Issue with beach on Spectrum Overland
Not sure what happened here, it doesn't trace exactly and it has this weird overlaying issue. Anyone know what I did wrong here?
Not sure what happened here, it doesn't trace exactly and it has this weird overlaying issue. Anyone know what I did wrong here?
Comments
The beach is a smooth as opposed to straight tool - just change the fill to Straight, and it will be fine
Quenten is right.
Right click the Fractalise tool and pick Smooth to Straight, then select the beach polygon and hit D for do it.
Where is the Fractalise tool?
Centre of shot - to the right of the explode button. It looks like this
This is what it did, should it have that sharp edge from the beach to the grass? I'm fine if it is supposed to look that way, but if it's not then what could I do differently?
Put the grass and beach on different sheets, with Edge Fade Inner on one of them (the grass would be best, put it on the sheet above the beach (ie further down the sheet list)
Different sheets? Edge Fade Inner is already on the grass. I did exactly what you said and it didn't do anything different.
It's possible the beach isn't wide enough to go completely under the faded edge of the grass. Try editing the EFI on the grass sheet to make the faded edge narrower. The alternative is to use the node edit tool
to move the nodes of the inner side of the beach polygon further under the grass.
The nodes aren't visible in CC, so it's a case of clicking with the node edit tool on the inner edge of the beach poly until you grab one. You then move it by dragging the mouse and then click to reposition it. On to the next node... and so on.
One option I often use on my overland maps is to change the internal glow of the SHEET land to a lighter color (I usually use #29).
This color can simulate a "beach coast" in a simple and quick way.
Another way to further emphasize the coastal aspect is by mixing in other types of vegetation closer to the coast, as in the example.
How do you do that?
change the internal glow of the SHEET land to a lighter color (I usually use #29).
Just to elaborate on what Ricko said: on the LAND sheet, you'll see three GLOW effects. If you click on the first one and click Edit, you'll see that it's an inside glow with a dark color. (The other two Glow effects are outer glows that add the light blue to the coastal waters.) If you click on the color in the Glow parameters, you can change the color. Ricko is recommending the tan color I circled on the screengrab.
One other thing just occurred to me. See where it has a Blur Radius of 7? If you want bigger beaches, increase that number.
Of course, as @Royal Scribe said, by controlling the radius you have a greater or lesser "coastal strip".
Thank you for all your help everyone! I decided to just erase the beach and draw it wider which worked! Thank you @Loopy , @Royal Scribe , @Quenten and @Ricko for your help!
I've been thinking about your map and the beach. If you want an even closer or more local map you can directly use the marine dungeon as the base of your map, working with the Edge Fade Inner effect on the land and/or also on the ocean.
Like this example.
Cheers
And... another possibility is to use two Lands sheets - both with inner edge fade and the lighter one - beach if placed below another more yellowish, greenish, rocky, etc. When you open this file you will see in the sheets a new sheet called Land Beach -------.
I think this is a genuinely great example of displaying the difference on whether you want your map to display your geographical data of your map artistically or practically. So far I've been creating maps with a heavy emphasis on artistic display; but I have to constantly remind myself that a map is, above all else, for all intents and purposes a display of geographical data, that may or may not be presented artistically or practically. I personally find this aesthetic very pleasing, but from a practical standpoint perhaps it would be more effort than what it's worth. Artistically beautiful, practically irrelevant (at least, by modern definitions. It could very well be significant as far as implementing that specific feature in a legend of some sort).