Because Merelan itself is more of a vertical place than a horizontal one, there wouldn't be any point in having a wainwright on the island, but as soon as you leave the island there's a really handsome wainwright to the left of the road leading north, and opposite it, the obligatory travellers inn. Of course, both these places are seriously popular, so you tend to get a lot of paths between and around them - including the rather obvious paths between the wainwrights and the tavern...
The bottom image is a close up of the wall. I wasn't happy with the way the texture looked rather odd when the wall was at different angles other than vertical or horizontal, so I made a short section of wall to use as a symbol.
This is the piece of wall that was my downfall today - triggering the Update 7 crash experience...
Yes, it does rather, but if I reduce the scale of the gravel, I get those annoying repeat patterns when I pull focus and look at the bigger picture. I think, though that a more detailed mixture of textures towards the end of the process (bits of other textures like sand and beach detritus and whatnot) should allow me to reduce the scale without those annoying problems.
Sorry about the slightly fuzzy resolution, but the gravel should now look fine... even if it is sandy soil with the hue, saturation and lightness altered to make it look like gravel!
And... oops - just seen the obvious mistake to the north of Jamne Head - a patch of the original gravel I missed! Never mind. I'll get it next...
In this version (and the detail is too fine for me to show you all the map at the same time any more), quite apart from adding the first shanty towns by marking them with a rather restricted set of tents, I have also refined and improved the marsh itself, so that it now looks more like a marsh than before (I hope). The fun part was adding all the miles and miles of footpaths.
I aim to find or make a few new tent styles to mix and match with the existing ones, but this will do for the time being.
I changed my mind about the copper roofs on the guard towers. These are only guards we're talking about, not royalty. No. The copper roofing will adorn the Temple of Rusaar, right at the centre of the island
A tunnel under Jamne Head so that travellers can cross the Riffle (name of the straights still missing, sorry), and a draft road layout on the north of the island. Progress is really slow. I'm juggling 78 Sheets and more than 150 different effects on this map, owing mainly to the cliffs.
Sorry Storm. Its a little on the large side, and a JPG to boot. Can't make it much smaller, or you wouldn't be able to see the roads I'm talking about LOL
This is the first time I've seen an overland map of this graphical quality done with CC3+. I would have said that one needed The GIMP or Photoshop to do this one.
A lot of the credit for quality must go to all the people who have contributed so many high quality textures and symbols in the form of the new Vintyri Collection with Bogie's Mapping Objects. I'd be really lost without them! The only thing I made sure I didn't do, was blow everything up too large to look nice... which is extremely tempting, given the quality of the aforesaid graphics. I have drawn very little by hand myself in this map - the outline of each fill, the ripples in the ocean, the weed on the shore... and all those myriad tiny footpaths in the north. The rest is down to object quality and placement, and of course the ever present sheet effects.
I am sometimes tempted to upload a rendering of the entire map with the sheet effects turned off, since I am certain that people would be totally shocked if they knew just how much the entire arrangement depended so heavily on CC3+ processing power LOL.
I think that would be really cool to see... Maps with the effects off, then again with the effects on. It would REALLY show what cc3+ can do.
Which reminds me of a comment made on my tavern at that dratted Facebook page. Someone commented that they always loved to see Dundjinni maps. Black Talon Reach, like She's map here, is also looking like it could have been made using Dundjinni.
Btw Sue, my phone finally decided to load the image, and it's looking fantastic! I REALLY want to see the whole thing put together, to gain the perspective of it all!
Oh I am so sorry, Storm. Yes. It has become a bit of a peep show hasn't it!
The trouble is that with the detail added in at the tiny scale that it is, the map doesn't look good rendered at anything less than maximum size (10,000 x 10,000). Even when I reduce the exported image by 50% its still too large to upload (about 23MB I think), even over at CG.
The largest section I seem to be able to upload here (and for it to still make sense and show all the detail) is only 1/4 of the map at any one time, and then already reduced by 50%
I think CC3 maps are every bit as good as DundJinni maps (but then I'm bound to be biased!). Look at what you and Lorelei can do with a battlemap format, to name but two!
I uploaded this image earlier over at CG, just to show off the power of CC3+ effects over there!
Posted By: VintyriThis is the first time I've seen an overland map of this graphical quality done with CC3+. I would have said that one needed The GIMP or Photoshop to do this one.
I was very sad many years ago when I realized that talent and tools are not necessarily related: tools are only amplifiers for talent. I spent a lot of years looking for the magic box of tools that would give me artistic ability and I finally had to give up that delusion when I understood the truth about tools. helps to drive this home.
Gosh, jslayton. I don't really know what to say. I'm hardly what I would call 'talented'. That video is well worth watching just for the fascination value of it, but I think there wouldn't be any point in having any kind of artistic talent without the talent of those who make the tools that make the expression of it possible.
All any of us cartographers would be able to do without the tools you have given us through the working of your own vast talent, is sit and watch the pretty colours dancing around inside our heads! LOL You only have to look at what your software does with the second picture to create the first picture, to see the genius at work in your software.
But Jim. I wouldn't know where to start with perspectives, and you do some really lovely maps with that. Remember the marvellous blue thing trap that both Remy and I fell for? It still makes me chuckle when I think of how we were both just instinctively curious about it, and how I in particular fell in love with the colour and was all for jumping into it! Its just a different kind of talent that's all :-)
Besides, not everyone likes my style. I have heard my art generally (not just my maps) being called "candy sweet" (not around here, but I have), and if everyone drew things the way I draw them, I would have to admit that the art world would be just a tad on the sickly sweet side of life. It takes all kinds of talents to make a world, and I just have no idea how you game masters sort out one end of a trap from another, never mind a game plot, or being able to draw a map of any part of it! LOL
True, I wouldn't want to see an art gallery by multiple artists that all looked the same.
Okay, it isn't mapping, but I do have a beadwork site: http://beading.drivein-jim.net/ that contains two of my projects from years ago. I need to put the large one back together as its currently falling apart. Its 180 beads wide. 11/0 gauge I think. Could be 10/0. Just ignore me complaining about picture theft and scroll down the page there.
Well there you go! They're beautiful, Jim, and I bet if you did one of your favourite map and made it into a hanging for the wall it would look really quite splendid. You are a man of hidden talents
After all the glowing things that have been said about all the detail, I'm afraid this is going to be a relatively low res image, because I need to be able to show you the whole island today.
The roads, which have been driving me quietly round and round in ever decreasing circles today (or even round the bend), are now very crudely sketched in as a first draft, just to show their approximate position. I have also added the first buildings that I haven't seen fit to immediately delete again
The red line around the area at the top of the island denotes the approximate position and size of the Sayer's compound, where the most holy of shrines, the pool of life, lies beneath the Temple of Rusaar.
Posted By: LoopysueAfter all the glowing things that have been said about all the detail, I'm afraid this is going to be a relatively low res image, because I need to be able to show you the whole island today.
Its still not very clear over there, Mark, even though it is twice the size Edit: Besides... low res doesn't show how wiggly all the lines are due to the old hand tremor! LOL
The City of Merelan started out as a Merlish fishing village, and was invaded by the Blucrans about 500 years ago. The pool that just happened to be situated near the summit of the island, on a thin bed of clay, was declared to be the most holy site of the Pool of Life, where it is claimed that Rusaar spawned the First. The pool was covered by the Temple of Rusaar, and the Blucran Sayers (warrior monks) set up their places of office in close proximity. For this reason there are no town halls or places of local government anywhere else on the island - not even just inside the city gate. Instead you ride straight into the city, where you will soon discover that the impressive façade of grand houses built by the Merlish slaves for their new Blucran masters peter out into the more natural island style of humble thatched homesteads, clustered in their serried rows all up and down the terraced steps of the cliffs....
I only got as far as the first couple of terraces, but I think its going ok
Oh yes! I have noticed the strange little building at the extreme right of the map which appears to have no shadow, but I didn't have time to render it all out again before dinner. It's on the wrong Sheet (layer)
Comments
The bottom image is a close up of the wall. I wasn't happy with the way the texture looked rather odd when the wall was at different angles other than vertical or horizontal, so I made a short section of wall to use as a symbol.
This is the piece of wall that was my downfall today - triggering the Update 7 crash experience...
I just have to build this city first, though
Sorry about the slightly fuzzy resolution, but the gravel should now look fine... even if it is sandy soil with the hue, saturation and lightness altered to make it look like gravel!
And... oops - just seen the obvious mistake to the north of Jamne Head - a patch of the original gravel I missed! Never mind. I'll get it next...
Version 15:
In this version (and the detail is too fine for me to show you all the map at the same time any more), quite apart from adding the first shanty towns by marking them with a rather restricted set of tents, I have also refined and improved the marsh itself, so that it now looks more like a marsh than before (I hope). The fun part was adding all the miles and miles of footpaths.
I aim to find or make a few new tent styles to mix and match with the existing ones, but this will do for the time being.
I changed my mind about the copper roofs on the guard towers. These are only guards we're talking about, not royalty. No. The copper roofing will adorn the Temple of Rusaar, right at the centre of the island
A tunnel under Jamne Head so that travellers can cross the Riffle (name of the straights still missing, sorry), and a draft road layout on the north of the island. Progress is really slow. I'm juggling 78 Sheets and more than 150 different effects on this map, owing mainly to the cliffs.
A lot of the credit for quality must go to all the people who have contributed so many high quality textures and symbols in the form of the new Vintyri Collection with Bogie's Mapping Objects. I'd be really lost without them! The only thing I made sure I didn't do, was blow everything up too large to look nice... which is extremely tempting, given the quality of the aforesaid graphics. I have drawn very little by hand myself in this map - the outline of each fill, the ripples in the ocean, the weed on the shore... and all those myriad tiny footpaths in the north. The rest is down to object quality and placement, and of course the ever present sheet effects.
I am sometimes tempted to upload a rendering of the entire map with the sheet effects turned off, since I am certain that people would be totally shocked if they knew just how much the entire arrangement depended so heavily on CC3+ processing power LOL.
Which reminds me of a comment made on my tavern at that dratted Facebook page. Someone commented that they always loved to see Dundjinni maps. Black Talon Reach, like She's map here, is also looking like it could have been made using Dundjinni.
Btw Sue, my phone finally decided to load the image, and it's looking fantastic! I REALLY want to see the whole thing put together, to gain the perspective of it all!
The trouble is that with the detail added in at the tiny scale that it is, the map doesn't look good rendered at anything less than maximum size (10,000 x 10,000). Even when I reduce the exported image by 50% its still too large to upload (about 23MB I think), even over at CG.
The largest section I seem to be able to upload here (and for it to still make sense and show all the detail) is only 1/4 of the map at any one time, and then already reduced by 50%
I think CC3 maps are every bit as good as DundJinni maps (but then I'm bound to be biased!). Look at what you and Lorelei can do with a battlemap format, to name but two!
I uploaded this image earlier over at CG, just to show off the power of CC3+ effects over there!
It is a wonderful map!
All any of us cartographers would be able to do without the tools you have given us through the working of your own vast talent, is sit and watch the pretty colours dancing around inside our heads! LOL You only have to look at what your software does with the second picture to create the first picture, to see the genius at work in your software.
And thank you Ralph! :-)
Besides, not everyone likes my style. I have heard my art generally (not just my maps) being called "candy sweet" (not around here, but I have), and if everyone drew things the way I draw them, I would have to admit that the art world would be just a tad on the sickly sweet side of life. It takes all kinds of talents to make a world, and I just have no idea how you game masters sort out one end of a trap from another, never mind a game plot, or being able to draw a map of any part of it! LOL
Okay, it isn't mapping, but I do have a beadwork site: http://beading.drivein-jim.net/ that contains two of my projects from years ago. I need to put the large one back together as its currently falling apart. Its 180 beads wide. 11/0 gauge I think. Could be 10/0. Just ignore me complaining about picture theft and scroll down the page there.
After all the glowing things that have been said about all the detail, I'm afraid this is going to be a relatively low res image, because I need to be able to show you the whole island today.
The roads, which have been driving me quietly round and round in ever decreasing circles today (or even round the bend), are now very crudely sketched in as a first draft, just to show their approximate position. I have also added the first buildings that I haven't seen fit to immediately delete again
The red line around the area at the top of the island denotes the approximate position and size of the Sayer's compound, where the most holy of shrines, the pool of life, lies beneath the Temple of Rusaar.
https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=34721&page=8&p=308789#post308789
The City of Merelan started out as a Merlish fishing village, and was invaded by the Blucrans about 500 years ago. The pool that just happened to be situated near the summit of the island, on a thin bed of clay, was declared to be the most holy site of the Pool of Life, where it is claimed that Rusaar spawned the First. The pool was covered by the Temple of Rusaar, and the Blucran Sayers (warrior monks) set up their places of office in close proximity. For this reason there are no town halls or places of local government anywhere else on the island - not even just inside the city gate. Instead you ride straight into the city, where you will soon discover that the impressive façade of grand houses built by the Merlish slaves for their new Blucran masters peter out into the more natural island style of humble thatched homesteads, clustered in their serried rows all up and down the terraced steps of the cliffs....
I only got as far as the first couple of terraces, but I think its going ok
Oh yes! I have noticed the strange little building at the extreme right of the map which appears to have no shadow, but I didn't have time to render it all out again before dinner. It's on the wrong Sheet (layer)