Top down symbols for overland maps.
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We have plenty of top down symbols for city, dungeon and battlemaps, but hardly any for overland maps, especially those of larger regions or world maps, except for 13th age and the Google map-like bit maps. I really would like to see a style which showed a large variety of mountain and hills, and other like symbols for top down maps, rather than the 3D-like symbols we have at present.
This is a call out to any who are good at doing this sort of thing, because I am definitely not.
This also applies to vegetation as well, though some of the symbols in the dungeon and battlemap styles could do, I guess.
Finally, I would love to see a better variety of jungle symbols than palm trees (not really a jungle tree ) and also mangroves - though the swamp trees in the Schley style can double as the latter.
And I would welcome comments on this topic from all and sundry.
Settlements etc I think can be done using simple symbols, such as circles etc, though i really like the 13th Age symbols. And it is easy to devise my own vector symbols for various structures or resources. (I already have).
Comments
Don't forget there's also the Fantasy Realms style from 2009, which has the essential top-down mountain and hill drawing tools.
It's important to recognise too that as soon as you move from the pictorial isometric or side-on images to top-down, you're immediately wanting greater precision in exactly what is where, hence I'm not sure trying to create a set of symbols for top-down features will work well enough. That argument is why there are very few hill and mountain symbols in Fantasy Realms, for instance, with the recommendation to make full use of the drawing tools in that style.
Top-down vegetation is tricky too - lots of rough-edged small rings with a couple of texture lines inside is liable to be all you'd see at typical overland scales. This does work, as it's what was used originally on things like the early SPI-style hex-based board-and-counter wargames, and it's fine as representation, but it's not particularly realistic. Plus it can be very easily drawn vector style, if you want to go down that route.
It's hard to know what would work better as identifying jungle symbols than palms (try a quick online search for jungle map symbols, and most of what turns up IS palms!), given that many jungle evergreens have general side-on shapes similar to in-leaf deciduous ones. Maybe adding a few hanging lianas in places, an attempt at stratification (albeit that means multiple trees per symbol), or splashes of colour for flowers and fruits might help, though again for overland-scale maps, most of that detail's liable to be lost. Altering the varicolor colouring might help with the extant deciduous woodland options, possibly. And for top-down versions, basically, again, you're looking at a rough-edged circle with a couple of interior texture lines.
Yes, I forgot about Fantasy realms - I like the mountains, but hate the hills. And I get it about the jungle - and the top down vector vegetation isn't too much of a problem. I guess I was also mentioning about different 3d versions of jungle symbols, since most jungles are not palm trees (are any).
Here are some of my top down maps that are based on modern military topographic maps. This may not be what you want.
CA 141 Japanese Temples, CA 184 Tactical Maps, CA 74, CA 09 Modern City has several.
The top down request is for large overland maps, such as 13th age and Fantasy Realms. I really want a larger selection of top down mountains and hills than the very small selection available in 13th Age. Fantasy Realms doesn't have individual mountain symbols, and anyway, I loathe the hill symbols.
There are plenty of top down for cities, and smaller overland maps, especially in the Dundjinni and CSUAC collections.
Trees are not a problem - nor are settlements. I was just hoping for more support for bitmap topdown mountain, hill and natural features symbols, rather than the "You don't need them" or "there are plenty in city and other small scale maps" answers. I guess I will have to comb the internet for pictures, and try to turn them into symbols, though I obviously will not be able to use them for Atlas maps. I confess I am somewhat disheartened by the lack of interest (indeed almost positive lack of interest) in this from the responses to date.
I guess I am sick of 3D symbols for large overland maps.
Are you interested in something like contour-line linework, ridge/valley linework, a shaded style analogous to the spectrum style, adjustable lighting or something else? To me, it has always seemed that the biggest limitation for overhead-type maps is the lack of composability in the artwork (that is, each symbol is an individual element and there's no solid way to merge them together at drawing time). I would really love something like little heightfield symbols that compose with a max(a,b) operation and a shader to do things like contour lines. Alas, such things are rather infeasible in CC3+.
If you can live with a straight hypsometric shading for symbols with roof-shaded normal maps, then you can get that effect with FT3 or Wilbur as described in https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/11830/practical-use-of-the-new-fractal-terrains-profantasy-normal-map-in-campaign-cartographer (use the "Discworld" setting and go from there). I keep meaning to add an "endless islands" feature to Wilbur that will run a little script on a world to get a mountain with the edges down below sea level so that I can have more mountain symbols than anyone, but I never quite get a free weekend to get it accomplished.
@jslayton Anything along the lines of the first paragraph. Alas, I am not a designer.
Here are two ways I have dealt with this for my own worlds.
First, using solid fills only, with a crude mountain fill pattern. So I can show both mountains and vegetation overlapping each other.
Above is whole world map, climate biomes; then detail of the Menosiran sea area, altitude, then biomes, with hills as dotted region, and mountains as another vector fill, both 30% transparent. Comments on how to improve this are welcome.
The next is an amalgam of styles with contours shown, but vegetation and structures using symbols for various styles.
Finally, a version of Shaded relief with two different ways of depicting trees. Obviously, I would use different symbols - and suggestions welcome.
The situation I want is a top down depiction of mountains, hills, and yet still be able to show different vegetation and biomes overlying these mountain fills, symbols or contours - either done as lines or shaded relief.
Just popping my head in to say that I agree with you Quenten!
The disparity between flat terrain/rivers and front view mountains and hills often looks out of sync to me; like I'm seeing the map from 2 different perspectives (because I am). My solution has been using terrain fills to denote biomes and lighted bevels to denote mountains and hills.
These are the best examples I have using ProFantasy fills. Having top down symbols instead would be a great addition. I'm wondering how they could be done.
The thing about top down mountains is that they are pretty inflexible as symbols. Hill shading means they can't be rotated or mirrored, and that means you need maybe a hundred symbols instead of just the usual 20 or so.
You might think that using a map file would be the solution, but at the current time if you have a faded edge all the way around a symbol as would be desirable for a top view mountain or hill to blend it into the background properly, the map file doesn't work properly. Faded edges upset them quite badly to the point where you end up with strange white strips of missing rows of pixels in the resulting symbol. I haven't worked out how to get around that problem myself, which is why I haven't yet done a top view overland style.
In regards to the symbol issue, wouldn't it be possible to stick to mostly the fill styles that are generally used for the top down maps. However, offer a few more options. Also, then add in some symbols. Maybe 30 or so symbols combined with the fill would be enough.
Mmmmm. Why can't something like 13th Age be used. The other thing is that the mountains still need to have terrain showed - or at least vegetation.
I have revamped the Sun Devil Isle to give a bit of elevation look. Comments on how it seems to works are appreciated.
I can certainly tell there is elevation for the mountains here. It looks a bit rough, but without specific tools and probably doing it quickly it looks nice
The Arduin bloody Arduin map looks like a person or being.
I have revamped the Sun Devil Isle to give a bit of elevation look. Comments on how it seems to works are appreciated.
The vegetation seems to distract heavily from the topographic colouring and contours. The contours are essentially invisible at the usual Forum image scale anyway on the new version, of course, but to my eye, the vegetation needs simplifying and clarifying substantially just to better highlight the terrain. This does though depend on exactly what you need the map to show, as regards which is more important to you. At this kind of scale, it's unusual to try to force both topography and vegetation onto the same map with the level of detail in both that you've currently got here. One or the other will probably need to take priority, as I'm not sure you'll get a workable solution showing both like this.
Fantasy Realms doesn't have individual mountain symbols, and anyway, I loathe the hill symbols.
OK, so maybe it would help if you could clarify exactly what it is about the hills you dislike so much in FR. Is it the colouring, the lines (thickness, colour), or the shapes? Given that all of these can be adjusted, I'm thinking it must be something else, but I've no idea what that might be. If you can pinpoint what it is you don't like, maybe that would help you determine better what you DO want from the hills in this style. If you need individual mountains in the FR style, it would be easy enough to draw your own new symbols (vector style, after all), as the style already means you need to draw most of the terrain anyway.
The 13th Age style is a fairly abstract one, with the hill and mountain symbols relying on quite simple shapes with linear and radiating forms, plus suggestions of shading to improve the topographic look away from the general fills the style uses. From your comments about this style, I'm starting to get the sense that what you may be looking for is shaded terrain done as symbols, rather than having to draw it yourself, but Sue's already highlighted the main problems with that as an approach, and I'm not sure there's a way round that.
Mmmm. I hear you about the vegetation and contours, which is why I introduced the relief colouring, which gets around it, in my opinion (or taste). I am happy to draw my own hills etc, I just dislike the hills in FR. I will have to rethink and research top down hill images on the net.
And I am looking more into shaded relief style as well.
I still would like more symbols, as apart from fills, as in 13th age. Or better ways to customize mountain ranges rather thn the fills in the various satellite annuals.
Back to the net, I guess.