Really looking forward to this over the next couple of days.

Does this mean that we can bug the heck out of Loopysue if we don't understand something? :)

To start the ball rolling, this is a rather long answer I gave yesterday on the FB page to the question of: "...Would this package include the other things in the map, like the walls and bridges. And are there buildings suitable for the shade parts of town - your buildings in the map all look too beautiful to complete some of the cities I need to do."

Answer:

Annual issues are by nature a lot smaller than regular built-in styles simply because of the download size - 12-13 issues in an annual, so there has to be an upper limit for each issue to keep the annual small enough to download all in one go. However, there are 223 symbols in this particular issue - including the bridge, the walls, the trees, and the church. There is also a new parchment fill I used as the background for the scroll artwork. (The scroll itself is made in the map and not a symbol). The rest of the fills are all included in the built in City Designer 3 Add-on, which is one of the main three. The reason they look different is because of the sheet effects I have used in that particular example map.

I believe there has been at least one attempt at an isometric city style before now done in black and white linework, but as far as full colour goes this is the first (though I may stand corrected in a few hours time by the more knowledgeable folk around here).

The intention of making it firstly as an annual rather than a full blown add-on style straight off is to see if its what people want to have, and to work through any teething issues there may be. As with anything new there is always room for improvement, so all suggestions are very welcome.

Shadows and shading were both issues that I had to consider very carefully. As you know, the moment you reflect a building any built in shadows you have in that particular symbol immediately look wrong. Since the size of the set was an important limitation in this case I decided to opt for making reflection possible by leaving out the shadows. To compensate for the slightly flattened result I have drawn shadows on the wall sections and the church symbols using the Solid bitmap 20 and 30 fills right on top of the symbols there. The shadow issue is something that could be reconsidered if this ever became a regular style.

The FCW for Corvallen (the map shown above) will be part of the annual issue. There will also be a short blog article at some point in the first week after publication explaining all the sheet settings and how to draw any shadows you might like to have.

Here is a screen shot of the Sketchup models used to make this set. As you can see from the number of white blocks I haven't yet developed there is plenty of scope to include a lot more. Its just that there wasn't room in an annual issue to go that far.

It would be better, I think, to wait and see what everyone thinks before finalising those unfinished models.



And here is an extract from the Corvallen map as a reference point.

Thank you :)

Thanks also to Profantasy for making this possible in the first place ;)

I have been itching to get my hands on this. So glad I subscribed. And we are so lucky to have such talent as sue to create these beautiful symbols!

Aaaw… Thank you :D

But seriously - no suggestions for improvements?

Maybe there will be some in a few days time when everyone has had a go with it?

(And Kevbeck - sorry - I seem to have hijacked your thread!)

This is very true, Rob. Thanks for spotting it.

I avoided adding any shadows to the buildings so that the limited number in the annual set could be mirrored, but I totally forgot about the archways.

EDIT: There have been a few developments today - the extract above is slightly out of date. A glow and shadow effect have been added to the SYMBOLS sheet so that it looks a lot more like this now:



There is an alternative way of adding shadows, and that is by drawing them as polygons of Solid bitmap 20 or 30 (the transparent fills), but the two methods are mutually exclusive. You either have effects, or you draw polygons of shade. This is one of the things that will have to be decided by individual mappers according to personal preferences.

Love this!!!!

This is beautiful work. It makes me think that the Skara Brae map from the old Tales of the Unknown / Bard's Tale needs a remake.

After a very quick investigation of the Annual, it's clear to me that these buildings will be ideal for creating unique settlement images for overland maps, as well as their intended individual isometric settlement drawings. Two uses for the price of one! Brilliant, Sue!

Wasn't thinking of creating new symbol libraries in fact; just importing the symbol set and creating settlements "on the fly" from those, as it were. They may be a little over-detailed, compared with the existing CC3+ settlement symbols, but seeing how some of our mappers here have already reused such existing overland symbols to create new settlement landscapes, I don't think that'll be much of a problem.

This reminds me of an Iso version of the John Speed style. Very nice. :)