City maps are some of the most challenging (and rewarding) you can make. There are several threads and blog posts with suggestions and advice that you may find useful, even though you're not making a huge metropolitan population center. Here is a particularly good discussion on the topic, which includes links to some of those other threads and blog posts.
Also, I offer this small piece of advice. Break it into smaller parts, and stick to your guns. Don't work on it for too long at any one time but keep at it. The result will be very gratifying.
huh...i never even noticed the "L" names. ha. And, no, Dogtag, I am not writing a book, i just play D&D and have a creative streak that i have never managed to excel in one particular area....so i just create when and where i can
I'm not writing a book... I'm in the process of about 3 right now! That AND running about 4 different games... plus making maps... and crafting projects.... wow...
No wonder I'm chasing my tail trying to keep up with you! LOL.
Say, Ladiestorm, I'm very much in love with that ocean of yours. Would you mind very much if I did something similar with the sea around the Island city of Merelan? I'd make it noticeably different of course.
Brilliant. Thanks... and I wouldn't have known it was an adaptation if you hadn't said so, so you must have done quite a lot of original work with it yourself.
Well, I didn't get as much of a chance to work on this map this weekend like I'd hoped. We went out of town for the weekend to help a friend that needs to repair and renovate a house he has on the coast. So I spent a lot of time installing insulation!
I did get a chance to get a few things done here and there, and this map is beginning to take shape.
And Sue, I realize I didn't actually answer your questions earlier, so I am going to try doing so now.
First question - There actually is a 'palace' which is more like fortress complex. That's what you are seeing in the middle of the rectangle with the different background. There is a wall around it(may be hard to see right now... I have to work on that a little bit, but right now I'm concentrating on the shape of the city.) Once you leave the palace complex, you have the Noble Councils' homes, situated around the palace.
Once I have the city constructed, one of the last things I will be putting in, is the wall around the city itself, complete with towers, checkpoints and all of that. But I need to determine where the walls are, by where the city 'ends' and I won't know that until the last.
FWIW, I often draw my city walls fairly early in my own process. It helps me shape much of the city and to know how the denizens dealt with the wall as they were adding new construction. Cities often continue to grow long after the walls go up. I commonly add buildings next to or near the outside of the walls, generally near the gates. It also helps me to see how a city plans to defend itself — once upon a time and in it's current incarnation. Sometimes a city needs more than one wall.
I've been considering that... and I might do that, on the next city map I work on... but I also have the tunnel and ruins under the city to think about too... so I'm not sure how that would work in this map. I will have to think on it.
The city, the cliffs and the ocean, particularly the ocean, are all looking great, and since I'm also building a city I know how difficult it really is, never mind having to do someone else's insulation job for several days at the same time. LOL
Shadows on the walls and inner glow on the courtyards should hep with the wall, but you know that already ;-)
Coming along nicely, LadieStorm. And like Sue i really like what you did with the ocean and rocks. One thing though that is putting my eye off....the scale of the boats and shore things seem a bit on the large side. Unless you intended it that way, of course, to imply the distance...
I did intend it that way, and for just that reason. I dont know how it will work in the long run, I may end up scaling them back...but for now I'm keeping them as they are.
Well, I've sort of been neglecting this map for a bit... so I have worked on it some. I started adding a bit of vegetation to the cliffs, although I'm no where near done, yet. I also realized that since this is on the smaller size when it comes to cities, I could actually put some of the farms inside the walls, so I added a couple of farms. I also followed Sue's suggestion, and changed my main roads a bit so they aren't ramrod straight. It's slow going, but it IS progressing, bit by bit.
And now I'm going to get a name for being too critical.... but now that you have warped them just a bit its become more evident that the fill is rather imposingly "straight as a die", if you see what I mean. Is that one of the cobblestone textures? Maybe it would be better to go with something a bit more random, or grit like - possibly even tarmac (which could be taken as stone, or crushed stone)
Again, these are only suggestions. Please feel free to reach down the line and throttle me! LOL
lol... Sue, I'm beginning to think that you and I share a brain!!! Once I made them meander, I liked them even less... and I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why. It is a cobblestone bitmap, and I think you're right... it's meant for straigt lines, like maybe walls and such, or more modern streets...NOT for this middle ages style. I may have to see if I can come up with something a little more suitable.
Cobblestone fills — and other finely-detailed textures — don't render all that well at this scale. Many of those textures are meant more for battle map scales.
For the kind of streets you're making, something more like the Vintyri Settlements fill style CobblestoneRounded_01 (attached) usually works a bit better. I think Bogie has some similar things.
Posted By: LadieStormI think you're right, and it would probably work better with the edge fade as well.
A suggestion here:
Fade will only serve to make things look fuzzy. You could try knitting the road into the landscape by adding pathways in the same texture in the same way that I did with the Observatory?
I've uploaded an extract here to try and help my rather lame descriptive abilities! the main road is lovely and even in width and doesn't vary in the slightest. However, once I started adding the paths leading from and to the road in the same texture, it sort of started to knit with the landscape, rather than looking like a big fat wadge of Bogie's sandy soil (the texture I used) that I had just decided to stick in there for some random unknowable reason.
The paths make this road, and they helped me to see where to scribble little laybys, as I imagined where the road would naturally widen to accommodate several paths joining it around the same place.
Thnk about the people using it - where they would go - the short cuts they would start to take, and how that would affect the width of the road.
Again - just another suggestion... and I'm still waiting for a well deserved throttling!
Hey Sue... it's a good suggestion, but realize this is a large city... it's hard to do that on such a large scale....and believe me, by the time I'm done with this, you probably won't really notice it.
I did however, end up changing all of the roads to different bitmap fills... and I think I like it better this way.
Oh yes, it is most certainly better this way. I was only making a suggestion
Er... can I make another one please?
You know those lakes that Vintyri wanted you to fractalise? Well, even if you choose not to fractalise them, you could do a whole lot worse than very slightly alter the shape of the one sitting out on its own in the lower left of the area. Its catching my eye as being a bit too similar in shape to the largest one.
Do you see it too?
But there you go - the fact that I'm picking on relatively tiny details means that the whole thing is getting better and better all over :P
Comments
Also, I offer this small piece of advice. Break it into smaller parts, and stick to your guns. Don't work on it for too long at any one time but keep at it. The result will be very gratifying.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Say, Ladiestorm, I'm very much in love with that ocean of yours. Would you mind very much if I did something similar with the sea around the Island city of Merelan? I'd make it noticeably different of course.
I did get a chance to get a few things done here and there, and this map is beginning to take shape.
And Sue, I realize I didn't actually answer your questions earlier, so I am going to try doing so now.
First question - There actually is a 'palace' which is more like fortress complex. That's what you are seeing in the middle of the rectangle with the different background. There is a wall around it(may be hard to see right now... I have to work on that a little bit, but right now I'm concentrating on the shape of the city.) Once you leave the palace complex, you have the Noble Councils' homes, situated around the palace.
Once I have the city constructed, one of the last things I will be putting in, is the wall around the city itself, complete with towers, checkpoints and all of that. But I need to determine where the walls are, by where the city 'ends' and I won't know that until the last.
~Dogtag
Thanks for the suggestion!
Shadows on the walls and inner glow on the courtyards should hep with the wall, but you know that already ;-)
(But of course there may be people who disagree)
And now I'm going to get a name for being too critical.... but now that you have warped them just a bit its become more evident that the fill is rather imposingly "straight as a die", if you see what I mean. Is that one of the cobblestone textures? Maybe it would be better to go with something a bit more random, or grit like - possibly even tarmac (which could be taken as stone, or crushed stone)
Again, these are only suggestions. Please feel free to reach down the line and throttle me! LOL
Fade will only serve to make things look fuzzy. You could try knitting the road into the landscape by adding pathways in the same texture in the same way that I did with the Observatory?
I've uploaded an extract here to try and help my rather lame descriptive abilities! the main road is lovely and even in width and doesn't vary in the slightest. However, once I started adding the paths leading from and to the road in the same texture, it sort of started to knit with the landscape, rather than looking like a big fat wadge of Bogie's sandy soil (the texture I used) that I had just decided to stick in there for some random unknowable reason.
The paths make this road, and they helped me to see where to scribble little laybys, as I imagined where the road would naturally widen to accommodate several paths joining it around the same place.
Thnk about the people using it - where they would go - the short cuts they would start to take, and how that would affect the width of the road.
Again - just another suggestion... and I'm still waiting for a well deserved throttling!
I did however, end up changing all of the roads to different bitmap fills... and I think I like it better this way.
Er... can I make another one please?
You know those lakes that Vintyri wanted you to fractalise? Well, even if you choose not to fractalise them, you could do a whole lot worse than very slightly alter the shape of the one sitting out on its own in the lower left of the area. Its catching my eye as being a bit too similar in shape to the largest one.
Do you see it too?
But there you go - the fact that I'm picking on relatively tiny details means that the whole thing is getting better and better all over :P