Could use a hand with this map
All,
Fairly new user here. I'm trying to figure out how to "spice up" a map i am building for a Traveller campaign. I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out how to make this map more interesting than the two layers of colors. The planet is essentially a "swamp world" with more open terrain only at the poles.
If anyone has some ideas, please let me know and i'll see what i can do.
Thanks so much for any tips.
Fairly new user here. I'm trying to figure out how to "spice up" a map i am building for a Traveller campaign. I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out how to make this map more interesting than the two layers of colors. The planet is essentially a "swamp world" with more open terrain only at the poles.
If anyone has some ideas, please let me know and i'll see what i can do.
Thanks so much for any tips.
Comments
Maybe some water. If it is a swamp world, it is filled by water by definition, so it is not that difficult to imagine that some small lakes (Large enough to take a hex or two) with just water, no vegetation have formed.
* Area that is blighted, without vegetation
* A mountain
* A city/habitation/ruin
* Mist-covered area
* Rift
Whatever it is will draw attention, which will in turn focus the adventure. And, it gives the map a focal point that can ease your artistic ache.
Steve
Both good points. Let me go back to the mad scientist lab and see what i can come up with. I agree that it needed more, but spent too much time staring at it with no ideas.
I really appreciate all the feedback, it truly is helpful.
Thanks.
I've tried creating a new layer AND a new sheet, labelled "Mountains" but for the life of me i can't get it show up when i am doing redraw. Whenever i do a default landmass draw it reverts back to a different sheet called "symbols". How do i make a new sheet with the mountain background stick?
Now that I have over 1,600 maps, I have been making an attempt to get the surface ones all the same style. Long ways to go.
sheets
land
mountains
If you did this:
sheets
mountains
land
the mountains are under the land. That is why they don't show.
Steve
Thank you! That is exactly the ticket. I didnt realize that i needed to change the default location for the item. I created a sheet AND a layer labeled "mountain" which is where i put the mountains. It works perfect since i can now move them independently instead of worrying about how to make them show up and where.
OK, so now i have the mountain background. My next hurdle is that when i try to place any items on top of that background, when i refresh they completely disappear. I apparently can't move priority for layers as i can do sheets, so do i create another sheet that has the mountains on them and put them in front of the sheet that has the background?
Note however that you can change the order of items that are on the same sheet with the send to front/back commands, so you generally don't create new sheets for objects of the same type.
You also might want to keep an eye out for when it is appropriate to reuse an existing sheet, and when to create a new one. The important point however, is thinking about the sheet order.
OK i understand what you are saying. Still having a tough time making that happen. How do i select ONLY certain items with the "front/back" commands? I've only been able to move things like the grid and the mountain background selected. Is there a way i can set that to happen before i place the item or does it not work like that?
I tried to reuse an existing sheet that didnt appear to have anything on it, but my mountains still just drop behind the background. Getting just a bit frustrated not being able to figure out something that i think should be simple. Must be missing something is all i can think.
Thanks for the help.
Symbols looks for sheets named SYMBOLS SOMETHING however, so if you make a sheet called SYMBOLS MOUNTAINS and make this sheet active before placing symbols, you will see that the symbols do end up on this sheet automatically (As opposed to a sheet named just MOUNTAINS which the symbols would never automatically end up on). If the active sheet is NOT named SYMBOLS SOMETHING, the symbol will default to the standard SYMBOLS sheet.
To use front/back with individual items, you just have to select them the same way as you do any object. If you have problems with more entities being selected than desired, try clickin another point on the entity when selecting, a point that doesn't contain any other entities as well. Also, remember, you can specify rather complex criteria by using the And, Or and Not modifiers from your right click menu during selection.
Another tip is to use Prior when selecting entities. This will select the last entity you placed, or the last entity (or group of) selected. This makes it very easy to select the last item placed.
Also remember that the front/back only moves entities to the front or back on the current sheet. You cannot use Front to move something in front of an entity on another sheet. For that, you need to move the entire sheet (from the sheets dialog), or move the entity to another sheet.