Looks more like giant antlions at work there - under the east and west towers. That's worrying! They seem to have some kind of strategy going.
:P
Its actually a render issue I'm having. I got rid of it by turning the antialiasing down from 75% to just 40% - which is more than enough for most images, and it increases the depth of each pass across the map. The castle just happens to be on the dividing line between passes when the AA is set at 75%. I must remember to add a little rendering advice to the map notes for this one
Wow, lovely map. Very nice colour palette. Going to be scrutinizing over this thread, as I always having trouble to make town and city maps look pleasing to the eye (they end up more business like). I can learn a lot from this thread I think. And bookmarked that generator at the start of the thread too. A ton of smaller and larger communities still need mapping in my world.
There is nothing wrong with a business-like map. This is just my personal preference showing
The watabou generator is great for the basics, but I have found that it generates a huge number of triangular buildings, and that the rivers are just a bit too angular for my taste and tend to avoid the settlement rather a lot too much.
There is a random city generator within CC3, if you also want to try that?
You have to load a city template, and go to the City menu, picking Random city.... That brings up the first in a string of dialogues in which you can set different variables.
I think I tried it before (as a macro), cant quite find it in the city menu now that I look for it. It was nice enough, but the feel of the watabou generator for some reason "clicks"
edit: some googling done and I think the reason that I don't see it is perhaps that I haven't installed the 2017 annual into CC3+ yet. (transition and all that) Maybe I should do that first. ... Ah, separate download from CD3...install that first, had done that for CC3 but bot CC3+
I have the 2017 annual now, but I could swear it was made available to me on my registration page (and for anyone who has CD3) at about the same time the annual came out, and before I actually had that annual.
Both generators are good. And both have their drawbacks. It depends what you are looking for in a city plan
Loopysue wrote:I have the 2017 annual now, but I could swear it was made available to me on my registration page (and for anyone who has CD3) at about the same time the annual came out, and before I actually had that annual.
Both generators are good. And both have their drawbacks. It depends what you are looking for in a city plan
The Random City command is a free download for CD3 owners. It was developed by community member and Master Mapper, L. Lee Saunders before CC3+ came out, and so was the installer. So, unless you knew how to install it manually for CC3+ (or followed the instructions here), you probably didn't have it. It was updated to run with CC3+ for the June 2017 issue of the Cartographer's Annual. The updated installer was also made available to CD3 owners that month, so that's why you probably associate it with the annual, Loopysue.
While discussing the Random City command, Silverdrop mentioned:I think I tried it before (as a macro)...
You can run it from the command line (once it's installed) by simply typing CITY and then pressing Enter. Again, though, as Loopysue mentioned, you only want to do that from within a map based on a city template.
Posted By: DogtagThe Random City command is a free download for CD3 owners. It was developed by community member andMaster Mapper, L. Lee Saunders before CC3+ came out, and so was the installer. So, unless you knew how to install it manually for CC3+ (or followed the instructionshere), you probably didn't have it. It was updated to run with CC3+ for theJune 2017 issue of the Cartographer's Annual. The updated installer was also made available to CD3 owners that month, so that's why you probably associate it with the annual, Loopysue.
I didn't have the annual till really quite late that year, so I had the installer before I got the annual
Loopysue responded:I didn't have the annual till really quite late that year, so I had the installer before I got the annual
Sure, we discussed the command back in June 2017 when you downloaded it, before you got the annual. I merely meant that the download was available from the CD3 downloads years before the June 2017 issue of the annual; it just wouldn't install to CC3+. So, unless you were using CC3, or knew how to manually set it up for CC3+, you probably didn't have it installed until June 2017.
I was much more into regional mapping back then, and didn't have any of the annuals to make using CC3 necessary. That's probably why I just didn't realise it was there until the CC3+ installer came out.
I wonder if I might have mapped Merelan City differently if I'd known about it...
Started a new city map myself now, but would love to pick your brain how you managed the fills for the grass and towers/wall (especially the outer bit). I'm just wrestling with the scaling of the fills as usually. when trying to adapt fills for my use it's an uphill battle against pixelation and the texture being too repetitive.
The fill for the towers, wall and ramps is just one fill. I used Brick 08 from Bogies Mapping Objects collection available from Vintyri through the links in the resources thread at the top of the forum. I've used an RGB Matrix sheet effect on all of those layers to unify the colour of the stone, the roads, and the rocks throughout and make everything look a lot more natural - as if the city was really built of local stone. I'm re-plotting a novel right now, but when I open Sanctuary later today I will get a screen shot of the settings I used in that RGB matrix so you can get an idea.
I also had a problem with texture repetition using the built in styles because sanctuary covers 15000 x 15000 square feet (about 2 1/2 miles wide and tall), and I didn't want it to just be plain solid colour, so first I tried using the Herwin Wielink green land texture, but even that proved a bit too repetitive. I'm currently using the dirt texture I made for this map with an HSL effect to turn it green for grass. Its available in the Malajuri folder of the Community Atlas. If you don't want to go rooting around for it, though, an alternative I thought about but haven't used for now is to use the solid green colour fill typical of the Bitmap A city templates, but to add a Texturize effect to the sheet so that its not so flat looking.
As long as a fill isn't pixelated, and the texture looks the right size for the map, you can combat repetitiveness to a certain extent by using 2 or 3 very similar fills each on their own sheet with an edge fade inner effect, and drawing polys in each of those fills on their respective sheets to break up the patterns. Also don't forget that as soon as you start covering the background with houses and other features the fill is broken up, and the repetitiveness is far less obvious. I once did a city map with only 2 grass fills from Bogies Mapping Objects. It was most horribly repetitive because the fills from that source don't have a VH resolution, but by using the grass textures to break each other up, and by covering the map with trees and roads and buildings, it worked really well in the end.
I draw my walls slightly differently to the preset wall drawing tools. I have two sheets. I draw the full extent of the walls on the bottom sheet in a line that is 30ft wide (a little excessive, but this is fantasy) and add a directional wall shadow to that one, then I copy the whole lot from that sheet to the upper one, reduce the line thickness to 20ft, and add just a slight dark glow set to 'inside' to give the illusion that it is sunk into the top of the wall. That way it is the outer wall that casts the shadow, and not the path along it.
I think I answered all your questions. Just shout if I missed one
Thanks for the elaborate reply. I think your wall technique sounds interesting and I'm definitely gonna experiment with that. I has already identified the Bogie Brick 08 from your earlier zoomed in pictures and assumed the RGB matrix part for the later image, I just could not get the outer part. Now I understand better how it's done
Just downloaded the tree's and city fills from the community atlas site, gonna have a look at those. A bit of repetitiveness is alright and can be broken up, but what I was talking about is that the fill is obviously looking like a bunch of small squares, and when I try adjusting the scaling I'm fighting the pixelation. Sometimes I just wish I had a more control over when CC makes the switch from one resolution to another.
I may do a WIP thread, but my maps can take quite a while to mature. Also since I want/need to do quite a couple of towns and cities I'm now trying to make my own style (literally a separate style within CC3, so when I make a new city, I can just pick my own style and have all the fills and drawing tools set as needed) so I have consistency across multiple maps. This is also why I was scrutinizing over this thread as there are some bumps in the road I need to overcome before I can really dig in.
You can use fixed resolution if you really want to, though I would recommend not working on the map in VH fixed resolution, since it makes them very slow, and being able to see the whole map in VH no matter how far out you zoom is actually a bit confusing, since it starts to look a bit like a microscopically engineered Pointillist painting (think George Seurat, and Paul Signac).
You can fix the resolution by clicking the hourglass symbol
Posted By: SilverdropSometimes I just wish I had a more control over when CC makes the switch from one resolution to another.
You do. Hit the Fill style Resolutions button in the Display Speed dialog. This is a per map setting.
Thank you! I'm going to experiment with this, as I'll gladly sacrifice display speed for quality. NOt yet sure if it's the full answer to my struggle, as this is a uniform setting for all fills whereas I'd love to have had this as a setting for a fill-style. But hey, this is better than not having the setting at all.
I fiddled around a bit with your way of making walls and towers and I have to say, I'm quite happy with the simplicity of it yet how nice the effect is. Here's the result of my quick experimentation
You can add a second line on that top sheet - for the crenulations.
I created a third very temporary sheet, copied the main wall onto it, then created a dashed line style with suitable spacing for crenulations and changed the properties of the copied main wall to the new dashed line. Then I moved the dashed line onto the top sheet. Being the same width and position as the main wall, but dashed instead of solid, it cut the crenulations out of the main wall.
Towers are a bit different. You have to copy the inner part of the tower and give it a line width twice that of the difference between the inner and outer walls, then apply the dashed line. (at least, I think that's what I did...)
Whether you bother with that or not is very much down to how much detail you want to add to your city
Once again thanks for the elaborate explanation. Really inventive way to do walls in a good way for maps with more detail. Whilst experimenting I got mixed around with copying the parts which obviously gave the wrong result then I was trying to reproduce the effect and I couldn't reproduce the darkness between the crenellations. Until I realized I should use the regular glow and choose inside, rather than using the inner glow effect.
I think I've managed to reproduce it now and just in case others run into difficulty as well and want to try this neat way of doing walls I made a visual overview with all the elements separated out and the combined effect.
I thought it might be similarly helpful to show the dashed line style I created for my map, and how to get to the controls for any newbies reading this thread in the future
Comments
I've just noticed that I have some kind of transparency acne going on in the castle grounds. Looks like I need to sort that out next
:P
Its actually a render issue I'm having. I got rid of it by turning the antialiasing down from 75% to just 40% - which is more than enough for most images, and it increases the depth of each pass across the map. The castle just happens to be on the dividing line between passes when the AA is set at 75%. I must remember to add a little rendering advice to the map notes for this one
Going to be scrutinizing over this thread, as I always having trouble to make town and city maps look pleasing to the eye (they end up more business like). I can learn a lot from this thread I think.
And bookmarked that generator at the start of the thread too. A ton of smaller and larger communities still need mapping in my world.
There is nothing wrong with a business-like map. This is just my personal preference showing
The watabou generator is great for the basics, but I have found that it generates a huge number of triangular buildings, and that the rivers are just a bit too angular for my taste and tend to avoid the settlement rather a lot too much.
There is a random city generator within CC3, if you also want to try that?
You have to load a city template, and go to the City menu, picking Random city.... That brings up the first in a string of dialogues in which you can set different variables.
edit: some googling done and I think the reason that I don't see it is perhaps that I haven't installed the 2017 annual into CC3+ yet. (transition and all that) Maybe I should do that first.
...
Ah, separate download from CD3...install that first, had done that for CC3 but bot CC3+
Both generators are good. And both have their drawbacks. It depends what you are looking for in a city plan
I installed CC3 but never used it.
I was much more into regional mapping back then, and didn't have any of the annuals to make using CC3 necessary. That's probably why I just didn't realise it was there until the CC3+ installer came out.
I wonder if I might have mapped Merelan City differently if I'd known about it...
I also had a problem with texture repetition using the built in styles because sanctuary covers 15000 x 15000 square feet (about 2 1/2 miles wide and tall), and I didn't want it to just be plain solid colour, so first I tried using the Herwin Wielink green land texture, but even that proved a bit too repetitive. I'm currently using the dirt texture I made for this map with an HSL effect to turn it green for grass. Its available in the Malajuri folder of the Community Atlas. If you don't want to go rooting around for it, though, an alternative I thought about but haven't used for now is to use the solid green colour fill typical of the Bitmap A city templates, but to add a Texturize effect to the sheet so that its not so flat looking.
As long as a fill isn't pixelated, and the texture looks the right size for the map, you can combat repetitiveness to a certain extent by using 2 or 3 very similar fills each on their own sheet with an edge fade inner effect, and drawing polys in each of those fills on their respective sheets to break up the patterns. Also don't forget that as soon as you start covering the background with houses and other features the fill is broken up, and the repetitiveness is far less obvious. I once did a city map with only 2 grass fills from Bogies Mapping Objects. It was most horribly repetitive because the fills from that source don't have a VH resolution, but by using the grass textures to break each other up, and by covering the map with trees and roads and buildings, it worked really well in the end.
I draw my walls slightly differently to the preset wall drawing tools. I have two sheets. I draw the full extent of the walls on the bottom sheet in a line that is 30ft wide (a little excessive, but this is fantasy) and add a directional wall shadow to that one, then I copy the whole lot from that sheet to the upper one, reduce the line thickness to 20ft, and add just a slight dark glow set to 'inside' to give the illusion that it is sunk into the top of the wall. That way it is the outer wall that casts the shadow, and not the path along it.
I think I answered all your questions. Just shout if I missed one
Are we going to see a WIP thread for this city?
Just downloaded the tree's and city fills from the community atlas site, gonna have a look at those. A bit of repetitiveness is alright and can be broken up, but what I was talking about is that the fill is obviously looking like a bunch of small squares, and when I try adjusting the scaling I'm fighting the pixelation. Sometimes I just wish I had a more control over when CC makes the switch from one resolution to another.
You can fix the resolution by clicking the hourglass symbol
Was that a double or triple ninja by just about everybody on everybody else?
I created a third very temporary sheet, copied the main wall onto it, then created a dashed line style with suitable spacing for crenulations and changed the properties of the copied main wall to the new dashed line. Then I moved the dashed line onto the top sheet. Being the same width and position as the main wall, but dashed instead of solid, it cut the crenulations out of the main wall.
Towers are a bit different. You have to copy the inner part of the tower and give it a line width twice that of the difference between the inner and outer walls, then apply the dashed line. (at least, I think that's what I did...)
Whether you bother with that or not is very much down to how much detail you want to add to your city
I think I've managed to reproduce it now and just in case others run into difficulty as well and want to try this neat way of doing walls I made a visual overview with all the elements separated out and the combined effect.
Yes - it is a bit confusing. I managed to get myself into quite a hilarious tangle when I was developing the crenulations :P
Thank you for showing everyone the separate elements. I'm not half as organised as you are! LOL!