Well that isn't going to be any fun, now is it? I quite enjoy it when you get one of your ideas and inadvertently boot me off on a voyage through the unknowable; collecting all the additional details to go with it LOL!!!
What the devil am I going to do now for inspiration!
But all this map really is, is a pretty big mound of sheets and effects - quite literally!
Well, I drew the funiculars, but they just looked dead wrong - too straight. I took them out again, then got distracted for a couple of hours by the frame. I then returned to the problem of having sufficient transport routes around a very steep little island and took another couple of hours to lay in a set of "main roads". The Blucran Sayers would have ordered the building of these wide and smoothly curving roads - not having an appreciation of the most efficient ways around the island like the Merles do.
The original paths that I got rid of are set for a comeback - I don't want any more of these nasty modern looking smooth roads than is absolutely necessary!
How about using a cobblestone bitmap fill over parts of the road ?
I've fractalized roads on overland lands... the problem comes in moving it back to where the road belongs.
I've wanted to be able to fractalize part of a road... only way I could figure it out is to draw a road bit I want to fracalize. Fractalize it. Then using the Endpoint function on the lower right of CC3/CC3+, join a smooth road to the end of the fractal road, then draw in the smooth part coming from there. Do that on both ends of the fractal road bit. So the road is smooth and fractal.
I think you can actually fractalize smooth roads. The only problem I have with doing that is there are then far more points to have to move when it all ends up in the wrong place!
Is there any way you can fractalize something and the line not jump about? In other words, a way of doubling the number of points on a line so that you can do the adjustments yourself by hand?
Click the road, river, or whatever at the point you want to add the node. CC3 displays the entity in "edit mode" and displays the node "frames."
Move the new node where you want it, and then right-click to complete. CC3 redraws the entity with the new node and re-hides the frames (unless you were showing them to start with, I think).
Left-click the mouse to repeat the last command.
Repeat.
I think that's the sort of thing you're after.
Incidentally, this is a quick and easy way to fix dungeon walls.
The truth is that adding nodes by hand was my last ditch option, since it took me long enough just to decide where these ugly great things would best be placed to create a viable main route around the island. I was kind of just hoping that someone could say "This is the setup you need with fractalize...", and then I could add all the intermediate nodes in one click without the line jumping all over the place in the process, then adjust only the ones that needed adjusting.
I need 2-3 x more nodes, even in sections that are fine where they are, in case I decide to go back to straight lines. I need to stabilise the approximate position of the road with them.
I know - fractalize is meant to make the line jump about, but I was just hoping...
I'm also considering tracing them again by hand with the hand drawing tool, which would be faster than adding all those extra nodes one by one. That way, however, I will need to reduce the number of nodes if I want to shift just a small section a tiny bit.
Don't worry - I'll do it. I'm just getting rather a lot more lazy in my old age
You can use fractalize with a low value for strength. This value determines how far from the baseline the additional nodes are allowed to go. Also note that depth controls how many nodes are created between each existing nodes (It will double for each increase in value)
Posted By: MonsenYou can use fractalize with a low value for strength. This value determines how far from the baseline the additional nodes are allowed to go. Also note that depth controls how many nodes are created between each existing nodes (It will double for each increase in value)
Posted By: MonsenYou can use fractalize with a low value for strength. This value determines how far from the baseline the additional nodes are allowed to go. Also note that depth controls how many nodes are created between each existing nodes (It will double for each increase in value)
I've had difficulty adjusting the fractalization values in the past, and now I see why. It really seems to me that those two settings should swap names. Just my 2 cents.
Maybe it just made sense that way around when it was written or something. All I know is that I'm happy to be able to slice about two hours off my work time on this map because of it :-)
@Loopysue Happy to be of assistance. Love how your map is turning out so far, looking forward to see the end result.
@Dogtag They make perfectly sense from a technical perspective, but I do see how they can be a bit confusing in "casual" use. The depth value actually represents how many times the fractalization algorithm will run on the entity, doubling the nodes at each pass.
@Monsen - LOL! Yeah, it still doesn't make much sense to me from a technical perspective. I chalk that up to the same CAD developer language deficiency that misspelled "Category" as "Layer." While I can see the word, "strength," applied for either parameter, "depth" is another story. Much better names, in that case, are words like "density," "intervals," or even "passes." Honestly, I can't complain too much; it's the general inability of developers to communicate that ensures a continued supply of tech writing projects. And, in any event, now I know. Thanks.
Not that i post much but kept following this WIP and it´s really amazing. Not just the amount of hours you Sue are doing, but also the detail. A city worked as it was a battle map, both using many symbols (by the way, those ships are AMAZING!) and also many effects to make a quasi photographic image.
Congratulations and keep doing this fantastic job on the city.
I don't think this map really knows its supposed to be a city, and not a dungeon map (but I won't tell it if you don't;) ). It is a bit of a hybrid isn't it!
Those very excellent ships were donated by Jo (from his Alycrau map), when he saw how I was struggling! LOL He's much better at actually drawing things than I could ever hope to be
I LOVE how this map is going! You are working wonders here, Sue! I am definitely going to have to restart my Cathoulla City map, and I may borrow a few of your ideas!!!
I do have a few thoughts, and suggestions if you can stand to hear them;-).
First, I absolutely love that frame! I looks simply elegant! I am a tad concerned, however that the inside matte color is a bit too close to the color of your ocean. It's probably my eyes, but one sort of blends I to the other a bit.
May I ask what kind of fill you are using for your main roads? My phone is too small to see the details...but if it's a main road, might it be slightly different from the secondaries? I'm assuming the secondaries are more like dirt trails and paths where feet (cart wheels) have worn away the vegetation?
Of course these are suggestions only. This map is already Stunning! Waiting with baited breath to see what else you do with it!
Thank you for the compliments, but I'm not sure this is really the ideal map to base yours on. I've created many an unnecessary headache for myself by trying to do things too perfectly, if you know what I mean - so much detail and so many effects. I am close to 100 sheets with this one.
The frame is one of the wooden floor textures from the Dundjinni collection - it has a vertical and horizontal version, which is ideal because I didn't really want to have a stripy frame either on the sides or top and bottom. The only thing I had to do was make the scale just right that a single plank filled the width of the frame. I then drained it of colour and darkened it to give it a stained and varnished feel. The background is actually that grass you like to use as a background for your maps. I've been after that texture for a while (as you know), since the first thing I thought when I saw it was "velvet". Same treatment - drained the colour and darkened it to match the frame.
I haven't really thought about ensuring too much of a contrast with the map. I was hoping that the inner black glow on the velvet would make it seem that the map was glued to the velvet, with a slight 'shadow' all the way around the edge. I may adjust the contrast a bit towards the end, or I may deepen the inner glow on the velvet to make it more noticeable.
The main roads are Bogie's sand, adjusted to a lighter tone to make it look like compacted rubble - the sort of primitive track road I want to have, even on the main routes. There aren't any wheeled vehicles or horses on Merelan (the 'roads' are just too steep for wheeled vehicles). You can ride a beshwa around (that's a kind of very large domesticated lion), or you can walk. I was going to have inclines, but their straight lines ruined the appearance of the map, so I took them out again and put my zig-zag roads back in.
Pale dusty stony roads are the norm for un-metalled paths and tracks in limestone country, where the soil is very thin and often quite sickly pale. I don't know about how they look in the US, but here in the UK, where there are about a hundred times as many people per square km, the so called "wilderness" places like the Pennines suffer terribly from erosion caused by the sheer number of walkers wearing paths through the grass and the soil right to the rock. Those paths look exactly like the paths and tracks I will shortly be putting back in on the MC map.
As you know I run a parallel thread on Cartographer's Guild. The images there are twice the size. You might get a better idea from them, except that your phone might have a bit of a fit if you tried to download them!
I could do a crude breakdown of the sheet structure and the effects used at the end of it all, if that would help?
The only thing is that it would probably be quite boring to read, since there are about 100 sheets in this file and about 200 effects scattered around between them.
Maybe it would be better divided into four or five sections.
Or maybe if someone could make a list of questions I could answer?
The trouble is, you see, that my mind works in a rather peculiar way. There aren't any boundaries anywhere, so I think of everything in the map as one thing - one image, and don't really think about separate parts of it at all. A set of questions would be a good way of getting what you want from me, because that would give me a structure, where there currently is none.
The main roads around the island have been refined and blended a little more with the landscape. 2 districts are now complete, with a third on the way. The Temple of Rusaar grounds have been defined by a wall, and the position of the temple decided. Rambling footpaths have been returned to Isk Point and the thatched housing completed in that area
An experiment with the font isn't quite working in this version.
Sorry to be brief - its 1.20 pm and I'm really tired...
The text is already white with a black outline, and readable enough in the original exported jpg, but in the 1/4 sized image above and with the text a tad on the small size to cope with such reduction, it just isn't working.
I don't like the black outline to be too hard and distracting, or for the text to cover too much of the map, but I think I've probably gone to the other extreme - too small and not enough black glow
It also doesn't help that I've gone from a nice clear Arial, to a rather fine and extremely delicate Tolkien. I really should know better about fancy fonts and small text!
Version 29 (apologies for the delay. I had a system problem through yesterday, so the work here represents only a few hours on last time)
Something was missing... I forgot the trees!!!
Here they are - at least in the top portion of the city. Building work has crept along and up the slopes from Cherrin and Jamne Head, and some of the cave dwellings in the more vertical parts of the cliff have been marked by mysteriously disappearing footpaths The top of the island that isn't covered with buildings and trees on that side will be tumuli tombs, field systems, and a cemetery/pyre arrangement. Yet to decide what style to use for that, and I would have just bashed on with it today, only I have an appointment to attend in an hour...
Thanks Storm It has taken a while to get off the ground, and I'm not entirely happy with the multicolour trees. I think I may swap them out for green ones, but I'll see if they grown on me...
I the words on the frame are supposed to be engraved in the wood. I think they may need a bit more inverted bevel
Comments
Well that isn't going to be any fun, now is it? I quite enjoy it when you get one of your ideas and inadvertently boot me off on a voyage through the unknowable; collecting all the additional details to go with it LOL!!!
What the devil am I going to do now for inspiration!
But all this map really is, is a pretty big mound of sheets and effects - quite literally!
Thanks for the compliment, hun
Well, I drew the funiculars, but they just looked dead wrong - too straight. I took them out again, then got distracted for a couple of hours by the frame. I then returned to the problem of having sufficient transport routes around a very steep little island and took another couple of hours to lay in a set of "main roads". The Blucran Sayers would have ordered the building of these wide and smoothly curving roads - not having an appreciation of the most efficient ways around the island like the Merles do.
The original paths that I got rid of are set for a comeback - I don't want any more of these nasty modern looking smooth roads than is absolutely necessary!
I've fractalized roads on overland lands... the problem comes in moving it back to where the road belongs.
I've wanted to be able to fractalize part of a road... only way I could figure it out is to draw a road bit I want to fracalize. Fractalize it. Then using the Endpoint function on the lower right of CC3/CC3+, join a smooth road to the end of the fractal road, then draw in the smooth part coming from there. Do that on both ends of the fractal road bit. So the road is smooth and fractal.
Is there any way you can fractalize something and the line not jump about? In other words, a way of doubling the number of points on a line so that you can do the adjustments yourself by hand?
Try this:
- Click Insert Node
.
- Click the road, river, or whatever at the point you want to add the node.
- Move the new node where you want it, and then right-click to complete.
- Left-click the mouse to repeat the last command.
- Repeat.
I think that's the sort of thing you're after.CC3 displays the entity in "edit mode" and displays the node "frames."
CC3 redraws the entity with the new node and re-hides the frames (unless you were showing them to start with, I think).
Incidentally, this is a quick and easy way to fix dungeon walls.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
The truth is that adding nodes by hand was my last ditch option, since it took me long enough just to decide where these ugly great things would best be placed to create a viable main route around the island. I was kind of just hoping that someone could say "This is the setup you need with fractalize...", and then I could add all the intermediate nodes in one click without the line jumping all over the place in the process, then adjust only the ones that needed adjusting.
I need 2-3 x more nodes, even in sections that are fine where they are, in case I decide to go back to straight lines. I need to stabilise the approximate position of the road with them.
I know - fractalize is meant to make the line jump about, but I was just hoping...
I'm also considering tracing them again by hand with the hand drawing tool, which would be faster than adding all those extra nodes one by one. That way, however, I will need to reduce the number of nodes if I want to shift just a small section a tiny bit.
Don't worry - I'll do it. I'm just getting rather a lot more lazy in my old age
Thank you!!!
:-)
Thanks... *blush*
Happy to be of assistance.
Love how your map is turning out so far, looking forward to see the end result.
@Dogtag
They make perfectly sense from a technical perspective, but I do see how they can be a bit confusing in "casual" use. The depth value actually represents how many times the fractalization algorithm will run on the entity, doubling the nodes at each pass.
Congratulations and keep doing this fantastic job on the city.
I don't think this map really knows its supposed to be a city, and not a dungeon map (but I won't tell it if you don't;) ). It is a bit of a hybrid isn't it!
Those very excellent ships were donated by Jo (from his Alycrau map), when he saw how I was struggling! LOL He's much better at actually drawing things than I could ever hope to be
I do have a few thoughts, and suggestions if you can stand to hear them;-).
First, I absolutely love that frame! I looks simply elegant! I am a tad concerned, however that the inside matte color is a bit too close to the color of your ocean. It's probably my eyes, but one sort of blends I to the other a bit.
May I ask what kind of fill you are using for your main roads? My phone is too small to see the details...but if it's a main road, might it be slightly different from the secondaries? I'm assuming the secondaries are more like dirt trails and paths where feet (cart wheels) have worn away the vegetation?
Of course these are suggestions only. This map is already Stunning! Waiting with baited breath to see what else you do with it!
Thank you for the compliments, but I'm not sure this is really the ideal map to base yours on. I've created many an unnecessary headache for myself by trying to do things too perfectly, if you know what I mean - so much detail and so many effects. I am close to 100 sheets with this one.
The frame is one of the wooden floor textures from the Dundjinni collection - it has a vertical and horizontal version, which is ideal because I didn't really want to have a stripy frame either on the sides or top and bottom. The only thing I had to do was make the scale just right that a single plank filled the width of the frame. I then drained it of colour and darkened it to give it a stained and varnished feel. The background is actually that grass you like to use as a background for your maps. I've been after that texture for a while (as you know), since the first thing I thought when I saw it was "velvet". Same treatment - drained the colour and darkened it to match the frame.
I haven't really thought about ensuring too much of a contrast with the map. I was hoping that the inner black glow on the velvet would make it seem that the map was glued to the velvet, with a slight 'shadow' all the way around the edge. I may adjust the contrast a bit towards the end, or I may deepen the inner glow on the velvet to make it more noticeable.
The main roads are Bogie's sand, adjusted to a lighter tone to make it look like compacted rubble - the sort of primitive track road I want to have, even on the main routes. There aren't any wheeled vehicles or horses on Merelan (the 'roads' are just too steep for wheeled vehicles). You can ride a beshwa around (that's a kind of very large domesticated lion), or you can walk. I was going to have inclines, but their straight lines ruined the appearance of the map, so I took them out again and put my zig-zag roads back in.
Pale dusty stony roads are the norm for un-metalled paths and tracks in limestone country, where the soil is very thin and often quite sickly pale. I don't know about how they look in the US, but here in the UK, where there are about a hundred times as many people per square km, the so called "wilderness" places like the Pennines suffer terribly from erosion caused by the sheer number of walkers wearing paths through the grass and the soil right to the rock. Those paths look exactly like the paths and tracks I will shortly be putting back in on the MC map.
As you know I run a parallel thread on Cartographer's Guild. The images there are twice the size. You might get a better idea from them, except that your phone might have a bit of a fit if you tried to download them!
And I'm only thinking of borrowing one or two of your ideas...in tandem with symbols I'm just now finding!
Holy cow, what a beautiful map! Maybe you can write a mapping style guide kind of how they do that with the annuals
Keep up the lovely work!
I could do a crude breakdown of the sheet structure and the effects used at the end of it all, if that would help?
The only thing is that it would probably be quite boring to read, since there are about 100 sheets in this file and about 200 effects scattered around between them.
Maybe it would be better divided into four or five sections.
Or maybe if someone could make a list of questions I could answer?
The trouble is, you see, that my mind works in a rather peculiar way. There aren't any boundaries anywhere, so I think of everything in the map as one thing - one image, and don't really think about separate parts of it at all. A set of questions would be a good way of getting what you want from me, because that would give me a structure, where there currently is none.
The main roads around the island have been refined and blended a little more with the landscape. 2 districts are now complete, with a third on the way. The Temple of Rusaar grounds have been defined by a wall, and the position of the temple decided. Rambling footpaths have been returned to Isk Point and the thatched housing completed in that area
An experiment with the font isn't quite working in this version.
Sorry to be brief - its 1.20 pm and I'm really tired...
The text is already white with a black outline, and readable enough in the original exported jpg, but in the 1/4 sized image above and with the text a tad on the small size to cope with such reduction, it just isn't working.
I don't like the black outline to be too hard and distracting, or for the text to cover too much of the map, but I think I've probably gone to the other extreme - too small and not enough black glow
It also doesn't help that I've gone from a nice clear Arial, to a rather fine and extremely delicate Tolkien. I really should know better about fancy fonts and small text!
Something was missing... I forgot the trees!!!
Here they are - at least in the top portion of the city. Building work has crept along and up the slopes from Cherrin and Jamne Head, and some of the cave dwellings in the more vertical parts of the cliff have been marked by mysteriously disappearing footpaths
My only nitpick at this point... the text on your frame... the color is too close to the frame, it's hard to read. Other than that, this is great!
I the words on the frame are supposed to be engraved in the wood. I think they may need a bit more inverted bevel