Watabou City REVISED (annual 157)

Quenten

Since this great annual came out, Watabou had done heaps of modifications. And as a result, the SVG to DXF conversion doesn't work as seamlessly as before, making everything lines, and therefore unable to use the method as outlined in the annual.

I have experimented with this, and come up with the following solution, which makes everything relatively easy again.

Please try it out, and let me know if there are any bugs. Perhaps we can convince Ralf to do a revision of this.

I have also added a few of my own idiosyncrasies in the sheet naming.

This is the png of the city I generated.

I also attach the SVG for any interested.

greatkeep.svg

The first most important thing is to just export as a SVG the actual elements you want and cut out all the pretty stuff. It is, after all, the street and building layout that we really want.

So ... in the generator, first check colour - make this either B&W, or Ink in the Presets.

Next, click on Style, and make sure you check or uncheck the following. Whatever I don't mention, you can choose as you wish.

1. GRAPHICS: Check thin lines, leave the rest unchecked.
2. ELEMENTS: Districts Hidden. Check scalebar only (if you want it, leave the rest unchecked
3. BUILDINGS: Roofs plain, leave Raised unchecked. Otherwise, choose what you want.
4. OUTLINE: Check buildings, water and roads
5. MISC: Check Solids; Uncheck Show alleys and Show trees. I advise against choosing farms - they can be added as you wish, and I use the farms from other styles, especially where I can easily align the furrows using Shaded Polygons.

You should get something like the png above. ie B&W, no text or trees or extraneous lines.

The number of Buildings and suggested population is available on the Settlement menu:

Quenten

The next step is to export as png, and SVG. Then convert SVG to DXF using the tool mentioned in the annual. i have tried other tools, and they leave even more of a problem. However, if any of our gurus know of a better converter, that may do the same as originally in the annual, and not make everything lines, then that would be great. Just a shout out to @Ralf , and @Monsen

Quenten

Then open Watabou city annual style. Pick the dimensions you want - get this from the scale in the generator.

Then inset the dxf file.Scale it as non visual by factor of 2.5 (not 400 - it no longer appears as a dot!). Use 0,0 as the point to scale from.

Next step - convert all from lines to paths (right click the Explode button). DO NOT FORGET THIS

Now we need to move all elements apart from the buildings to their relevant sheets and layers. I do it in this order, but it doesn't really matter which so long as you remove all elements apart from the buildings to their relevant sheets/layers.

1. Water: Turn Seas into closed polygon, move to sheet WATER/RIVERS, layer Water/Rivers. Use whatever fill you like. Turn River into a path of fixed width, fill whatever you like (or a actual smooth polygon, giving difereing widths along the course of the river, making it perhaps more natural, and perhaps allowing for some river islands). I do not use Change like Draw Tools for this - I got weird results (someone might like to check this out).
2. Roads: Again, I turn the roads into a path of fixed width, fill pattern what I like. Again, I got weird results using the Change like Draw tools. This isn't too problematic, since there are only ever 2-6 roads. Put them on the sheet ROADS layer Roads. I actually add a ROADS PAVED sheet, with no Edge Fade effect because sometimes i want a stone road to be 'neat' at the edges.
3. Walls: I do use Change Like Draw Tools for this - it works well. Make sure you select Sheet WALLS, and layer City Walls before doing this, though.
4. Towers: I do these each separately (I actually hide all but the IMPORT, WALLS and TOWER and TOWER TOP sheets, just to make it easier). I do use the Draw Tools, (NOT Change like Draw Tools), but it is sometimes a bit trial and error to get the right dimensions. First, work on the Round towers: Once I have 1 tower right, I then copy that to all the other round towers, to keep the dimensions consistent (unless I deliberately want to make some bigger and even taller). Nest the square towers- usually the gate. I draw 2 towers with the distance apart from them being the width of the road, then add a WALL between them, narrower than the City Walls, to act as both a gate AND a maker to align them correctly to the walls. Again, I use the copy command to keep things consistent.
5. Bridges. I make these either as a separate entity on a new BRIDGE sheet (in the map below I have used a BRIDGE sheet with a shadow effect, and a BRIDGE TOP sheet for railings, with an outer glow effect).
6. Docks: I add a DOCKS Sheet, with Shadow effect, and outer glow (or just a black outline as in the map below).
7. Greens: I add a sheet called PARKS, and transfer all greens to that sheet, Layer vegetation. Fill as desired.
8. Fields: I transfer all furrows to the FIELDS FURROWS sheet, unless I decide to use a field fill that has furrows you can align as you wish. otherwise, follow the procedure as per the annual 157.
9. Buildings: Hide all Sheets except IMPORT. Choose layer Buildings. Right click Explode button and change everything from Paths to Polys. Now change the fill to the desired fill - Watabou annual uses the Brown stone dark fill. Next add an outline to all the buildings, the press P for previous and move all the outlines to CITY BLOCK OUTLINE Sheet. I actually rename City Block to BUILDINGS, and City Block Outlines to BUILDINGS OUTLINES, and add a sheet BUILDINGS HIGH (which I transfer the large buildings to - remember to hide the outlines before you do this though!). The renaming isn't necessary, but since I like to have a different sheet for different size buildings, I prefer the name Buildings - my OCD showing! Of course, I add a Wall direction shadow to the BUILDINGS HIGH Sheet, with higher value than for the hoi polloi buildings. I find doing it this way, and NOT using the Change Like Draw Tool tool actually produces a cleaner result. But I am interested in what you people think.
10. I actually change the sheet effects for the CITY BLOCK and CITY BLOCK OUTLINE as follows: The CITY BLOCK (or BUILDINGS) sheet had only the Wall shadow directional effect - delete the Glow effects, but copy the Outside Glow effect to the CITY BLOCK OUTLINE (or BUILDING OUTLINE) sheet instead.

Now I have got the following - easy to add all the other bits to the map now.

To the template for this revised annual, I would add the following sheets: PARKS, BRIDGE, BRIDGE TOP, DOCKS, BUILDINGS HIGH; and the following Layer: Cartouches. I would also change the sheet effects for the CITY BLOCK and CITY BLOCK OUTLINES as indicated above (and change the names to BUILDINGS AND BUILDINGS OUTLINE)

I will finish this map off later.

I really want comments and suggestions on this please. I would love to be able for us all to use the Watabou stuff easily again.

Quenten

Here is what it looks like with all the bells and whistles from the Watabou generator now. You can even add you own text for various buildings of importance.

ScottA

Great work! This should be made into a new annual or at least worked into the original and re-released.

Quenten

I'm hoping people will try it out, and let me know of any bugs, or suggestions, so I can then talk to @Ralf about a revision of the annual. And I am sure he will also have even better ideas than me.

jslayton

Did the Random Dungeon Generator in last year's Humble Bundle have an SVGREAD command?

Quenten

I don't know.

Quenten

Here is an illustration of one problem I am having with the Change like Draw Tools command on various aspects of the dxf.

You can see the ones that worked well - the parks, the body of water (lake,sea), the city blocks (see comment below), the city walls.

But for the roads and river, they produced the hollow version, which cannot be changed to solid. Interestingingly, the roads within the city walls came out well, but not beyond that. The river just didn't work at all. I don't know why this is the case. After converting everything from Line to Path, the river and road were each a single path (2D Polygon) of 0 width.

Here is the fcw post using the Change like Draw tool, and also the one with the DXF, one just as it is, the other with everything converted using Lines to Paths. It would be great if someones could shed light. Otherwise, the rivers and road will have to be redrawn separately - which is not really much of a problem.

FCW for this jpg.

test.FCW

FCW with just DXF added with no modifications:

test with dxf unaltered.FCW

FCW with DXF changed with Lines to Path tool.

test with dxf changed to paths.FCW

Also a jpg showing the culprits in red.

Quenten

And here is the final version of the map - I will see if I can find a place in the Atlas for it.

Monsen

The problem lies here:

After converting everything from Line to Path, the river and road were each a single path (2D Polygon) of 0 width.

A 2D polygon isn't a path, it is a polygon. When applying the river draw tool, which is a line-type tool to a polygon, you get weird effects. When a line has a line width, it is shown as a solid entity of that width, but when a polygon gets a line width, it is shown as a hollow entity with an outline of that width.

So why was in converted to a Polygon instead of a Path? This is down to the fact that the river isn't made up from just one series of lines, but they are actually doubled up. This causes CC3+ to see interpret this as a set of lines that goes all the way to the end and back to start again, so since it ends where it started it is interpreted as being a polygon. This means you get a very thin polygon, but a polygon still.

You can easily get this into the desired path by using the Break command on it. Just place the start of the break at one end of the new "polygon" and the end of the break at the other end. This will basically remove one half of the poly, and leaving behind the line representing the other half as a proper 2D Path.

Quenten

Thanks so much, Remy. I would never have figured that out for myself. I guess the same will be for the roads.

Quenten

I decided to really test the system and do a large city using the method above. This took just over 60 minutes, but not so bad really for this size city. FCW included if anyone wants to use it. I haven't added anything extra to what the actual city generated, ie no trees, hills, forests, swamps, invading troops, cluster bombs etc - the sort of normal stuff any city has these days.

Moonlight City.FCW

Larger version in gallery.

I didn't bother to use Shaded polygon by Edge on the fields - i would do so if I was going to develop this city further. Does anyone want me to - perhaps an Atlas add?

jmabbott

Thanks for this Quenten.

This will prove useful to many of us I think.

Quenten

This took less than 10 minutes to go from starting to insert the DXF to this. I have solved the problem of the road and river - it lies in the original setup of the map to export as SVG - make sure river and roads are NOT outlined. Even if they seem to disappear, they will be present on your svg, therefore DXF.

Once I am completely satisfied with the whole process, i will upload the whole process along with a new Template and DrawTools for both metric and (ugh) imperial. And the fills I use for the fields.

I will be renaming the CITY BLOCK sheet to SYMBOLS BUILDINGS.

Calibre

"....I have solved the problem of the road and river - it lies in the original setup of the map to export as SVG - make sure river and roads are NOT outlined. Even if they seem to disappear, they will be present on your svg, therefore DXF."

So, THAT'S what was going on! It was driving me insane! Thanks indeed, Mr. Quenten

Cal