Placement of trees
Glitch
🖼️ 22 images Surveyor
I struggle with placement of trees - my results are all over the map. Sometimes to few, other times too dense, and when I try to place in a random manner - my efforts end up looking like some spotted disease has taken over my map. Any tutorials or suggestions would be appreciated.
Comments
The answer to that one is practice.
I assume you are hand placing the trees, rather than using any of the Symbol fills or Symbols in Area command.
Hand placed trees always look more natural, as long as you don't think about it too much and just do it. The more you think about it and the more care you take the more it looks like a forestry plantation with everything in regimental rows.
Having said that, try overlapping the trees to hide the trunks in a thick forest, and try not to leave spaces that are too regular in other places. Trees often grow in groups or small copses, so try grouping 3 or 5 together in little patches, but in a semi-haphazard way. Do the dense forest first, and then the woodlands around them, so that there is a gradual gradation from thick forest to savannah.
"my results are all over the map." LOL. Well played :)
I don't like using Symbol Fills, and I do agree with Sue, but I'm going to throw in a 'but...". CC3 is an incredibly powerful tool that has features we can use as 'short cuts' to fill in any gaps in our (especially me) artistic ability.
Here's a forest that I made in about 10 seconds:
Yes, it's really janky, and you can see all kinds of problems (but, it's a 10 second forest...)
Here's how I did it:
Start small:
Then add a couple rows of trees (3 or 4). Once you've done that you now have your 'forest brush':
Using the 'COPY' command you can plop down an entire forest pretty quickly.
Here's one I spent a whole minute on :)
It's still pretty rough. But, once I had the general shape for it down, I went in and deleted some of the more problematic areas, and then drew in singular trees to cover up some of the blind/bad/problem spots.
The nice thing about using this method is it scales with your confidence and familiarity with CC3.
Below is a continent wide forest that I created using the above large forest as the 'brush' (Using COPY). Again, it's a visual train wreck but I did it in about 30 seconds. Time and practice will return amazing results, I promise. Good luck!
Whoops, you can also use the SORT SYMBOL command to 'reorder' them: https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/7414/command-of-the-week-sort-symbols-in-map-week-29
Here's the same continent-wide forest now sorted...
I think map style also matters. If you have clusters of trees that alter as you place them, it often helps give a more natural look. On the other hand, single tree placement alone or few tree options can create an issue.
One of the things I have done is start with the outside of the forest area and then start working from the top to the bottom. If necessary, I resort the symbols. I think the borders of the forest matter more for looking right to me.
Thanks! I have no design/graphics/or art background at all, so getting presentation suggestions is really appreciated. I think that Sue is right - I just need to fail a lot more, before I can get it right. I've been studying google maps to get a feel for a more natural placement. I guess this weeks assignment is to generate as many trials as possible.
jonasgreenfeather Traveler December 10 Flag
Whoops, you can also use the SORT SYMBOL command to 'reorder' them: https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/7414/command-of-the-week-sort-symbols-in-map-week-29
Yikes! Nice reference - -so many tools to learn!!!!!! This one is great!
Hi!
What about using the symbols in area style? It works extremely well and you can customize it a lot... You can also create your own "Drawing tool" in few steps.
Thanks - great way to simplify