Political Borders - How to do it?

Dear forum friends,

To finish one of my maps I just need to draw some politial borders but I am a little lost in how to do it.

I use an edge fade to make it trnasparent in the interior right? But how to made it follow the borders that I want? Especially coast lines?

Comments

  • pdjpdj Traveler
    I pick a suitable drawing tool to create/edit border polys - that way you can use Trace to
    follow coastlines, rivers etc
  • Even fractalizeted coastlines? Because I have a hard time to trace the coastlines from my older mpas (the ones that I am now finishing) as they are a bit too much fractalizeated...
  • Check the settings from "fantasy worlds" standard borders and just play around with those.

    If you have fractalised coastlines it will be very difficult, very slow or even impossible to trace these.
    But if its merely slow , you can try to subdivide a continent in 2/3 parts and create further borders within these.

    Also try to use 5/6 colors max
  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    You just have to be patient with the trace tool, if the paths you are following are very fractalized: Start the trace, move the mouse cursor to the point you want to trace to, wait until the trace line has caught up, adjust as necessary, then right-click to finish the trace.

    If that doesn't work for you, copy the entity you want to trace to a temporary layer and roughly cut out the peice you want to trace. Use trim to make it fit exactly, then either trace this or use "combine paths" to add it to another border path.
  • Mateus090985Mateus090985 Traveler
    edited April 2013
    Posted By: RalfYou just have to be patient with the trace tool, if the paths you are following are very fractalized: Start the trace, move the mouse cursor to the point you want to trace to, wait until the trace line has caught up, adjust as necessary, then right-click to finish the trace.

    If that doesn't work for you, copy the entity you want to trace to a temporary layer and roughly cut out the peice you want to trace. Use trim to make it fit exactly, then either trace this or use "combine paths" to add it to another border path.
    I am not sure if I understand your secong suggestion Ralf. Anyway, I will try to use it in a small island and see how it ccomes. I will post the results (or my utterly fail!)

    It is too much fractalizated =(. If did not have too much love for the amount of work that I put on some earlier maps I would redraw them to be more consistent with the detail level, but I probably canot recreat the same landmasses. It is sad =(.

    I will have to finish the wolrd map without regional divisions marked.
  • If you still want another version with poli borders, you can remove nodes a bunch of times and than add borders.
  • Reshape > remove nodes

    By right clicking on change properties and then click "change like draw tool" you can fix the lines of the continents back to the landmass.
  • I will try it today! Thank you. Lets see if you saved my life =)
  • 10 days later
  • So. I am doing great progress in my political borders, but now I am in a situation that I ont know how to do. I want to trace3 it following the red line in the image bellow, but how can I do it? If I begin in the coast, it will follow all the coast. If I beging in a mountaing range it will follow it. So, how to achieve what I want?
  • SkidAceSkidAce Traveler
    In this situation I would just draw it.
  • SkidAceSkidAce Traveler
    You can stop and start traces while continuing to draw an object such as a border.

    So trace the coast, stop trace, trace mountains, etc.

    When you "pause" your trace, the dialog should say next point, etc. Just select trace again and pick new object.
    I usually draw a small segment between the two to make it easier before selecting the next trace object.
  • You can simply stop the trace wherever you want it to stop. Or use T again and trace a river or some forest OR another border.

    Its easiest if you hide objects you dont want to trace or need while doing borders to speed up things.
  • I just draw it. I don't use trace. I use a wide line, with brick fill style. On some maps I have drawn the brick fill style it doesn't always look good, so I'll likely change them all to solid.
  • There are plenty of ways that work.

    If you want to show provinces + country borders. You can simply make a new drawtool and change line width of border. Then adding glow to the line to show a color on the outside for which country it is and on the inside what province it is using edge fade :)

    I use 20% opacity (Edge fade) + 75% transparency for borders
  • I will try to give it a try tomorow. Them I will come back here to tell you guys how it when. Thanks for all the tips. Lets see if I am ready for this =)
  • Ok. I is working =). It is a bit of work but not much more tham to trace hole islands. Thank you guys.
  • 1 year later
  • SheelonSheelon Newcomer
    I've been trying to add political / internal borders of late and have a few (possibly stupid) questions:

    The use to the word Trace - is this a separate command and if so where is it, or is it simply referring to using another command to trace the nodes of an existing coastline?

    When i tried myself to do this I discovered a Political Border line command which apparently is what I was looking for. Is this a new tool or something separate? It seems to work ok with a little jiggering (it tries to tie itself to vertices or nodes when trying to go to midpoint of another border line, for instance).
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