City mapping scale - meters or kilometers?
So recently, I've begun trying to map a large, modern city as part of a fictional country project. I have the "Modern City" style from the 2007 annual, which is what I'm using; I also plan to try out the "Modern Road" style, which is fairly similar overall, at some point, but my question applies to both of them. I've done very little actual mapping yet, and have just played around with the style a bit, and am not sure how to proceed on one basic aspect: scale.
Specifically, should I work in meters or kilometers? Based on the size and shape that I've determined for the city, the mapping area I will need to make this city in either city style mentioned above will be about 40 km by 40 km. This leaves me with two options: either a HUGE map, using meters, with the map dimensions being 40,000 by 40,000. OR, a really small map, using kilometers, with the dimensions being only 40 by 40. Now, obviously, a single map of the whole city, given that it's got an area of several hundred square km, will be fairly "zoomed out" and will omit many smaller details (smaller street names and such). So I do plan to do versions that are centered on one specific area within the city. But I would also like to have one big "overall" map of the entire city, which is where I'm stuck on how to proceed with the scale.
Either way, I would have to scale symbols and drawing tools quite a bit (since they would either be way too small or way too big by default). Does anyone have any experience working in this manner who can tell me if there are there any particular pitfalls or advantages to working with either the smaller or larger map size?
Or, if there is anything else about setting the scale that I am missing; all advice is appreciated!
Specifically, should I work in meters or kilometers? Based on the size and shape that I've determined for the city, the mapping area I will need to make this city in either city style mentioned above will be about 40 km by 40 km. This leaves me with two options: either a HUGE map, using meters, with the map dimensions being 40,000 by 40,000. OR, a really small map, using kilometers, with the dimensions being only 40 by 40. Now, obviously, a single map of the whole city, given that it's got an area of several hundred square km, will be fairly "zoomed out" and will omit many smaller details (smaller street names and such). So I do plan to do versions that are centered on one specific area within the city. But I would also like to have one big "overall" map of the entire city, which is where I'm stuck on how to proceed with the scale.
Either way, I would have to scale symbols and drawing tools quite a bit (since they would either be way too small or way too big by default). Does anyone have any experience working in this manner who can tell me if there are there any particular pitfalls or advantages to working with either the smaller or larger map size?
Or, if there is anything else about setting the scale that I am missing; all advice is appreciated!
Comments
I was looking at some real cities of comparable size in Google Maps, and noting how features and roads become visible or invisible as you zoom in/out to varying degrees; most notably, when zoomed out far enough so that all, or at least most, of the entire city is visible at once. At that zoom level, only major roads/highways, neighborhoods or districts, and sometimes a couple of the very largest and most significant landmarks/places of interest, are clearly visible and labeled.
So, maybe I should be focusing on smaller maps, which depict specific districts within the city, first? Build the whole city in that way, rather than trying to start with the overall city map? This would solve the scale issue, as I would be working with only one section of the city at a time; thus, instead of needing a map that's 40,000 meters across, I'd be working with several different maps that are each maybe 5,000-10,000 meters across.
Which is another question, again for anyone who has any experience or insight into city mapping: do you think it's easier to start with mapping individual sections, build them up, and create a picture of the whole city that way? Or would you rather start with a macro view, create a zoomed out whole city map that shows only districts and major streets/highways, and then get into more detailed maps of individual sections later?
I've been working on my large national map, which depicts the entire country and is quite "zoomed out", for some time now and have developed a good approach for working on it, but with this city mapping business, I feel a little out of my element. So I guess I'm really asking for any help or advice on the issue of how to proceed with such maps in general, in addition to the whole scale issue specifically. Any help is appreciated!
If you have never worked with a city map before it is always best to start small. The reason is because cities are unlike any other kind of map and actually need to be planned out ahead of time if you wish to build one that actually looks believable. If you don't plan them out then you will start to notice as you build them that small measurements are off here or there and things don't quite fit the way you thought they would. It is always a good idea to keep track of how big your city or portion of city that you are mapping is at all times, so you can actually fit the buildings in where they belong.
You also want to start small because the number of buildings you are going to have to put down on your map may not seem like a lot right now, but when you are neck deep in city symbols they will begin to feel never ending.
I think your idea of breaking it up at first, into smaller parts of the city is a great idea. It will help you tackle the city without becoming overwhelmed. In most maps you can overload your plate, and in most cases, you will only be slightly irritated and you will be able to fix any problems that arise fairly easily. But the problem with city maps, is that sometimes, the buildings are so close together that if you make a mistake, you might have to erase tons of work just to fix it. Sometimes your pointer might not only pick up the one symbol you want to erase or move or transform or anything else. Then you end up with multiple things selected. You could put each building on its own sheet but what a pain that would be in larger cities.
Well, I hope this helped you somehow.
Cheers
Tonnichiwa
If you do the city districts first, I would recommend that you start out with a rough overview of the entire city, get down the main roads and so on, to ensure the districts fit together properly (especially if you intend to fully map the city this way, and not just stick to mapping core/interesting districts.
Symbols normally scale to 1 when you are using 1000 x 800 as the base scale. In your case the symbol scale would be "40" times as big. That is rather large, and might not look good at all when placed together.
Remember that the 1000 x 800 scale is based on the entire map fitting on a single sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper and resolution still being decent enough to where the symbols actually matter (don't look like a blob of color).
As was already mentioned you might want to reverse your creation process to start BOTTOM -> UP. Start from the smaller neighborhood, and build up from there. If not, the task might end up being daunting and your results might not be satisfactory in the end.
Compare your size to current modern cities - Los Angeles (1300 KM), Washington DC (180 KM), London (1600 KM), Tokyo (2200 KM), Beijing (16,400+ KM), Istanbul (5300+ KM), Delhi (1480 KM)
Use real world maps of the most densely populated to see how they accomplish a full view without getting "too busy" with iconography. How would your map look in a single 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper? Use that as your main planning guide.
If you do plan to use individual symbols you will need a lot of patience. Take your time and don't get discouraged. Good luck with the project.
The one thing I'll make note of personally - I had been working on a massive city map for a few years (I was making Sigil from Planescape). The bigger it got, the slower my PC ran. It now takes about 20 seconds to just open the map. Applying effects tries my patience. Navigating around the map, zooming in and out...I wanted to smash my PC. It is only about one fourth of the way done.
I've given up and went with Dkarr's recommendation of polygons to denote neighborhoods with only significant buildings placed. It may not be as pretty, but for my gaming purposes, it works just fine.
I'm not too worried about ending up with too many buildings or symbols - the annual mapping styles I will be using that I mentioned in my first post are meant to emulate modern city and street maps and are very light on symbols in general. They aren't meant to show individual buildings or houses, save for major landmarks or important locations which are represented with simple shapes.
That said, I seem to basically have a consensus from everyone that's commented that starting small is better, that focusing on maps of individual districts, at least initially, will be easier. The more I thought about it, the more I was thinking this would be the better way to go myself. As per Monsen's suggestion, I'll work on a "city overview" map as well, though it will probably be a WIP that gets created alongside the smaller district maps, since determining things like major roads and such will be partly based on where the important locations and streets are within each district.
I'll just have to keep track of everything as I go, especially when adding elements to one district that will affect others (e.g. roads or railway lines that will go through multiple district maps), and also the size and positions of every district and major landmark - great point there tonnichiwa! It'd be really easy to inadvertently create multiple district maps that all look great on their own, but only sort of fit together as a larger city.
Re: the scale - that makes sense. I'll probably just go with meters then, for simplicity, plus it makes more sense to do so for a smaller neighborhood or district map anyway.
EDIT: I noticed that links to the other city tutorial by Clercon (which uses the polygon district method) only list the first two parts (of four)! Here are links to Part 3 and Part 4.
Cheers,
~Dogtag