Searching for Farmland
Alan Phillipson
Newcomer
HI,
Long time owner of CC re-starting with CC3+ after a decade in the wilderness - please be gentle!
I'm drawing a B&W overland Map using the Mike Schley Ink pack form Annual 07 (08?) and loving the aesthetics.
I want to add farmland. Specifically something that looks like the Colour Mike Shley Farmland drawing tool. Is there a way to take the colour drawing tool and converting it to B&W? or has someone already done this?
Thank you for ANY help.
Alan
Comments
Simplest option would be to use the colour drawing tool, and then add an RGB Matrix Process Effect to the whole map, set to "Gray". This will make everything look B&W - so you could design the entire map using the colour set-up, and have it all appear as greyscale in the finished item.
In case you're unsure about adding the Effect, when you open up the Drawing Sheets and Effects dialogue box (click on the rectangle marked "S:" with the name of the current Sheet in at the top of your CC3+ drawing window), click on any Sheet, then click the "Whole Drawing" radio button above the Sheets list.
Then click "Add", select "RGB Matrix Process" from the list this will call-up, and then click to highlight the RGB Matrix Process Effect that's now been added to the Whole Drawing list.
Then click "Edit". Once you're in the RGB Matrix Process dialogue box, click "Predefined", then "Gray" from that list, and finally "OK", and then (assuming you have something already drawn on your map to check), click "Apply" to see what it does.
Good luck!
Wyvern... you're a star - thanks!
I had thought there must be a way of doing something similar. but couldn't for the life of me figure out which effect to use!
It works, but as the remainder of my map background is white and the farmland is green (turned to grey) then it doesn't blend as well as I might like, but i suspect i can blend that with effects better.
If not, How might i go about editing the effect itself?
You're most welcome Alan!
You could of course just add the RGB Matrix Process Effect to the Sheet the farmland is on, if you'd prefer, rather than the whole map, which may or may not help (possibly not though in this case). You could try a different colour than white for your background alternatively - a pale grey, perhaps, or another colour that will work better under the whole-map RGB Matrix Process greyscale colouring, perhaps something closer to the usual farmland colouring instead.
If you want to look further into the options the RGB Matrix Process can generate, you may find it helpful to read through this PF Blog posting by one of our true resident experts, Remy Monsen (he wrote the Tome of Ultimate Mapping, so this is no idle remark!), where he explores this Effect in greater detail. It is very much trial and error to get it to do what you need once you step off the path of the available presets, but it's also worth doing, as you can never tell what marvels you may accidentally turn up.
I tried this a long time ago and found it didn't look right either. I never found a solution. I hope you get something that works for you.
This is what I have achieved so far.
The coloured farmland from Mike Schey on the Mike Schey Inks map. Then apply an RGB Matrix process as Wyvern suggests.
Then apply a Edge Fade, Inner effect with 50% opacity to knock back the boldness of the grey so it looks very background-like. And a large Edge width to try and fade if smoothly into the background white.
I like it - its not perfect, but its pretty good as a subtle effect. Its somewhat difficult to make it border up to other drawing tools like grassland etc as that seems to mess with the edges.
If anyone has further suggestions, I'm still looking to learn and improve!
EDIT : Image above is just a screenshot but as high res this remains effective and on a decent printer its giving me good effect on paper too. You might have to play with it to get the grey dark enough for your printer to show it but light enough to be subtle.
It looks good, and I like the way you can tell just where the farmlands extend to.
Edge Fade often helps conceal a multitude of problems!