Wow I went to urban dictionary to reference a word I have been (now showing my age) since the 80's. Not one entry was near the time I started using it.
LOL! Here it means a mistake that's been intentionally left in the published article (or some such), but I already knew you didn't mean it that way, because it just isn't 'you'
Please don't worry about it. I've had many hilarious conversations with lots of different Americans where words have diverged in meaning across the Atlantic and now sometimes seem to mean the opposite - depending on which side of the pond you grew up. I've become quite used to saying something perfectly innocent, and causing unintentional shock and horror, then having to work out what I said that was wrong by looking things up. Coupled with that - autocorrect and my own dyslexia have a tendency to add to the fun
Well, it could also be they don't read many books. I've read thoousands of books from the 19th and 20th century, mostly 20th, and I know howe lots of words are used on both sides of the Atlantic... but I do make mistakes. In the past 10 years I shock people when they find out I read, and its not homework. But then, I read for the pure joy of it.
Whatever the reason, it can often be quite amusing when two people are speaking to each other and they clearly haven't realised that there's been a basic misunderstanding very early on that's skewed the whole conversation into weird land.
Wow. I sped through my response and didn't realize I had misspelled so many words... oh well.
I have had online conversations, back around the mid-1990s, and we realized something was wrong but couldn't figure out what.
Someopne else pointed out I was using Webster's 3rd definition of a particular word, and the other person was using the 4th or 5th definition of that same word. I got my hard cover dictionary and realized, ooops. That wasn't what I meant. We resolved it.
I've put most of them in place, so I only have the tents and a bit of tidying up to do before I'm done... or so I thought before I finished rendering the map, and saw how the trees had turned into brightly coloured blobs!
[Image_7027]
Not sure whether to spend ages trying to sort this out, or move on.
There are very few differences here, except that I have placed a scale bar and a compass from the old CC3 symbol set, and adjusted the position of the title to accommodate them.
I also found a quick way to get rid of the worst of the bright red and bright yellow trees, which involved replacing them via the symbol manager. I'm not completely satisfied with the end result, but I need to let them be while I sort out the last element to be added - the tents.
The reason I haven't bothered to show the entire map is because the last 4 days have been spent attempting to make the buildings more clear. One of my Guild friends said the only thing they didn't like was the fact that the houses were so spotty. The reason they are spotty in the MC map, of course, is because they are very high resolution symbols which have been shrunken away to practically nothing.
I experimented with all kinds of combinations of sheet effects to try and blur the black bits into the general grey-green-ness of the gothic houses, but nothing worked. So in the end I resorted to copying the entire symbol set into my Symbols/User folder and modifying them to create my own personal de-spotified gothic houses collection especially just for this map.
I've replaced about half of them on this extract.
[Image_7065]
Please feel free to tell me what you think. Are they better, worse, or what?
(I haven't given you a link to the Guild image this time, because the only thing that has changed is as I have just described, and this extract is exactly the same scale as I would normally upload the entire map on the Guild webpage.)
I wouldn't replace them all. Back in the days they did not have universal product distribution. They are hand made so house to house they could look different.
The city I am working on has no houses with similar roofs in an area. Due to the largeness of the city people want distinct differences of their houses so people can find them.
Actually I think you may have a good point there, even though it was just a coincidence that I stopped half way through for a breather.
I'm thinking of creating a half smooth version that's somewhere between the two to mix with the spotty ones, just to clear up a bit more of the spottiness, and may even generate very tiny variations of tone and colour
If I have time (or suddenly feel a strong inclination to do it) I might see if I can mimic the growth of that orange lichen you get on rooftops on a few of them.
Here are some alternative roof textures that are to my eye half way between being a bit plastic and being too spotty. I haven't made a new symbol set with these yet because I would have to create a totally brand new collection of houses from scratch, so I thought I'd see if any of you had any preferences. I've tried to build my shaded polygon mock up of a house near to as many different coloured trees as I can for comparison, so the house itself is in the top right corner. There are also houses from the blurred set I made from the Gothic collection, and the corner of one of the original deeply spotty Gothic houses just poking into the picture above the model.
I like all of them, of course, because I made the textures, but that is just so biased!
Doing the tents has taught me quite a lot - like don't have an outline around any of the vector parts - not even a hairline outline, since that alters the overall size of the bitmap... and its easier (for me, and using my particular method) to manufacture the masks and the maps directly from the vector masters (on the left in this screen shot), and to combine them later to make transparent PNG files in Photopaint, just before creating the symbol set.
Its been slow going, but it always is with the first one. Now I only have another 38 (?) to go, I think
I have to admit that they are rather more basic than I would like them to be, but I really don't have the time (or patience) to turn out something as meticulously detailed as the Gothic set. I just want them to look believable.
I'm not going for the hip roof design (a sloping roof on all sides) because they are actually really difficult to fit together in a densely laid out area like Cherrin, so most of them will be gable ended. I do, however, have a few ideas about chimneys and gable ends that stick up outside the roof structure - as if the roof is a sloping shelf suspended between the two gable ends. There is also much more space for dormer windows in a gable end design, so you can expect to see quite a few of them when I really get going. Ever seen a bow dormer?
Because the city is now so close to completion all the full sized maps I upload from now on will be watermarked. I hope, however, to devise a way of doing this something similar to the way Shutterstock , or 123rf, do it, so that you can still enjoy them while I will get a chance to publish the book before anyone steals the map to use it for purposes other than the intended one.
No more spotty houses, thanks to Remy's quick fix for the resolution hitch with the CD3 symbols in CC3+ (the FFIX command sorted everything out really nicely)
I will be uploading a higher res version at the Guild in the next couple of days sometime, and will add a hyperlink here when its done.
I'd like to thank you all for all your continued assistance during the development of this map, and I know this goes without saying, really, but I would greatly appreciate being asked for permission if anyone should decide to share this map in any way - either this one, or the higher res one at the Guild.
Really, you mean finished, as in.. the end ?!! Well, congratulation for this wonderful map. I really like the final result, but I also appreciated looking at all the steps you've gone through to reach this completion! I can't wait for the high-res version! If I dare, I would make a small suggestion (I'm ashamed to tell it now on a map labelled as finished...): The tiles on the roof of the main temple really look huge, the size of a house each... But maybe it's on purpose?
What are you going to do now that this map is done? Start a new one, or maybe go back to writing your books? Or maybe just rest a little bit, while reading all the praises I'm sure this map will bring
And don't be ashamed of the critique. I was so absorbed with trying to sort out the spotty houses that I quite forgot to check the temple! The tiles you see are a result of a spotty texture that I may have to replace. If I do, then I will upload an updated finished map
As for what now?
I'm not entirely sure. I have another map still in the making - my Urrowan Palace map, but there is also the writing.
I must admit to feeling a bit lost as for something to be focussing on now that MC is done! LOL!
A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Sue, I am so proud of you for this map,on so many levels! It is just stunning and gives the viewer not only a sense of the world you are creating for us, your future readers, but also your talent as an artist and your mastery of ProFantasy's CC3+ and add-on programs! And only using CC3+ and symbols and fills YOU'VE created and OWN....well...as Dogtag would say....Lorelei doff's cap
You flatter me enormously! As for mastery of CC3+? I really only know about the swathe of CC3+ I've cut through to be able to do this map. I really haven't a clue about anything I haven't already tried and used. There's just so much more to discover
I'm toying with the idea of finishing the new building sets I started before the FFIX solution to the spotty houses... and I'm also just rendering the map out again with a better looking temple
I kind of like the roof of the main temple. Could easily imagine that they are huge sheets of decorative bronze that catch the sun and really make the temple stand out to ships that approach the harbour!
See Loopysue the map is defining parts of it's own story! That is a great sign.
Congratulations, Loopysue! This is a masterwork map and a true work of art. I think anything I write in an online forum post would be insufficient to express how impressed I am and how breathtaking I find your map, so I'll fall back to something simpler that I hope will somehow suffice.
Comments
Not one entry was near the time I started using it.
For us it meant wicked-awesome.
Please don't worry about it. I've had many hilarious conversations with lots of different Americans where words have diverged in meaning across the Atlantic and now sometimes seem to mean the opposite - depending on which side of the pond you grew up. I've become quite used to saying something perfectly innocent, and causing unintentional shock and horror, then having to work out what I said that was wrong by looking things up. Coupled with that - autocorrect and my own dyslexia have a tendency to add to the fun
I have had online conversations, back around the mid-1990s, and we realized something was wrong but couldn't figure out what.
Someopne else pointed out I was using Webster's 3rd definition of a particular word, and the other person was using the 4th or 5th definition of that same word. I got my hard cover dictionary and realized, ooops. That wasn't what I meant. We resolved it.
I've put most of them in place, so I only have the tents and a bit of tidying up to do before I'm done... or so I thought before I finished rendering the map, and saw how the trees had turned into brightly coloured blobs!
[Image_7027]
Not sure whether to spend ages trying to sort this out, or move on.
The larger image is here.
There are very few differences here, except that I have placed a scale bar and a compass from the old CC3 symbol set, and adjusted the position of the title to accommodate them.
I also found a quick way to get rid of the worst of the bright red and bright yellow trees, which involved replacing them via the symbol manager. I'm not completely satisfied with the end result, but I need to let them be while I sort out the last element to be added - the tents.
[Image_7028]
The larger image is here.
Thank you cobra mustang
The reason I haven't bothered to show the entire map is because the last 4 days have been spent attempting to make the buildings more clear. One of my Guild friends said the only thing they didn't like was the fact that the houses were so spotty. The reason they are spotty in the MC map, of course, is because they are very high resolution symbols which have been shrunken away to practically nothing.
I experimented with all kinds of combinations of sheet effects to try and blur the black bits into the general grey-green-ness of the gothic houses, but nothing worked. So in the end I resorted to copying the entire symbol set into my Symbols/User folder and modifying them to create my own personal de-spotified gothic houses collection especially just for this map.
I've replaced about half of them on this extract.
[Image_7065]
Please feel free to tell me what you think. Are they better, worse, or what?
(I haven't given you a link to the Guild image this time, because the only thing that has changed is as I have just described, and this extract is exactly the same scale as I would normally upload the entire map on the Guild webpage.)
The city I am working on has no houses with similar roofs in an area. Due to the largeness of the city people want distinct differences of their houses so people can find them.
I'm thinking of creating a half smooth version that's somewhere between the two to mix with the spotty ones, just to clear up a bit more of the spottiness, and may even generate very tiny variations of tone and colour
If I have time (or suddenly feel a strong inclination to do it) I might see if I can mimic the growth of that orange lichen you get on rooftops on a few of them.
Was that me who did that to you?
Sorry!
I like all of them, of course, because I made the textures, but that is just so biased!
Scallop tiles 1
[Image_7067]
Scallop tiles 2
[Image_7068]
Scallop tiles 3
[Image_7069]
More to follow...
Doing the tents has taught me quite a lot - like don't have an outline around any of the vector parts - not even a hairline outline, since that alters the overall size of the bitmap... and its easier (for me, and using my particular method) to manufacture the masks and the maps directly from the vector masters (on the left in this screen shot), and to combine them later to make transparent PNG files in Photopaint, just before creating the symbol set.
Its been slow going, but it always is with the first one. Now I only have another 38 (?) to go, I think
I have to admit that they are rather more basic than I would like them to be, but I really don't have the time (or patience) to turn out something as meticulously detailed as the Gothic set. I just want them to look believable.
I'm not going for the hip roof design (a sloping roof on all sides) because they are actually really difficult to fit together in a densely laid out area like Cherrin, so most of them will be gable ended. I do, however, have a few ideas about chimneys and gable ends that stick up outside the roof structure - as if the roof is a sloping shelf suspended between the two gable ends. There is also much more space for dormer windows in a gable end design, so you can expect to see quite a few of them when I really get going. Ever seen a bow dormer?
Because the city is now so close to completion all the full sized maps I upload from now on will be watermarked. I hope, however, to devise a way of doing this something similar to the way Shutterstock , or 123rf, do it, so that you can still enjoy them while I will get a chance to publish the book before anyone steals the map to use it for purposes other than the intended one.
Better safe than sorry, I say
I also find a great deal of inspiration from other people's maps. This place is a veritable melting pot of ideas
Its finished
No more spotty houses, thanks to Remy's quick fix for the resolution hitch with the CD3 symbols in CC3+ (the FFIX command sorted everything out really nicely)
I will be uploading a higher res version at the Guild in the next couple of days sometime, and will add a hyperlink here when its done.
I'd like to thank you all for all your continued assistance during the development of this map, and I know this goes without saying, really, but I would greatly appreciate being asked for permission if anyone should decide to share this map in any way - either this one, or the higher res one at the Guild.
Thank you
If I dare, I would make a small suggestion (I'm ashamed to tell it now on a map labelled as finished...): The tiles on the roof of the main temple really look huge, the size of a house each... But maybe it's on purpose?
What are you going to do now that this map is done? Start a new one, or maybe go back to writing your books? Or maybe just rest a little bit, while reading all the praises I'm sure this map will bring
Yes - I really do mean finished!
And don't be ashamed of the critique. I was so absorbed with trying to sort out the spotty houses that I quite forgot to check the temple! The tiles you see are a result of a spotty texture that I may have to replace. If I do, then I will upload an updated finished map
As for what now?
I'm not entirely sure. I have another map still in the making - my Urrowan Palace map, but there is also the writing.
I must admit to feeling a bit lost as for something to be focussing on now that MC is done! LOL!
You flatter me enormously! As for mastery of CC3+? I really only know about the swathe of CC3+ I've cut through to be able to do this map. I really haven't a clue about anything I haven't already tried and used. There's just so much more to discover
I'm toying with the idea of finishing the new building sets I started before the FFIX solution to the spotty houses... and I'm also just rendering the map out again with a better looking temple
Could easily imagine that they are huge sheets of decorative bronze that catch the sun and really make the temple stand out to ships that approach the harbour!
See Loopysue the map is defining parts of it's own story! That is a great sign.
I think we will have to agree to disagree on the temple. I have a better one here:
Mind you - top marks for imagination. I hadn't thought of it that way at all. I only saw the horrible miniature redundancy of the texture! LOL!
Brava!
*tosses a bouquet*
(and, of course) *doffs cap*
Cheers,
~Dogtag