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First map feedback, and tips on how to make text more readable?

GromGrom
in Show and Tell
Just joined, and here's my first attempt at a map for my Judge Dredd RPG campaign. It's an overland map of the eastern and middle part of what used to be the USA.

The learning curve of CC3+ is quite steep, the UI is very different from what I'm used to, but slowly getting a hang of it.

I've been trying to make the text clearer, but it's still not there. Any tips? Also, are there any general guidelines how I should go about with titling of places, roads and regions? Should I have subtle changes between geographic features and political regions, or completely different formatting?

I just noticed that the northern edge of Deep South Wastelands is hard, while the rest is soft. How do I control this, so that the edge is consistently diffused in that region?

Any feedback in general on how to make my map better would be welcome!
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Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    Hi Grom :)

    The text is very similar in colour to the background of the map, so the first thing to do is either make it a lot darker or a lot lighter.

    Once you have decided which way to go with it you can open the Sheets and Effects dialog by clicking the S: box in the properties bar at the top and locate the TEXT sheet (its usually called something similar if not that exactly) pick it and then look on the right where the effects are listed. There will be a Glow sheet effect. You will need to edit that to make it the right colour, and possibly stronger and less diffuse than it is.
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  • GromGrom
    Thanks for the help, here's the updated version. I changed the text to be roughly the opposite color on the color wheel, and added a stroke, now it's much easier to read!

    I still don't understand why the black wastelands have sharp edges. I checked the sheet effects on "Land Features" -sheet, and they are identical to the sheet effects on "Land Features (Wastes)" -sheet, which should yield identical results - but they don't as you see.
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  • TheschabiTheschabi 🖼️ 51 images Traveler
    edited July 2020
    You should check, if the black wastes and the light wastes are on the sheets they should be on. An easy way to check this is to go to the sheets list, select Land Features and then hide all.
    If either the land features and the wastes are still visible, or none are, something is on the wrong sheet.

    If something is on the wrong sheet, you can move it via move to sheet. That command is in the right click menu of the change properties button.
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  • ShessarShessar 🖼️ 34 images Mapmaker
    edited July 2020
    When two entities are on the same sheet and overlap, CC3+ effects treats them as all one entity, so the edge fade only affects the outer edge of the combined shapes, not the parts that overlap.
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  • blckassnblckassn
    About your text, a pointer I was told that white text with black outline will show up on any color. Try using white as your color and add the effect Glow to the outside of the text using black as your color.
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  • GromGrom
    Thanks for the tips about the hard outline. I got it to work properly when I moved them to the correct layers.

    Also changed the text color to off-white for better visibility as suggested by @blckassn.

    Here more or less final version. Quite happy with the results!
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  • ShessarShessar 🖼️ 34 images Mapmaker
    The text looks much better and I'm glad that you figured out the edges of the contours. Great first map!
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