That's really strange, you know. I couldn't see any of that before you said it, but I can now you have
I'm missing the spiral as well, but in truth there's nothing I can do about the lack of time, so if it does go back in it will either be as a finishing touch, or as a sudden inspirational idea (one that solves all the problems I was having with it anyway).
There is still a bridge from the southern mesa to the north-western one, but I reduced the scale so that it fitted better with the scale of the buildings, and without the road across it you couldn't really see it - too dark. That's a problem I really am going to have to sort out, even if it means making my own bridge rather than using one of Bogie's.
I reduced the extent and depth of the shading around the mesa's to try and improve the appearance of the monastery rock, but it hasn't worked and its also probably not helping with the depth of field perception. Monastery rock is not an essential addition, so it may well disappear in the interest of putting things back to the way they were (with the exception of the spiral)
I'm sort of in that dithering stage I sometimes get right in the middle of doing a map, which is not a bad thing. If nothing else it means I am actually half way done - perfect timing for the Challenge
Posted By: LoopysueThat's really strange, you know. I couldn't see any of that before you said it, but I can now you have
I have the same problem looking at photos of the Moon and other Solar System planets with craters; sometimes it's as if the craters are actually bulging up from the image. If I concentrate, I can force them down again, but they often click back the "wrong" way afterwards, when I look again.
EDIT: Just so you don't have to ask why - I'm sinking this thread because I've withdrawn from the challenge.
Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement and wisdom. It was very much appreciated, and will be stored away in my mind ready for other maps in the future.
Posted By: LoopysueThat's really strange, you know. I couldn't see any of that before you said it, but I can now you have
I have the same problem looking at photos of the Moon and other Solar System planets with craters; sometimes it's as if the craters are actually bulgingupfrom the image. If I concentrate, I can force themdownagain, but they often click back the "wrong" way afterwards, when I look again.
Thats because your eye/brain expect the shadow to be in a certain direction for depressions and another direction for surface bulges. Thats why such photos do that.
Light from the north west - yes, I know It can be reversed though, if you have enough detail indicating slope direction, like rivers and such - obvious tree lines. Depends on perception. Merelan City is also the 'wrong way up' - lit from the south east
That's one of the unfortunate things about CC3+. That's default lighting in CC3+. But ask yourself how many places there are in the northern hemisphere that have sunlight from the southeast at any time but shortly after dawn, a time that usually isn't particularly relevant to mapped situations in either fantasy RPG adventures or fantasy novels. Fortunately, one can change that setting, but one does have to do it over again with each new map.
Its along time ago now, but I think I remember deliberately lighting Merelan City from the South East because that's the only way it can be lit - there being an area of permanent eclipse only about 5-700 miles north of the city. I don't think that's the default setting. I can't remember now. I usually set the lighting by hand anyway whenever I start a new map - according to taste and requirements. This one was almost directly overhead, because that's how the light would be falling down through the drain. The fact that there's a slight angle to it is only so that the rooftops have a bit more shape and form, with one side lit brighter than the other.
I wasn't referring to Merelan City or any other specific map by anyone. The default global sun setting used to be 310°, which always produced southeast sunlight. However, since my posting I received an E-Mail saying that has been changed to 135°, which produces very credible late afternoon Northern Hemisphere from the northwest. I just did a quick check, and that seems to be the case, so my remark is obsolete at best. (In CC3, as opposed to CC3+, it's still 310°.)
Note that this setting is just a template default, and not a program default, so any user can easily update the templates to have a sun direction fitting the location where his campaign take place, and different map styles can also have their own direction if so is desired.
Appropriate direction depends on time of year as well. I just looked up the sun movement for my howetown on this day, and it basically travels from South-east to South-west, the direction only hits the northern part after it has passed below the horizon, so for me, the natural direction is really between 210 and 310. (Based on my location, current time of year)
Was a bit busy with reality for a while - didn't get around to answering.
Although this is absolutely true of most places in the northern hemisphere, it's also a completely weird little curiosity that our brains have a tendency to interpret relief shading more accurately if the sun lies in the north west. The favoured theory is that this relates to the way we are used to thinking about a picture on a wall, where the light would be more natural from 'above' rather than 'below'.
@Mark - I used Merelan City as an example because I deliberately and quite specifically created the relief shading the wrong way up, because it would have been a blatant lie to do it the normal way. If it had been any other map I would have used the more conventional 'lit from the north west' approach, just so people's minds didn't have a tendency to turn the shading inside out and form craters where there are in fact hills
Although I removed this map from the Challenge over at the Guild for personal reasons, the work continues.
Here is the most recent WIP, showing new improved textures, and the debut appearance of a small collection of some of my new Vue-rendered trees
The new textures were an attempt to stop the relief flipping from hill to hollow and back again on the stonework, but it can still happen if you aren't concentrating! LOL Its an improvement on the old textures I think.
Unfortunately this has rather flattened the texture overall, so I will now need to find a way to 'roll' the edges of the mesa. I've tried a glow, but that causes too much interference with the lights and other effects I have going on with the three various relief sheets, so I have my thinking cap on again...
Lighting continues to fluctuate between settings as I really can't seem to make up my mind about how much there should be, and how pale/dark the grid should appear against it... or even if there should be a grid at all.
Mesa 'roll-top' added. lowland area shaded to improve 'mesa pop'. Lighting improved to compensate for overall darkening of image.
[Image_6866]
Interesting negative transparency acne effect around the Bitmap B thatched cottages on the lower level. Not a serious problem. In fact, I quite like it
This looks nice but, personally, FWIW, I liked the other texture and, by far, the other bevel. I do not see a "mesa" in this image. It looks more like dark terrain along a border, to me. Or even, the more I look at it, thanks I think to the uniform dark outline around the area, I see a crater now where I never saw one in the first image.
Also, the spiral road looks nice but it looks "modern" in that it appears to be suspended somehow, or supported by unseen pillars underneath; it does not appear to be built atop natural stone.
Don't get me wrong, it still looks VERY good. I just think your previous version was better. Just my two cents.
Out of curiosity, since the trees can't be trees as we know them, what are they, really?
Oh. You didn't have a problem with the relief popping in and out with the other texture, then?
I did, and I think Wyvern had it as well. One moment its rounded mounds, then next its sharp little mini ridges, then back again.
However, nothing is ever set in concrete with any of my maps, so I might return to the former texture, or perhaps one in between.
I've had a problem with that spiral since the moment I first thought of it. Needs more work.
Though I have used my own standard trees to represent it in this case, they are actually pretending to be something like lichen, which is a symbiotic twinning of algae and fungus in one organism. Orange, white, red and black versions grow on all the rooftops around here. Down in the dark the emphasis would be on the fungal side of the partnership, but right here where there is light coming down through the grille the lichen trees grow faster than ordinary fungus
I'm thinking of doing away with the grille altogether - make the map clearer - maybe have it lifted off and just the edge of it showing slightly diagonal across a slither of one corner. What do you think?
I agree with Dogtag on the texture, I preferred the first one. This seems a bit muted and flat, to me. The galvanized grid/grille in not my favorite, either. I really like the first one you had. The addition of the trees is lovely - (you know i can't wait to get my hands on them!! lol) And i really DO love the darker water coloring!!
Firstly, glad to see this topic is "rising" again after its brief period of "sinking", especially as I was feeling a bit guilty about having helped cause its premature downward slide...
Secondly, losing the grille? Ooh, yes please! It's becoming a real distraction, and is hiding bits of the underground I'd like to see - especially that hill the spiral is now set upon. I think the original grille texture worked better, but would probably now be too dark, as the subterranean look has darkened as well.
The trees certainly looked like lichen to me even before I read your post about them Sue; really nice.
I'm not sure it was the original texture causing the "up? or down?" problems for me, since - looking back through all the previous versions before today's - I still see the northern limb of the main mesa plateau as "up", the southern as "down", which I think is a reaction to the level, and maybe also the direction, of the shading beyond the edge of the mesa. The new bevel edge and edge glow certainly helps makes the new top pop out, though.
I like the idea of the spiral road going down a steep hill beside the main mesa platform, but the hill doesn't seem really steep enough to need this yet. Maybe the bridge from the plateau top needs adjusting to span the gap where the hill and plateau are closest to one another as well, which I think would be the square corner almost due north of the hill's centre, nearly where the original road and spiral sprang from the plateau. Either that or adjust the plateau shading so the present bridging point looks lower than the rest of the top of the plateau, and thus closer to the hilltop in height. (Perhaps just shadowing the road there, as if it was passing through a cutting towards the plateau edge, would work.)
First of all I had a catastrophic loss of self confidence (thankfully only temporary) that wasn't related to anything that happened here, so please don't ever think it was your fault
As for the rest... I'm still trying to work out all the detailed directions and things, but when I do I will see what needs to be adjusted. Relief shading is pretty difficult from above, never mind if the light is also from above. I've really got my work cut out with this one!
I find it really quite interesting that what works for one person doesn't actually work all that well for others, in terms of things popping or not. I've yet to really comprehend why that is. To you and I, it seems, the mesa is now taller than the lowland, but to Dogtag and Lorelei it looks worse than before. How very curious. I do hope I'm not in the middle of creating one of those mind-bending impossible illusions where up becomes down depending on where you look and for how long you stare at it!
Thank you - all of you - for coming back to look at it again
Posted By: LoopysueFirst of all I had a catastrophic loss of self confidence (thankfully only temporary) that wasn't related to anything that happened here...
Sadly, this seems to go with the "creative" territory generally (if far from exclusively), and is not unique to yourself, Sue... Just have to hang-in there when it strikes, and ride it out as best you can. This is a pleasantly supportive place from what I've seen, at least.
Posted By: LoopysueI do hope I'm not in the middle of creating one of those mind-bending impossible illusions where up becomes down depending on where you look and for how long you stare at it!
i have several books, and a biography, about him. great drawings. He was a lithographer. His series where fish, over several changes, became birds, were all mathematics to him, from his biography.
Posted By: LoopysueEscher? Oh you mean like the House of Stairs?
Oh yes! Long time Escher fan, since I first discovered his astonishing drawings as a youngster (he was still alive then, though I didn't know it at the time; he died in 1972). Thankfully, there are many sites about him and his work on the Internet now, so it's very easy to explore as much as you wish about both the man and his artwork. And it's worth noting not all his work was quite so mind-bending; but it was always very precise
My Maths teacher used to have a lot of them on the walls in the form room (he was also my form teacher). I do like Escher, but it gets a bit much if every wall space between a window is covered in an equally large Escher poster! In the end I had to sit with my back to the window wall!
Maybe all this early exposure to Escher's work is what's causing the difference between the way you and I perceive the relative depths in my map, and the way Dogtag and Lorelei perceive them?
If that's what's happening here, then maybe I need to 'de-Escher' myself, so that I can draw maps that the majority of non-Escher'd people can understand!
I wonder if it would be possible to test that theory... (that's the scientific part of my brain kicking in - that strange little pea-sized nodule rattling around somewhere in the middle of all the arty waffle-foam)
Posted By: LoopysueMaybe all this early exposure to Escher's work is what's causing the difference between the way you and I perceive the relative depths in my map, and the way Dogtag and Lorelei perceive them?
If that's what's happening here, then maybe I need to 'de-Escher' myself, so that I can draw maps that the majority of non-Escher'd people can understand!
I wonder if it would be possible to test that theory...
I don't think it's the only factor by any means, as I've had the "is it a crater? is it a dome?" discussion with quite a number of people poring over photos of the planets down the years, and I doubt they all had comparable exposure to Escher's works
Just one of those things in the way the human eye-brain perceives and interprets what's seen, I'd say. After all, we know Escher's drawings are on flat pieces of paper, but we still think we're seeing 3D objects on them (we'll be back on isometric drawing again in a minute if we're not careful...)
In terms of who sees what and why on a computer screen, that's an underexplored topic at present, scarcely surprising, given the array of different screen types now available and how fast they've changed in only a few years. However, it may be the most plausible explanation for some such apparent discrepancies.
Hmmmn... the less said about Isometric the better! LOL! After all - I'm the one who thought it was just a matter of turning a square grid on its corner :P
Ok. This is where we're at in terms of the whole picture right now:
[Image_6868]
And this is an extract of the full resolution image that I would have been uploading over at the Guild, from which you can see I have a few major problems still to sort out with that troublesome spiral (right now it looks like someone spilt some ink on the rock and the spiral is just floating in space above it:
Comments
I'm missing the spiral as well, but in truth there's nothing I can do about the lack of time, so if it does go back in it will either be as a finishing touch, or as a sudden inspirational idea (one that solves all the problems I was having with it anyway).
There is still a bridge from the southern mesa to the north-western one, but I reduced the scale so that it fitted better with the scale of the buildings, and without the road across it you couldn't really see it - too dark. That's a problem I really am going to have to sort out, even if it means making my own bridge rather than using one of Bogie's.
I reduced the extent and depth of the shading around the mesa's to try and improve the appearance of the monastery rock, but it hasn't worked and its also probably not helping with the depth of field perception. Monastery rock is not an essential addition, so it may well disappear in the interest of putting things back to the way they were (with the exception of the spiral)
I'm sort of in that dithering stage I sometimes get right in the middle of doing a map, which is not a bad thing. If nothing else it means I am actually half way done - perfect timing for the Challenge
EDIT: Just so you don't have to ask why - I'm sinking this thread because I've withdrawn from the challenge.
Thank you all for your support and words of encouragement and wisdom. It was very much appreciated, and will be stored away in my mind ready for other maps in the future.
Thank you.
Appropriate direction depends on time of year as well. I just looked up the sun movement for my howetown on this day, and it basically travels from South-east to South-west, the direction only hits the northern part after it has passed below the horizon, so for me, the natural direction is really between 210 and 310. (Based on my location, current time of year)
Was a bit busy with reality for a while - didn't get around to answering.
Although this is absolutely true of most places in the northern hemisphere, it's also a completely weird little curiosity that our brains have a tendency to interpret relief shading more accurately if the sun lies in the north west. The favoured theory is that this relates to the way we are used to thinking about a picture on a wall, where the light would be more natural from 'above' rather than 'below'.
@Mark - I used Merelan City as an example because I deliberately and quite specifically created the relief shading the wrong way up, because it would have been a blatant lie to do it the normal way. If it had been any other map I would have used the more conventional 'lit from the north west' approach, just so people's minds didn't have a tendency to turn the shading inside out and form craters where there are in fact hills
Here is the most recent WIP, showing new improved textures, and the debut appearance of a small collection of some of my new Vue-rendered trees
The new textures were an attempt to stop the relief flipping from hill to hollow and back again on the stonework, but it can still happen if you aren't concentrating! LOL Its an improvement on the old textures I think.
Unfortunately this has rather flattened the texture overall, so I will now need to find a way to 'roll' the edges of the mesa. I've tried a glow, but that causes too much interference with the lights and other effects I have going on with the three various relief sheets, so I have my thinking cap on again...
Lighting continues to fluctuate between settings as I really can't seem to make up my mind about how much there should be, and how pale/dark the grid should appear against it... or even if there should be a grid at all.
C&C welcome
[Image_6866]
Interesting negative transparency acne effect around the Bitmap B thatched cottages on the lower level. Not a serious problem. In fact, I quite like it
Also, the spiral road looks nice but it looks "modern" in that it appears to be suspended somehow, or supported by unseen pillars underneath; it does not appear to be built atop natural stone.
Don't get me wrong, it still looks VERY good. I just think your previous version was better. Just my two cents.
Out of curiosity, since the trees can't be trees as we know them, what are they, really?
Great work!
~Dogtag
I did, and I think Wyvern had it as well. One moment its rounded mounds, then next its sharp little mini ridges, then back again.
However, nothing is ever set in concrete with any of my maps, so I might return to the former texture, or perhaps one in between.
I've had a problem with that spiral since the moment I first thought of it. Needs more work.
Though I have used my own standard trees to represent it in this case, they are actually pretending to be something like lichen, which is a symbiotic twinning of algae and fungus in one organism. Orange, white, red and black versions grow on all the rooftops around here. Down in the dark the emphasis would be on the fungal side of the partnership, but right here where there is light coming down through the grille the lichen trees grow faster than ordinary fungus
I'm thinking of doing away with the grille altogether - make the map clearer - maybe have it lifted off and just the edge of it showing slightly diagonal across a slither of one corner. What do you think?
Cannot wait to see this one completed!!!
I guess by popular opinion I need to reconsider my texture decision
And don't worry, the water is about the most stable feature of this map right at the moment.
Secondly, losing the grille? Ooh, yes please! It's becoming a real distraction, and is hiding bits of the underground I'd like to see - especially that hill the spiral is now set upon. I think the original grille texture worked better, but would probably now be too dark, as the subterranean look has darkened as well.
The trees certainly looked like lichen to me even before I read your post about them Sue; really nice.
I'm not sure it was the original texture causing the "up? or down?" problems for me, since - looking back through all the previous versions before today's - I still see the northern limb of the main mesa plateau as "up", the southern as "down", which I think is a reaction to the level, and maybe also the direction, of the shading beyond the edge of the mesa. The new bevel edge and edge glow certainly helps makes the new top pop out, though.
I like the idea of the spiral road going down a steep hill beside the main mesa platform, but the hill doesn't seem really steep enough to need this yet. Maybe the bridge from the plateau top needs adjusting to span the gap where the hill and plateau are closest to one another as well, which I think would be the square corner almost due north of the hill's centre, nearly where the original road and spiral sprang from the plateau. Either that or adjust the plateau shading so the present bridging point looks lower than the rest of the top of the plateau, and thus closer to the hilltop in height. (Perhaps just shadowing the road there, as if it was passing through a cutting towards the plateau edge, would work.)
First of all I had a catastrophic loss of self confidence (thankfully only temporary) that wasn't related to anything that happened here, so please don't ever think it was your fault
As for the rest... I'm still trying to work out all the detailed directions and things, but when I do I will see what needs to be adjusted. Relief shading is pretty difficult from above, never mind if the light is also from above. I've really got my work cut out with this one!
I find it really quite interesting that what works for one person doesn't actually work all that well for others, in terms of things popping or not. I've yet to really comprehend why that is. To you and I, it seems, the mesa is now taller than the lowland, but to Dogtag and Lorelei it looks worse than before. How very curious. I do hope I'm not in the middle of creating one of those mind-bending impossible illusions where up becomes down depending on where you look and for how long you stare at it!
Thank you - all of you - for coming back to look at it again
Escher? Oh you mean like the House of Stairs?
It's one of my favourites, but it really makes me feel queasy after about 30 seconds... then I have to have another quick peek at it! LOL!
Maybe all this early exposure to Escher's work is what's causing the difference between the way you and I perceive the relative depths in my map, and the way Dogtag and Lorelei perceive them?
If that's what's happening here, then maybe I need to 'de-Escher' myself, so that I can draw maps that the majority of non-Escher'd people can understand!
I wonder if it would be possible to test that theory... (that's the scientific part of my brain kicking in - that strange little pea-sized nodule rattling around somewhere in the middle of all the arty waffle-foam)
Just one of those things in the way the human eye-brain perceives and interprets what's seen, I'd say. After all, we know Escher's drawings are on flat pieces of paper, but we still think we're seeing 3D objects on them (we'll be back on isometric drawing again in a minute if we're not careful...)
In terms of who sees what and why on a computer screen, that's an underexplored topic at present, scarcely surprising, given the array of different screen types now available and how fast they've changed in only a few years. However, it may be the most plausible explanation for some such apparent discrepancies.
Uploading a gridless drain in a few minutes...
[Image_6868]
And this is an extract of the full resolution image that I would have been uploading over at the Guild, from which you can see I have a few major problems still to sort out with that troublesome spiral (right now it looks like someone spilt some ink on the rock and the spiral is just floating in space above it:
No image!