@JulianDracos noted: ...I am interested in Hobbit house symbols. I have found a way/map style that I can do OK to demonstrate it is a Hobbit style home city, but I do not have anything for the city level view.
SS5 Cities of Schley has a selection of Halfling house options (grassy mounds with round doors and windows), and also Elven treehouses, plus rough-looking Orc buildings. The main CD3 Bitmap B style has a larger range of fantasy building options as well, including for Halflings (houses and grassy mounds) and Elven treehouses again, as do the main CD3 vector styles, so there are options there without needing to go down the Annuals route. And the Annuals, being smaller in size than these main products, do tend to concentrate more on providing the basic styles first.
It is worth noting that you can draw your own house shapes using the CD3 toolset, and give the roofs whatever texture you wish from the range of options you have available. Stacking different shapes on top of one another on different Sheets with variant Effects can also increase the options for how things appear. DIY treehouses by placing a suitably-shaped and textured house in different sized tree and other vegetation symbols, all on separate Sheets, for instance. And things like varicolor wooden roofs can be made to work as market stall awnings with a bit of resizing and choice of suitable colours.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, Sue! Can't really add much beyond what's already been suggested above for Darklands Cities II, after all that... 😪
@JulianDracos - you can draw your own houses in any bitmap editor and then create map files for them. The information on how to do this is contained in the Tome of Ultimate Mapping, and you can always ask for help here. I've done hundreds myself.
If you have fence lines, I've learnt they can be placed below a hedgerow to look enough like a gate to work as such in the Fantasy Town style. As long as there's an end-piece for the hedge, that should work OK. It also works with walls too, of course.
Oh yes, the hedge pieces are all rounded off at the end, which means the end happens whenever you stop. There isn't a round end on the first part of the hedge, but you can approach the gate from the other side.
I haven't done fences. They seem to be much less common in medieval times. I suppose its because making a wooden fence with wooden bars (no wires back then) would have been too time consuming when you have plenty of rocks lying around for a wall and a hedge grows without a problem. It's also because they don't work well with the same shadows as the walls and hedges, so I would need yet another sheet just for the fences.
This looks as close as I could get to an illegal uncontained slurry pit among the consequently dead trees. Just missing the cart tracks, but since this is only a test site I won't bother with them right now.
There are different opinions on FB - some say it looks more like an explosion, but it depends how explosive the chimney fire is ;)
I purchased two sets of new brushes for Affinity. I used the cheaper set to make the fires in part 1, and this is the first sample of a fire made with the second more expensive set.
Now I have something of a problem. I can't delete the existing symbols, but the new ones are quite different!
(And before anyone shouts at me that the links to the resources below that video state clearly that they are not for commercial use, those are links to his personal webpage. I purchased the proper licence from the Affinity Shop ;) )
Here is a video made by the creator, showing more exactly how his brushes can be used. It's a long video, but if you want to do this yourself you will need to know this stuff.
@Loopysue asked: Does this look like how you would imagine a chimney fire from directly above?
Possibly, though it's quite common to have a heavy plume of smoke above the fire, so you can't see the central flame so well. Chimney fires have a tendency to produce copious amounts of dark smoke, sometimes with embedded sparks, which tends to be more what you'd see, particularly given the chimney itself is relatively tiny compared with the smoke plume. As house chimneys often kink inside, you might not be able to see the blazing soot unless it's near the top of the chimney anyway. From memory, the flames tend to be redder as well, though this is from the perspective of viewing from the side, rather than top-down.
I am of the opinion that it looks like an explosion.
Not that I have spent a lot of time looking from the sky at chimneys but my limited experience says you will most likely just see smoke. Even if you could see the fire, I should be able to see the chimney bricks. I think that is why it looks like an explosion. The fire should be small and viewed through the chimney.
And there will be burnt out buildings as well, if there is time.
This evening, though, I got distracted by the idea of reed beds for the marshy/boggy/swampy areas that were requested. Not quite there, but close, I think
A reedbed isn't as dense as it looks from the side. You can see the mud between the stems in overhead photographs, which means I can use Symbols in Area and allow sufficient spacing to keep the number of symbols down just a bit.
Well, I did some more versatile ruins that don't have the dark blur around them, so that you can put them either flat on the ground or on a sheet with a shadow. After that there is a drawing tool to add a floor if desired, or you can fill in with debris.
After a lot of messing around learning how to draw them, we now have horses and cows. Sheep and pigs to come (I hope). That should give everyone enough things to fill the land around their towns with now that there are 11 different kinds of field :)
I have a feeling that the animals would have been more use in a dungeon scale setting, but they're there now.
Comments
@JulianDracos noted: ...I am interested in Hobbit house symbols. I have found a way/map style that I can do OK to demonstrate it is a Hobbit style home city, but I do not have anything for the city level view.
SS5 Cities of Schley has a selection of Halfling house options (grassy mounds with round doors and windows), and also Elven treehouses, plus rough-looking Orc buildings. The main CD3 Bitmap B style has a larger range of fantasy building options as well, including for Halflings (houses and grassy mounds) and Elven treehouses again, as do the main CD3 vector styles, so there are options there without needing to go down the Annuals route. And the Annuals, being smaller in size than these main products, do tend to concentrate more on providing the basic styles first.
It is worth noting that you can draw your own house shapes using the CD3 toolset, and give the roofs whatever texture you wish from the range of options you have available. Stacking different shapes on top of one another on different Sheets with variant Effects can also increase the options for how things appear. DIY treehouses by placing a suitably-shaped and textured house in different sized tree and other vegetation symbols, all on separate Sheets, for instance. And things like varicolor wooden roofs can be made to work as market stall awnings with a bit of resizing and choice of suitable colours.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, Sue! Can't really add much beyond what's already been suggested above for Darklands Cities II, after all that... 😪
You're welcome, Wyvern. Lots of things I just didn't think of suggesting :)
I keep forgetting about these add on packs. I have that one so as long as I stick with a map style compatible then it should look good.
I will have to look into how to make my own houses using CD3. It seems a very useful function.
@JulianDracos - you can draw your own houses in any bitmap editor and then create map files for them. The information on how to do this is contained in the Tome of Ultimate Mapping, and you can always ask for help here. I've done hundreds myself.
PART 2.
I've started working on the second part of this style by adding a few new terrain textures.
This is not a map just yet, but a place where I test new things to see how they work together. There was a request for more Earth textures...
I made a few more field types and a new connecting hedge symbol.
Ooh, lavender and cabbages! You'll be giving us rasp canes, vines and rhubarb plants next!
Gates for the hedgerows?
Ah.
Gates...
Well, I guess for now you might have to walk along and find a hole till I work out how to fit one into the hedge.
Or maybe just leave a gap?
At least, that's what I've done with the walls I just made.
If you have fence lines, I've learnt they can be placed below a hedgerow to look enough like a gate to work as such in the Fantasy Town style. As long as there's an end-piece for the hedge, that should work OK. It also works with walls too, of course.
The wood palisade walls could be used for hedge gates.
Oh yes, the hedge pieces are all rounded off at the end, which means the end happens whenever you stop. There isn't a round end on the first part of the hedge, but you can approach the gate from the other side.
I haven't done fences. They seem to be much less common in medieval times. I suppose its because making a wooden fence with wooden bars (no wires back then) would have been too time consuming when you have plenty of rocks lying around for a wall and a hedge grows without a problem. It's also because they don't work well with the same shadows as the walls and hedges, so I would need yet another sheet just for the fences.
But I can make a gate symbol.
Round-ended hedge pieces
@JimP that's a good idea :)
Stone fences, a la Cornwall
Grapevines (or any type of vines) would be good, but i'm sure you have your hands full already
The hedges look great. Do you have blighted trees?
Thank you :)
Not yet, Glitch, but I'm hoping to have time to do some.
Who wanted dead trees and ikky bits?
This looks as close as I could get to an illegal uncontained slurry pit among the consequently dead trees. Just missing the cart tracks, but since this is only a test site I won't bother with them right now.
Messing around again....
Does this look like how you would imagine a chimney fire from directly above?
Also, it looks very good regardless.
How do you make your fire and smoke effects? I was admiring them in the example maps from Part 1 a couple of days ago.
Thank you :)
There are different opinions on FB - some say it looks more like an explosion, but it depends how explosive the chimney fire is ;)
I purchased two sets of new brushes for Affinity. I used the cheaper set to make the fires in part 1, and this is the first sample of a fire made with the second more expensive set.
Here is a speed demo of this second set.
Now I have something of a problem. I can't delete the existing symbols, but the new ones are quite different!
(And before anyone shouts at me that the links to the resources below that video state clearly that they are not for commercial use, those are links to his personal webpage. I purchased the proper licence from the Affinity Shop ;) )
Here is a video made by the creator, showing more exactly how his brushes can be used. It's a long video, but if you want to do this yourself you will need to know this stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbUNBKSUpQk
@Loopysue asked: Does this look like how you would imagine a chimney fire from directly above?
Possibly, though it's quite common to have a heavy plume of smoke above the fire, so you can't see the central flame so well. Chimney fires have a tendency to produce copious amounts of dark smoke, sometimes with embedded sparks, which tends to be more what you'd see, particularly given the chimney itself is relatively tiny compared with the smoke plume. As house chimneys often kink inside, you might not be able to see the blazing soot unless it's near the top of the chimney anyway. From memory, the flames tend to be redder as well, though this is from the perspective of viewing from the side, rather than top-down.
(I've linked it to the original image online)
I am of the opinion that it looks like an explosion.
Not that I have spent a lot of time looking from the sky at chimneys but my limited experience says you will most likely just see smoke. Even if you could see the fire, I should be able to see the chimney bricks. I think that is why it looks like an explosion. The fire should be small and viewed through the chimney.
I've turned it into a bonfire and made some other fires for other kinds of things.
There will be smoke as well - when I am happy with the look of it.
Not the fire in the chimney effect, but it will certainly be cool to use this for encountering a village that has just been raided.
And there will be burnt out buildings as well, if there is time.
This evening, though, I got distracted by the idea of reed beds for the marshy/boggy/swampy areas that were requested. Not quite there, but close, I think
Think I've got it now.
A reedbed isn't as dense as it looks from the side. You can see the mud between the stems in overhead photographs, which means I can use Symbols in Area and allow sufficient spacing to keep the number of symbols down just a bit.
Well, I did some more versatile ruins that don't have the dark blur around them, so that you can put them either flat on the ground or on a sheet with a shadow. After that there is a drawing tool to add a floor if desired, or you can fill in with debris.
After a lot of messing around learning how to draw them, we now have horses and cows. Sheep and pigs to come (I hope). That should give everyone enough things to fill the land around their towns with now that there are 11 different kinds of field :)
I have a feeling that the animals would have been more use in a dungeon scale setting, but they're there now.
@Loopysue commented: "After a lot of messing around learning how to draw them, we now have horses and cows. Sheep and pigs to come (I hope)."
So, no poultry then? 😉🐓
And shouldn't the cows really be lying down in preparation for the rain - Darklands, after all? 😎🐮
Sorry, couldn't resist...
I'm already worried about my cows, Wyvern! LOL!
I think I will try to straighten the neck of that one with the very long neck. They all look like their walking around in circles.
Hens? They'd be the little red dots I added (not really - just teasing ;) )
It was touch and go as to whether the larger animals were worth it at this scale. They really are completely tiny with not much in the way of detail.
I really like this. The larger animals are definitely worth it. I'm actually waiting for the 2nd half of this annual to do all my village maps.