Vector Style Map
HadrianVI
Surveyor
Hi everyone,
this is the second map I made that shows all of my fantasy world. I plan to write a fantasy novel, which takes place in this world, called Aleonn. It will take about 5-10 years 'till my book is finally done, so I'll have plenty of time to learn map making as well.
There are two large empires in this world. On the left continent we have the "Amonian Empire", which consists of several more or less independent kingdoms. The kingdoms are bound together by their common amonian religion. On the other continent we have the Varayan Empire which is actually one large Empire. There is actually a small piece of land on the left continent which also belongs to the Varayan Empire. The eastern part of the peninsula that leads onto the eastern continent, has been defended by the Varayan Empire for centuries. There's a large wasteland between the frontiers of the Amonian and the Varayan Empire. The land has been salted and burned during the endless wars between the two empires. Unfortunately the wasteland can't yet be seen on the map. The nortern parts of both continents are independent. The northern people have fought back any invasions from the south.
I didn't add any text yet, because the program began to run very, very slow after I was done with the forests (it took 5 minutes to render when I activated the sheets). Can anyone give me any advice on how to work with forests, without any larger lack of performance? I've already set the bitmap quality to low and disabled the shades.
Greets from Switzerland
HadrianVI
this is the second map I made that shows all of my fantasy world. I plan to write a fantasy novel, which takes place in this world, called Aleonn. It will take about 5-10 years 'till my book is finally done, so I'll have plenty of time to learn map making as well.
There are two large empires in this world. On the left continent we have the "Amonian Empire", which consists of several more or less independent kingdoms. The kingdoms are bound together by their common amonian religion. On the other continent we have the Varayan Empire which is actually one large Empire. There is actually a small piece of land on the left continent which also belongs to the Varayan Empire. The eastern part of the peninsula that leads onto the eastern continent, has been defended by the Varayan Empire for centuries. There's a large wasteland between the frontiers of the Amonian and the Varayan Empire. The land has been salted and burned during the endless wars between the two empires. Unfortunately the wasteland can't yet be seen on the map. The nortern parts of both continents are independent. The northern people have fought back any invasions from the south.
I didn't add any text yet, because the program began to run very, very slow after I was done with the forests (it took 5 minutes to render when I activated the sheets). Can anyone give me any advice on how to work with forests, without any larger lack of performance? I've already set the bitmap quality to low and disabled the shades.
Greets from Switzerland
HadrianVI
Comments
I'd scale the moutains up though, some look only as tall as the trees. This will reduce the number of symbols and raise the speed but not a lot...
To label your map, you can hide/show sheets or layers.
All symbols should go on the Symbols sheet so hiding it will speed up.
If you want to keep the town symbols visible, you can hide the vegetation layer (hopefully it's there that your trees went...)
If you really need 5 minutes to render (you don't talk about exporting, do you ?) perhaps you have too much effects on your map. Try to disable some (uncheck the square that appear on the sheet dialog form when you turn the effects on, this won't delete the effects).
On my map you mentionned elsewhere (http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1366/) I needed only 30 second to have the effects on (with ca 30 differents effects) with a 3 years old computer.
On the other hand, a 5 minutes export (to jpg or bmp with high resolution) is nothing unusual.
By the way, if you don't use any bitmap fill and only vector symbols, I believe changing the bitmap quality doesn't have any effect...
the mountains look as tall as trees because I used a lot of foothills. The bigger mountains are only to be found in the middle of the mountains. I'd rather rescale the trees because otherwise the mountains won't fit into their contours anymore, especially the smaller ones. If I rescale the trees it would be even slower, I already have several thousands of them
It was probably not a very smart idea to use bitmap trees, but the pines look way better in bitmap style than in vector. I'm also thinking of buying this or last years annual, there are some nice styles.
I think about making several local maps (the north, lorraye & the waste, ect.).
BtW: I've read you're french. The nord-eastern part of the left continent is inspired by the normandie and by bretagne
The map I've done (with vector symbols, only vector symbols) has been printed 1.07 meter wide (including the border) and a tree is only 3mm wide, so... I highly recommend annuals if you can afford them, I've yet to found an issue which didn't learned me something... Nope, inspiration came from Quebec, at least for the names. In fact I'm quite nearer to Switzerland (60km to Bâle/Basel) than Normandie/Bretagne.
I made the map only for myself. I started now with a local map of the north using the annual 2012 april style. I'm aware that your map was inspired by Quebec, I meant the north-east of my map:) So I guess you live in the Elsass?
Greets
Hadrian
JdR
Greets Hadrian