great purpose to, a game master can think, why does that road take a wide turn. Maybe it skirts soft ground, could be an ancient battlefield with ghosts and undead. Possibly a wizard has lands and a tower and wants nowhere near his experiments.

So I for one think the roads are pretty darn good,

Dogtag · December 2016

Those are really good points you make about roads, cobra mustang.

Barliman · December 2016

Posted By: cobra mustang
Crazy roads can serve great purpose to, a game master can think, why does that road take a wide turn. Maybe it skirts soft ground, could be an ancient battlefield with ghosts and undead. Possibly a wizard has lands and a tower and wants nowhere near his experiments.

So I for one think the roads are pretty darn good,

I agree, I think both look fine. Odd roads or rivers moving in unexpected ways can be artifacts of past civilizations, too, giving the setting some historical depth.

Loopysue · December 2016

Oh yes very much so. Here in Dorset (UK) we have the regular roads, and then there are still the faint scars of the Roman roads slicing their characteristic straight lines through our relatively curvy and kinky modern-day grid. There are even ancient 'ways' that predate the Romans, and which in some places can still be marked by the presence of double rows of extremely old hedgerow.

Makes you think, really, if in a thousand years time the road I live on will still be marked by similar vestigial remains.

Calibre · December 2016

Well, thanks again, guys. I did increase the black glow for that scale and it seems much clearer. Will post up revision asap.

As for the rivers/roads: well, I dislike the default look with the HW style, so just used smooth paths of varying pen widths on rivers. The problem with that is that the lines stay the same size regardless of zoom level heh. Roads, I used the default and just changed color and added outer glow and transparency. So, when zoomed in, the rivers in areas look like thin lines while the roads are overly large. Also, had to freehand the waterfall. But, if you guys think it looks ok, well, I'll stop whining now

Cal

Dogtag · December 2016

Instead of varying the pen width for the rivers, try varying the actual line width. That should scale with the zoom level.

ProFantasy Community Forum

Regional: Archandus: work in progress

Comments