That pit effect is transparency acne. When sheet effects like Edge Fade, Inner, or either of the Bevel's are applied, the rendering engine looks for the edge of the polygon to be given the effect. It finds the edges by comparing the colours of the pixels in that polygon with the colours of the pixels underneath them. Where the colour is the same it assumes there is no overlying polygon - which must therefore mean that this is an edge...
It works, most of the time, but where you have the same texture overlying itself it will find an awful lot of matching pixels and assume you have peppered this polygon with lots of pinholes. Every pinhole has an edge, of course, so each and every one of them has the sheet effect applied to it. This causes strange circular craters or odd triangular patterns with the bevels, and large perfectly circular bald patches with an edge fade inner sheet effect.
The reason it changes appearance at different zoom levels is because CC3 is switching between different resolutions of that fill as you zoom in and out, so different pixels match at different resolutions. Rendering an export of a reasonable size will probably involve using the VH resolution of the fill, which is one you only see on screen when you are zoomed right in. That means you may only notice them in the rendered image.
Anyway! That's the explanation. Here is the solution.
Add a new sheet between the grass and the bevelled grass. Ok that and zoom in to see if the acne has stopped. Sometimes just a plain sheet without anything on it will work, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, copy the polygons on the sheet with the bevel onto the new sheet and copy across any Edge Fade Inner sheet effect you might have on that bevelled sheet. Then change the properties of those copied polygons on the new sheet to solid colour number 227 (or any colour that definitely isn't going to be in the grass), and ok all of that. It should work, though you might have to fiddle with any edge fade, inner sheet effects to make them broader to hide the purple polys better.
Let us know if that doesn't work, or doesn't make sense :)
I learned about the pitting from another map a month ago that I posted about on here. But thanks anyway. What I meant by the comment was that it only showed up on the export so I did not know it was there. I used a lighter grass texture, but I guess that was not enough to prevent it.
Spent the night/early morning in the ER. Turns out I have a kidney stone. Got home at 3:30 am and then had an interview at 10 am. I do not recomened it. Having problems getting back to sleep now I will work on the rice paddies and get those pits fixed.
I agree with Jim, the first looks better, but there needs to be a denser coverage with rice plants, IMO. Anyway, I hope to copy that technique for my future rice fields, if you are willing to share.
Create three new sheets. One for the rice water, one for the rice field, and one for the terrace. This is the order of the sheets as well with the rice water on top, followed by the field, and then the terrace.
Use the draw tools on the right to make the terrace. Change the fill style to material you want. In my case, I used medium grass and rock. Draw those on the terrace sheet.
Use the drawing tools to draw the water on the rice water sheet between the terraces. Or you can use the water draw tool and move it from the water sheet to the rice water sheet. I used the light green color.
Use the drawing tools (or the terrain tool and then use the move sheet command) to draw the rice fields. I used the medium grass and dirt. Draw this on top of the rice water sheet.
The rive water sheet effects are glow (outside) with color 12 0 intensity and 1 blur. Inner glow brown (26) at 100% and 20 blur. Drop shadow with -1 and -2 values. 75% opacity and 1.5 blur (map units). This creates the sunken/embossed look. You will likely have to play with these values based on your map size. Then inner glow color 64 100% blur 5.
The rice field has an edge fade, inner set at 5 units. Blur at 4 and then glow (outside) with color 12. 15% strength with 1 blur. The goal here is to make it look muddy and under the water.
The terrace is just a bevel, lighted with 5 as its size. The other values I left as a default.
I shrank down the palm trees to be very small - like .2. I used those for the rice symbols. I placed them on the symbols trees sheet.
On the organic map, I added a worn path as per many of the images I have seen. I created another sheet for a dirt road. I used the dirt drawing tool and moved it to the new sheet. I then had a blur effect.
As for the blue water that is from the river, I drew that with the water tools and left it on the water sheet. If I want to go with the water flowing over the terraces, then I can move it to a sheet below the terrace layer.
Since this map will be zoomed out and not focused on the rice fields, I didn't bother complicating it up. However, if I were to have a map with the rice paddies as a main focus, I can create multiple sheets for each terrace. Then, using different bezel sizes and drop shadows, I can create the illusion of height differences for a more specific terraced rice paddy look.
While I never really mess with layers, when you don't use the normal tools, but the hand drawing tools on the right, it does not auto change the layers. So, if layers are important to you make sure to change the layer to something appropriate, e.g. vegetation for the rice symbols.
I decided to go with the organic looking rice paddies for now. I have added a small village near it. I also got the darklands city and used some of the fields to replace the earlier field attempts.
I still need to fix the roofs for the city wall. I feel that overall it still needs something else, but too much more and the map will be too crowded. Perhaps I just needs to use some terrain tools to break up so much of the dark green and/or mess with the sheet effects some more on the river to make it pop more.
I think there is enough detail in the city and the wooded areas, but the green area feels a bit unfinished.
I usually try to imagine that each of those houses in my city holds 5 people, and then imagine how much food each of those people need in a year, even if they are poor and only have one bowl of rice a day. It becomes easy then to understand that you would need loads more paddies, or loads more fields for other grain and meat produce.
Or you could call it all grazing land and just add field boundaries with thin lines of small trees?
A field system can greatly enhance the appearance of a city map by giving it a patchwork pattern around it. In real life field patterns around cities and rivers tend to extend in weak rays. It's not a rule, but if you look you can see the tendency of ray like fields - especially if the fields are fitting between radial road patterns like a spider's web.
If you are short of ideas on exactly how to plan the field pattern, try dividing each of the larger parcels of land contained by boundaries like rivers, roads and woodland in a way that you would find easy to farm if it was up to you to run that parcel of land as efficiently as you could with least effort, and so that you can get to each field by road or path. Maybe looking at the Ferraris map might give you some ideas?
In addition to that suggestion, if you want to use the Darklands field textures you could also use the Darklands field drawing tools, which will align furrows and crop marks with the first side you draw of each field.
They look terrific - but I think there should be double the amount of plants in the paddies. But the way you have done them is how I will go in the future.
Many of the modern tenadas use stone walls that look like cobblestone. I used the cobblestone from the darklands city. They also tend to have grass, rice, bushes, etc. growing on the stone. Sometimes it is the whole things and sometimes just part. So I used the field symbol from darklands and then the reed symbols for the rice.
While you probably cannot tell unless you zoom in, I added another sheet. I used a medium grass layer and then put it on top of the cobblestone. I then used the blend effect. This makes the parts of the stone look mossy. Since I wanted some of the stone to show without that, I didn't do the entire terraced area.
Most of the "amazing" photos people post have the water all the way to the wall. Sometimes that is not the case. Also, the water is drained/filled so that is why I didn't take the water all the way to the edge.
My only question is why some roads near the inside of the city walls just end without any buildings or landmarks nearby.
It might make sense to extend the small roads going towards city wall towers to reach the towers, instead of ending before them. Those wall guards need their supplies, too... 😉
I stretched them to the towers. I turned off the blur for the fields since I have better textures now. I did turn a couple into more of a dead grass look for the cows to eat. I also added an edge fade to the darker blue in the river. Not sure how much improvement you can tell from the JPEG, but it looks better in CC3+.
I went and colored some buildings. However, since these are symbols, I couldn't use the method @EukalyptusNow did. Instead, I had to use a blend effect. Do coloring the buildings add something, or just a waste of time?
If you are reffering to using the hue/saturation, I have tried that. It does work, but I tend to lose patience. It is just putting in numbers and seeing what turns out since there is no preview option like you can get with GIMP.
@JulianDracos : Agree about the hue/ saturation. This effect can yield great result, but it's a bit of try and error (took a while until I got my red oasis sands right...).
Thanks for the idea with the blend effect. Really have to use blend more.
And colored special buildings add distinction and flair/ feel. So yes please... :)
The issue I have with HSL, is I have no idea what number to use. I can apply it and see, but then I do not know if I need to go up or down. At least if I could start with an approximation of what I want and then tweak, it would be easier.
I did try colorize for the first time. It is easier to use. I did this quickly to see if it looks OK enough for me to start dividing symbols up and using the effects. The gold on the roof I will need to be less sloppy with.
Shadows are easy. It is HSL that is problematic. If certain numbers corresponded to certain colors that were always set, then that would make things easier, but now it is like I put in a number and get a random color.
That is what the colorize effect does - sets the colour.
The HSL effect works with the colours as they stand, so that if you have a blue rooftop you can change the hue by increasing or decreasing it around the colour circle, increase or decrease the saturation of it (that one is the wrong way around for my way of thinking, since negative numbers increase the brilliance of the colour). Lightness is the easiest of the controls, being reasonably self explanatory.
So whatever colour your roof is, these settings would make it 5% further along the spectrum (for example if you start with blue it will go more violet). With the Saturation set to -10 that will make the colour of things on that sheet 10% more garishly bright, and the Lightness value will make them darker by 30%.
This is an adjustment, rather than a setter. It's like messing with the settings on your monitor.
Comments
That pit effect is transparency acne. When sheet effects like Edge Fade, Inner, or either of the Bevel's are applied, the rendering engine looks for the edge of the polygon to be given the effect. It finds the edges by comparing the colours of the pixels in that polygon with the colours of the pixels underneath them. Where the colour is the same it assumes there is no overlying polygon - which must therefore mean that this is an edge...
It works, most of the time, but where you have the same texture overlying itself it will find an awful lot of matching pixels and assume you have peppered this polygon with lots of pinholes. Every pinhole has an edge, of course, so each and every one of them has the sheet effect applied to it. This causes strange circular craters or odd triangular patterns with the bevels, and large perfectly circular bald patches with an edge fade inner sheet effect.
The reason it changes appearance at different zoom levels is because CC3 is switching between different resolutions of that fill as you zoom in and out, so different pixels match at different resolutions. Rendering an export of a reasonable size will probably involve using the VH resolution of the fill, which is one you only see on screen when you are zoomed right in. That means you may only notice them in the rendered image.
Anyway! That's the explanation. Here is the solution.
Add a new sheet between the grass and the bevelled grass. Ok that and zoom in to see if the acne has stopped. Sometimes just a plain sheet without anything on it will work, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, copy the polygons on the sheet with the bevel onto the new sheet and copy across any Edge Fade Inner sheet effect you might have on that bevelled sheet. Then change the properties of those copied polygons on the new sheet to solid colour number 227 (or any colour that definitely isn't going to be in the grass), and ok all of that. It should work, though you might have to fiddle with any edge fade, inner sheet effects to make them broader to hide the purple polys better.
Let us know if that doesn't work, or doesn't make sense :)
Wow, the map keeps getting even better.
The pits in the "rice field earth wall" are probably "transparency acne" with a bevel effect.
And intermediate layer in a different coulour, right under the walls should fix this.
I learned about the pitting from another map a month ago that I posted about on here. But thanks anyway. What I meant by the comment was that it only showed up on the export so I did not know it was there. I used a lighter grass texture, but I guess that was not enough to prevent it.
Spent the night/early morning in the ER. Turns out I have a kidney stone. Got home at 3:30 am and then had an interview at 10 am. I do not recomened it. Having problems getting back to sleep now I will work on the rice paddies and get those pits fixed.
Good Luck !
So which style do you prefer? The original with more structured walls:
Or the more organic style:
Yes... But the first one looks slightly better.
I prefer the organic one.
Those kidney stones sound painful. I hope you get them sorted out quickly. Good luck! :)
I agree with Jim, the first looks better, but there needs to be a denser coverage with rice plants, IMO. Anyway, I hope to copy that technique for my future rice fields, if you are willing to share.
No consensus on which one looks better :P
Here is how I made the rice fields:
As for the blue water that is from the river, I drew that with the water tools and left it on the water sheet. If I want to go with the water flowing over the terraces, then I can move it to a sheet below the terrace layer.
Since this map will be zoomed out and not focused on the rice fields, I didn't bother complicating it up. However, if I were to have a map with the rice paddies as a main focus, I can create multiple sheets for each terrace. Then, using different bezel sizes and drop shadows, I can create the illusion of height differences for a more specific terraced rice paddy look.
While I never really mess with layers, when you don't use the normal tools, but the hand drawing tools on the right, it does not auto change the layers. So, if layers are important to you make sure to change the layer to something appropriate, e.g. vegetation for the rice symbols.
Thank you very much, @JulianDracos
I decided to go with the organic looking rice paddies for now. I have added a small village near it. I also got the darklands city and used some of the fields to replace the earlier field attempts.
I still need to fix the roofs for the city wall. I feel that overall it still needs something else, but too much more and the map will be too crowded. Perhaps I just needs to use some terrain tools to break up so much of the dark green and/or mess with the sheet effects some more on the river to make it pop more.
Wouldn't there be FAR more rice paddies? Otherwise a great city - please add it to the Atlas.
I think there is enough detail in the city and the wooded areas, but the green area feels a bit unfinished.
I usually try to imagine that each of those houses in my city holds 5 people, and then imagine how much food each of those people need in a year, even if they are poor and only have one bowl of rice a day. It becomes easy then to understand that you would need loads more paddies, or loads more fields for other grain and meat produce.
Or you could call it all grazing land and just add field boundaries with thin lines of small trees?
A field system can greatly enhance the appearance of a city map by giving it a patchwork pattern around it. In real life field patterns around cities and rivers tend to extend in weak rays. It's not a rule, but if you look you can see the tendency of ray like fields - especially if the fields are fitting between radial road patterns like a spider's web.
If you are short of ideas on exactly how to plan the field pattern, try dividing each of the larger parcels of land contained by boundaries like rivers, roads and woodland in a way that you would find easy to farm if it was up to you to run that parcel of land as efficiently as you could with least effort, and so that you can get to each field by road or path. Maybe looking at the Ferraris map might give you some ideas?
https://maps.arcanum.com/en/map/belgium-1777/?layers=37&bbox=567636.2325169003%2C6584959.599777125%2C586774.1534738013%2C6592326.218378108
In addition to that suggestion, if you want to use the Darklands field textures you could also use the Darklands field drawing tools, which will align furrows and crop marks with the first side you draw of each field.
You want more rice paddies? I will give you more stinking rice paddies! 😝
They look terrific - but I think there should be double the amount of plants in the paddies. But the way you have done them is how I will go in the future.
Many of the modern tenadas use stone walls that look like cobblestone. I used the cobblestone from the darklands city. They also tend to have grass, rice, bushes, etc. growing on the stone. Sometimes it is the whole things and sometimes just part. So I used the field symbol from darklands and then the reed symbols for the rice.
While you probably cannot tell unless you zoom in, I added another sheet. I used a medium grass layer and then put it on top of the cobblestone. I then used the blend effect. This makes the parts of the stone look mossy. Since I wanted some of the stone to show without that, I didn't do the entire terraced area.
The closest to what I made can be seen in the Mie image here: https://www.tsunagujapan.com/japans-terraced-rice-fields-will-take-your-breath-away/
Most of the "amazing" photos people post have the water all the way to the wall. Sometimes that is not the case. Also, the water is drained/filled so that is why I didn't take the water all the way to the edge.
Anything else to add or change?
That is an awesome map.
My only question is why some roads near the inside of the city walls just end without any buildings or landmarks nearby.
It might make sense to extend the small roads going towards city wall towers to reach the towers, instead of ending before them. Those wall guards need their supplies, too... 😉
My intention is for them to be percevied as going to the towers. If you think it would look better, I can extend them to the appropriate symbols.
I stretched them to the towers. I turned off the blur for the fields since I have better textures now. I did turn a couple into more of a dead grass look for the cows to eat. I also added an edge fade to the darker blue in the river. Not sure how much improvement you can tell from the JPEG, but it looks better in CC3+.
I went and colored some buildings. However, since these are symbols, I couldn't use the method @EukalyptusNow did. Instead, I had to use a blend effect. Do coloring the buildings add something, or just a waste of time?
You should be able to use any of the colour altering sheet effects on the symbols. This is unique to city maps.
Changing the colour can add interest, or mark special buildings
If you are reffering to using the hue/saturation, I have tried that. It does work, but I tend to lose patience. It is just putting in numbers and seeing what turns out since there is no preview option like you can get with GIMP.
You can get a live preview with the colorize effect, but it is a little wild to control ;)
There is also an Apply button in the HSL effect, which is almost live.
@JulianDracos : Agree about the hue/ saturation. This effect can yield great result, but it's a bit of try and error (took a while until I got my red oasis sands right...).
Thanks for the idea with the blend effect. Really have to use blend more.
And colored special buildings add distinction and flair/ feel. So yes please... :)
The issue I have with HSL, is I have no idea what number to use. I can apply it and see, but then I do not know if I need to go up or down. At least if I could start with an approximation of what I want and then tweak, it would be easier.
I did try colorize for the first time. It is easier to use. I did this quickly to see if it looks OK enough for me to start dividing symbols up and using the effects. The gold on the roof I will need to be less sloppy with.
When I'm editing the numbers for effects, and they don't show up like I want, I jump the numbers way up.
Let's say for symbol shadows. They are barely there or I don't see them.
I change the numbers from 5 to 50.
Ah, there they are ! Then I change the number to 25. If too small shadows, I go to 40. Oh, and click on Apply in there to.
Just adjust until I like them.
I also save as filename01_001, make a change, save as filename01_002, etc. That way I can export the jpgs and compare them side by side.
Shadows are easy. It is HSL that is problematic. If certain numbers corresponded to certain colors that were always set, then that would make things easier, but now it is like I put in a number and get a random color.
That is what the colorize effect does - sets the colour.
The HSL effect works with the colours as they stand, so that if you have a blue rooftop you can change the hue by increasing or decreasing it around the colour circle, increase or decrease the saturation of it (that one is the wrong way around for my way of thinking, since negative numbers increase the brilliance of the colour). Lightness is the easiest of the controls, being reasonably self explanatory.
So whatever colour your roof is, these settings would make it 5% further along the spectrum (for example if you start with blue it will go more violet). With the Saturation set to -10 that will make the colour of things on that sheet 10% more garishly bright, and the Lightness value will make them darker by 30%.
This is an adjustment, rather than a setter. It's like messing with the settings on your monitor.