I had the chance to work on this over the weekend, so here's the latest update. Still no effects, but I don't think I will use too many of those anyway... so hope you enjoy!
I'm usually not very fond of world maps with a very high level of detail (and a very high count of symbols) but I think that in your case, it is turning out to be something really nice. I have one issue however, and I think you're going to hate me for this... Symbol scale. On each continent, they look fine. But the scale is very different from one continent to the other, with no reason I can see. It almost looks like if the continent on the left was floating high above the ground...
that's really strange, because I have been paying particular attention to the scale. All of my natural features are on a .68 scale, and I think for my cities and towns they are also a .68 or I may have gone down to a .58 to show the height of the mountains. I will recheck it, though, thanks for the head's up
you know... I'm sitting here looking at the image, and you are correct. It LOOKS like everything on the left side of my map is smaller than the right side. I can't figure that out... because everything is on a universal .68 scale. That is REALLY weird... but I will see what I can do to fix it. That's going to take a bit of work, but I will see what I can do.
The trees on the right are larger than the trees on the left side. Messes with our viewpoint. The trees upper left looks like shrubbery in comparison to the mountains.
even the mountains look smaller. Some how my scale got messed up. I'm going to go back and work on it this week. I didn't even notice that my scale somehow changed... but I will work on it.
Posted By: LadieStormSome how my scale got messed up.
I don't know if you have done this already, but if you haven't, go to File -> Drawing properties and set your default symbol scale to the value you are using. This will ensure that each time the scale is reset for some reason, it will default to that value.
Well, I've been working on this for a bit, and what I ended up doing, is completely redrawing the left side of my map. I'm still reworking it, so it still has that dark blue edge, but I plan to remove it so that it matches the other half of the map. But this is what I've redone so far... I hope I have addressed the scale problem, and thanks so much for catching that!
Scale as in size? Or scale as in geological? As far as size everything is on a .58 or .68 to keep everything uniform.
If you mean geological with poles and equator... There isn't one. This is NOT an 'earth like' place. Thus is one of the celestial planes for my campaign. The home of the gods... They created and maintained this realm... until they lost some of their power, and fell into a deep sleep, hence land of the slumbering gods.
I'm not sure I understand your question, Shessar. If you explain what you mean I will answer it better
I see.what you're talking about. That little strip of water just along the map border. I don't know what to tell you, it only shows up on the PNG. It's not there on the .fcw. I will take a look at it, see if there is anything I can do to fix it.
And thanks on the mountains and mountain lakes! All I do, is create spacing in my mountain ranges, then add the lakes on top. Once I redraw, the lakes fall behind the mountains. I just make sure I use the polygon draw with the ocean bitmap, and I extend the lake past the mountains so it fills the space. The program takes care of the rest
You've mostly answered my question LadieStorm. I was talking about the map's distance scale.
I understand now that this is an outer plane and that mapping the planes breaks all distance rules. However, I assume that since you've mapped this, that your players are going there. So what is the distance represented by the map? Since you have roads connecting cities, how long does it take to get from one city to the next? How will you determine this if you have no scale? This isn't a criticism, I'm honestly just curious.
Perfectly acceptable question, Shessar. . The answer is I will figure that out once I add it, which I fully intend to do. That's one of the finishing touches I'm putting in at the end.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.... have tried to make this post three times now... I'm getting tired of retyping this.. hopefully this time it will work.
I'm now starting to add the little details to this map, and I'm running into a snag that I need some help with, pretty please. Now that I've redrawn the left side of my map, and started adding some of the little islands, I'm, once again, running into that annoying blue coastline. What I originally did to get rid of it, was to change properties to the ocean bitmap fill, and that seemed to work perfectly... until I zoomed in while working on my terrains, and noticed little 'bit's of landmass off of some of my coasts. It took me a while to realize what those little bits of land were. You see, I fractalized and smoothed my coastlines to get rid of the jagged block feel to my landmasses. Apparently, when you use Mike Schley's style and try to fractalize or smooth your coasts... the land mass changes, the blue coastline does not. What you get, in the end, is the blue coastline cutting through the fractalization. Well, when I changed the blue coast to the ocean bitmap, it caused those little bits of land where the coastline cuts through the fractalizing.
What I REALLY want, is to change the blue coastline to the default landmass bitmap fill, but the bitmap fill selections don't include it. I thought about erasing the blue coast all together, using the node edit, but I can't right click on the erase button like I can with most of the other drawing tools. Plus I'm afraid I will end up with the same problem as before... those little bits of landmass due to the fractalization.
I'm hoping and praying that someone has an idea, answer, solution to this snag, because I'm at a loss.
If you don't want the coastline, simply deleting it instead of changing it's fill is the best option. This prevents all future problems when fractalizing.
The fix for outline and landmass not matching after fractalization is to delete the offending coastline, then recreate it using either 'Outline in current color' or simply make a copy of the landmass to the coastline sheet, then change the properties (Give it a width and appropriate fill).
As for the default landmass fill not being an option, this is not correct. A bitmap fill MUST be registered in the map, or it wouldn't work anywhere in the map, including the landmasses themselves. The name of the default landmass fill style i LAND_MS.
You mention that you cannot right click on the erase button like other buttons. I don't quite understand what you would want a right click on this button to accomplish?
Posted By: LadieStormgrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.... have tried to make this post three times now... I'm getting tired of retyping this.. hopefully this time it will work.
Save yourself some time when you're posting to a forum. Use a text program to type in your message. Save it. Mark it and then do a copy and paste to add it to the forum. If something goes wrong, you won't have to retype it.
Unfortunately, the rest of your problem exceeds my CC3/CC3+ mapping knowledge. However, if you can manage to erase the blue outline so that the left side of the map looks like the right side, your map will be much better for it. I assume it's not so simple that you can freeze everything except the layer where the blue coastline is defined and then just simply erase the blasted thing.
So I got rid of the annoying blue coastline, but now my shoreline is flat and blah looking. If I was working with the standard cc3+ template I would just set up glow effects to give my shoreline some depth, but that didn't seem to work with Schley's style. I tried beveling the shoreline but I that doesn't seem to work either.
Any ideas on how I can give my shoreline so.e umpf?
Lol... Fair enough. I wasn't able to get my laptop online today... So it will have to wait until.tomorrow. I will post then so you all can take a look.
Okay, so here is my Aeterna map up to this point. I added the shallows, and my compass, plus started adding the effects. Still looking for a way to add something to my shoreline, and I plan to add a scale bar, but I'm trying to remember there is a specific way to do it if you want to increase the size of the scale bar. I remember seeing a tutorial for adding/changing the size of a scale bar, but i can't remember where I saw it. I want to say I saw it in the Tome, but now I can't find the instructions.
Posted By: LadieStormStill looking for a way to add something to my shoreline
I really like the shoreline the way it is. Maybe you'll find a way to make it even better, but somehow, I doubt I'll like the "improvement." However, we'll see.
Posted By: DogtagThat looks really nice! What a neat RPG map. I like the mix of trees you used, so all forests don't look the same in all places.
I can't put my finger on why, but I especially like the islands in the middle.
Cheers, ~Dogtag
I like a variety! Besides, I'm looking out my window and seeing all the pine trees mixed in with the oaks, and I know that in most forests there are more than just one type of tree. There is a wild beauty in nature that I've always loved, and I like trying to bring that to the maps I make.
Posted By: Vintyri
Posted By: LadieStormStill looking for a way to add something to my shoreline
I really like the shoreline the way it is. Maybe you'll find a way to make it even better, but somehow, I doubt I'll like the "improvement." However, we'll see.
So what you are saying is maybe I should leave well enough alone? You know... I was planning on keeping my oceans simple, since there is so much going on in my land masses. maybe I will extend that simplicity to my shoreline as well It makes a great contrast. Fantastic idea Mark!
Comments
I'm usually not very fond of world maps with a very high level of detail (and a very high count of symbols) but I think that in your case, it is turning out to be something really nice. I have one issue however, and I think you're going to hate me for this... Symbol scale. On each continent, they look fine. But the scale is very different from one continent to the other, with no reason I can see. It almost looks like if the continent on the left was floating high above the ground...
Beautiflul mountains and mountain lakes, btw!
What is the scale of this map?
I'm curious. What's wrong?
If you mean geological with poles and equator... There isn't one. This is NOT an 'earth like' place. Thus is one of the celestial planes for my campaign. The home of the gods... They created and maintained this realm... until they lost some of their power, and fell into a deep sleep, hence land of the slumbering gods.
I'm not sure I understand your question, Shessar. If you explain what you mean I will answer it better
And thanks on the mountains and mountain lakes! All I do, is create spacing in my mountain ranges, then add the lakes on top. Once I redraw, the lakes fall behind the mountains. I just make sure I use the polygon draw with the ocean bitmap, and I extend the lake past the mountains so it fills the space. The program takes care of the rest
I understand now that this is an outer plane and that mapping the planes breaks all distance rules. However, I assume that since you've mapped this, that your players are going there. So what is the distance represented by the map? Since you have roads connecting cities, how long does it take to get from one city to the next? How will you determine this if you have no scale? This isn't a criticism, I'm honestly just curious.
I'm now starting to add the little details to this map, and I'm running into a snag that I need some help with, pretty please. Now that I've redrawn the left side of my map, and started adding some of the little islands, I'm, once again, running into that annoying blue coastline. What I originally did to get rid of it, was to change properties to the ocean bitmap fill, and that seemed to work perfectly... until I zoomed in while working on my terrains, and noticed little 'bit's of landmass off of some of my coasts. It took me a while to realize what those little bits of land were. You see, I fractalized and smoothed my coastlines to get rid of the jagged block feel to my landmasses. Apparently, when you use Mike Schley's style and try to fractalize or smooth your coasts... the land mass changes, the blue coastline does not. What you get, in the end, is the blue coastline cutting through the fractalization. Well, when I changed the blue coast to the ocean bitmap, it caused those little bits of land where the coastline cuts through the fractalizing.
What I REALLY want, is to change the blue coastline to the default landmass bitmap fill, but the bitmap fill selections don't include it. I thought about erasing the blue coast all together, using the node edit, but I can't right click on the erase button like I can with most of the other drawing tools. Plus I'm afraid I will end up with the same problem as before... those little bits of landmass due to the fractalization.
I'm hoping and praying that someone has an idea, answer, solution to this snag, because I'm at a loss.
The fix for outline and landmass not matching after fractalization is to delete the offending coastline, then recreate it using either 'Outline in current color' or simply make a copy of the landmass to the coastline sheet, then change the properties (Give it a width and appropriate fill).
As for the default landmass fill not being an option, this is not correct. A bitmap fill MUST be registered in the map, or it wouldn't work anywhere in the map, including the landmasses themselves. The name of the default landmass fill style i LAND_MS.
You mention that you cannot right click on the erase button like other buttons. I don't quite understand what you would want a right click on this button to accomplish?
Unfortunately, the rest of your problem exceeds my CC3/CC3+ mapping knowledge. However, if you can manage to erase the blue outline so that the left side of the map looks like the right side, your map will be much better for it. I assume it's not so simple that you can freeze everything except the layer where the blue coastline is defined and then just simply erase the blasted thing.
And Mark, I never considered that. For future long posts, I will consider that, thanks
Any ideas on how I can give my shoreline so.e umpf?
I can't put my finger on why, but I especially like the islands in the middle.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
So what you are saying is maybe I should leave well enough alone? You know... I was planning on keeping my oceans simple, since there is so much going on in my land masses. maybe I will extend that simplicity to my shoreline as well