Overland Tools in City Designer Mode
[p]Ok, so I'm trying to redo the city of Sanctuary from Thieves' World (70's fantasy) and I'm struggling as I'd like to include some surrounding terrain and I can't figure out how to load terrain tools and textures. I've linked two screenshots. The first shows the city with my map/image overlay as a guide and you can see the surrounding terrain I'm creating. The second has that image hidden. The second image shows a lot of texture repetition and I'd like to be able to use an Overland draw tools and fill style but I can't figure out what to click on to do it. All I get are the tools/textures for the Jon Robterts city style I picked when I started the map. For example using the Herwin Wielink Overland styles to do the swamp area, etc.. Any ideas?
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With Map Guide:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqgi9BnaamUigc9Ac48ZpM5Us9yuqw
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Map Guide Hidden:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqgi9BnaamUigc8_IVJYvYbjkGgdmA
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With Map Guide:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqgi9BnaamUigc9Ac48ZpM5Us9yuqw
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Map Guide Hidden:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqgi9BnaamUigc8_IVJYvYbjkGgdmA
Comments
To use the overland tools and their fills, you need to import the fills into your map. This is best done by using Draw -> Insert file and start the process of inserting a file from the appropriate style into your map. However, once you get to the step with the map outline on your cursor, ready to place, just hit Escape instead of placing it, the fill styles will already have been copied at this point. Now, the drawing tools from that style should work nicely, just pick the appropriate drawing tool style from the drawing tools dialog. Note that overland tools are not scaled correctly out of the box for a city map, so you'll probably have to adjust their fill scaling too.
I once did a city of a similar size to that. When I started out with just the land it looked like a crazy green carpet with a grid design when the texture scale was set small enough not to pixelize when zoomed in. I did two things. First I added a second grass sheet and drew irregular patches of long grass over the original short grass, and then I covered the whole thing with buildings, roads and trees.
After looking at both your linked images, I'd say it depends just how you want to redraught the map as to where to go from here. Obviously, if you're set on using fill textures, that's one thing, and Monsen and Sue's suggestions will be invaluable for that. However, and based after viewing just your second image, an alternative might be to use simple coloured polygons instead of ones with fill textures, which would be similar to how the original printed map was presented (sepia ink on cream paper for those without access). With a few effects to tone down any harsher shades (such as Transparency), that might be an interesting alternative, and one without the fill-grid downside.
Hadn't thought about mapping it. Good luck !