Remember that when using this, you can define a new symbol in CC3(+) that incorporates both image files in one symbol. That way you get an easy to use cliff with waterfall symbols, without having to modify the original artwork. Works easily with the varicolor symbols as well.
Oh. (blushes). Thanks. That's really high praise coming from both of you - and thanks for the tip, Monsen. I will give it a go
It might be worth noting that the fall doesn't rotate all that well if you want to adjust it a very tiny bit (I tried), so here is a slightly different Fred I managed to create before Windows 10 ate my graphics package for brunch. The rotation is slightly different here - more suited to the rotation I use in the map I was working on - about 3 degrees anticlockwise.
This is the steam to go with the two variations on waterfall that FOLLOW (the previous two are inferior in quality). In combination these three png files should create a more realistic fall scene than the other two previous to this post, although I am now fairly tired after refereeing the ongoing battle between Win 10 and an out of date graphics package and you may have to resize the graphics relative to the HW symbols and to each other.
I have had some success in using these waterfalls together to make one wider waterfall, although the number of times you can keep repeating the same two waterfalls is limited.
I may try to add a third waterfall to the collection if there is any demand for it - these are not professional graphics, so you may wish to wait for better.
I'm not an artist, which is why I use Profantasy's mapping software. I can't freehand a circle, and get a circle. So your work on these is appreciated.
...well... I'm still struggling to make them look right on my map (lol).
Thank you both for being so kind. I hope these prove to be useful to others - and no, I don't mind a bit if people want to "adjust" them in any way to better suit the purpose
Is it just me, or have I got the perspective just slightly wrong at the top of the waterfalls? Maybe they would work even better if they didn't have such very long "tails" at the top?
I don't know. What do you think? Please be honest, now.
The angle seems off to me as well, but it is a cliff, obscured by the water, so it's possible the cliff face takes a turn there.
Honestly, I liked it better as the first, smaller, Yosemite Falls-style waterfall. Remember to keep in mind the overall scale of your map, too! I know you said you want people to be able to zoom in to see detail but your map and your readers (and the poor computers) may be better served, at some point, by creating regional maps from the main global map.
Did you say this is for a novel (or series of novels)? Is it going to be printed on paper?
You truly have done some beautiful mapping here! Keep the updates coming....also keep up up to date on the actual novel! I am an avid reader and am always looking for new material
Its definitely how the cliff curves compared to the waterfall that is making it look odd. You could probably hide this with my vapor near the middle and upper portions of the waterfall.
I love your map and think your waterfall is fantastic.
Might I suggest making the waterfall slightly transparent on the top river side, to allow the lake water color to show through a bit. It would blend better I think. (Just a suggestion, it is great as it is now.)
Posted By: JimPSomething does look off at the waterfall top. Not sure what. My suggestion would be to look up photos of waterfalls.
I had a lot of trouble placing them because of the tail, which seems to enforce a perspective on the drawing that really doesn't work. I will get rid of the tails next time I have a go at them.
Posted By: DogtagThe angle seems off to me as well, but it is a cliff, obscured by the water, so it's possible the cliff face takes a turn there.
It doesn't help that the cliff is a mound and doesn't really look right with a waterfall coming right over its crest, but I'm certainly not good enough to draw an alternative "U" shaped cliff and make it fit the HW style. We would have to ask the original artist for one of those. And in response to your preference Dogtag, I will do a range of different types of waterfall over time. I don't think it will be too hard to generate a collection of different types, once we work out where I'm going wrong with these first few - so I can avoid the major problems. It would give me great pleasure to give something back for all the beautiful things I've seen on this forum.
Scale? Yes. I'm definitely having a really big problem with this - some kind of a mental block, which is funnier than you think, since I once trained to be an Ordnance Survey cartographer for real... In those days, however, female cartographers were never taken as much more than a joke... I also have something of an obsession with needing the map to be a map of the entire world, just like the one the expedition have to carry around with them on their journey, along with the rather cantankerous Aktan cartographer, who's responsibility it is to update it as they go... but I would be telling too much if I carry on explaining why, and I have already been asked not to spoil the story
Fortunately, this isn't intended as a printable map, since the books will all be e-books (I don't like the idea of half a forest being cut down just to bear my words). This will be an electronic map to be explored online on the website. I really can't get my head around different views. They don't seem to work the way I think they should on my widescreen laptop, so I will carry on rendering it as one vast image, though I'm thinking of chopping the render into segments and making it so that when a user is looking at it on the webpage and gets to the edge of the map they can click the next button (up, down or either side) to get the adjacent sheet in view. I'm hoping that won't be too difficult to arrange (though I admit I could do with some advice on that front - a handy online png viewer that will do the job I describe, perhaps?).
Posted By: loreleiI am an avid reader and am always looking for new material
I have planned to write a series of five, and have attached a very much reduced set of covers to let you have a few clues
You might notice that I was already trying to do a map on the cover of book 2, and not really getting there with it. Thanks to CC3+ I hope to make that particular problem a thing of the past.
How odd - I tried to quote the both of you that commented whilst I was taking my time over the last but one comment, and I don't seem to be able to now that we've gone to page 2.
Never mind. I will do my best to remember, since I can't flick between pages without loosing what I've just typed.
Thatguy - yes, it is difficult trying to make any waterfall look good coming over the top of a cliff because the mind just yells "That can't be right", I'm hoping, however that doing away with the tails will somewhat improve the problem. I will upload the improved falls when I have time to do them over the next few days.
Shessar - yes, transparency would definitely help. The only reason I created the tails as long as they were in the first place is because the transparency of the cliff symbol itself doesn't really come anywhere near the edge of the cliff. I've since decided, though, that it would be easier to put the lakes and rivers sheets above the symbols sheet, which means I won't have to worry about that any more... and thanks for the compliment
I've attached a visual analysis of the waterfall/cliff/perspective problem, which boils down to this:
The cliff itself (apart from being a mound rather than a U shape), has a very concave face aspect, shown by the red lines marking the basic form of the cliff. Sometimes its difficult to tell if the cliff overhangs, or if ridges protrude - shown at the point circled yellow. Here, it is practically impossible to tell if a waterfall should smash into the protruding rock, or fly past it on its way down.
The waterfalls have an unexpectedly powerful perspective to them (Isn't that just the way - if I'd TRIED to do a perspective drawing it would have gone wrong!). You can see this, even in the waterfall with the chopped off tail, by the way it has a definite origin either to the left, or right, as mirrored in the screen shot.
I can't do anything about the cliff, but I will see what I can do about the directional nature of the waterfalls
Thanks Charles. I've been looking at images of waterfalls online a lot since the last post I made, and I've realised a few rather important facts:
First fact: 90% of the time, waterfalls aren't vertical, especially near the top. They fly out from the edge of the cliff at anything between 5 degrees and 15 degrees off vertical, and only slowly arc back towards it. Most never do because of the second fact.
Second fact: uninterrupted falls are extremely rare. Most falls hit at least one obstacle on the way down and bounce all over the place - each time fanning out and becoming more spread out and transparent. The obstacle can even be an opposing jet in the same waterfall.
Third fact: I'm really no good at drawing realistic water (lol) but something about the way I'm smearing the lines I draw seems to be close enough to achieve a close approximation I suspect this doesn't seem to matter in this instance simply because the HW style is a long way off looking like real rock - yet still we all seem to like it
Having learned all of this I will have another go, but not right now. Its nearly 2 am where I am.
Isn't it funny the things you notice on first glancing at something the next morning...
If you rotate the cliff so that it lifts at the right hand end the ridges down its face are more realistically vertical, and its clearer where the water should really be hitting the rocks or disappearing behind them on the way down (like with the scribbled waterfall I started with). I had automatically rotated the cliff in the original drawing without even realising I had done it, but when I started to work on the waterfalls so that other people could use them, I made the mistake of NOT rotating the cliff before I started.
I will turn the cliff back to where I had it in the first place before I carry on, just because it looks better that way when you start adding water features to it.
Posted By: MonsenRemember that when using this, you can define a new symbol in CC3(+) that incorporates both image files in one symbol.
I tried it, and it worked, Monsen... but... and forgive me for being a bit stupid about these things, where will I find the new symbol I have made?
You see, when I hit "do it" all three symbols suddenly disappeared, and didn't seem to turn up anywhere I could see them. I ended up undoing it and leaving it as 3 pieces ready for your advice in this example map (shown above).
Please can you help? I just need to know what folder I'm looking in for the result
I hope you dont mind a noob like me being critical but I feel something is off with that blue lake. I feel like the black outline is making it "pop" when it should blend... What do you think?
This is a beautiful map just in and of itself, never mind the larger whole. This latest iteration of the falls looks fabulous. I love how you filled the plateau with vegetation and obscured the rivers leading to the falls, as if running through thick forest. I also like the water pooling at the base of the falls and running in rivulets to the larger lake. Very nice and, frankly, inspiring.
Posted By: thatguy14I feel something is off with that blue lake. I feel like the black outline is making it "pop" when it should blend... What do you think?
That's the sea... and I know what you mean, and it will be resolved during the fine tuning bit of the operation. I'm not sure whether I should have my equatorial flash quite so bright - the oval we discussed on the last page! It might also help if I didn't have such a deep fade on the grassland sheets, with allows the dark inner glow of the land to show quite prominently. It all looks fine if you pull out, but close up... hmmmn. I'll think about that.
Posted By: DogtagThis is a beautiful map just in and of itself, never mind the larger whole. This latest iteration of the falls looks fabulous. I love how you filled the plateau with vegetation and obscured the rivers leading to the falls, as if running through thick forest. I also like the water pooling at the base of the falls and running in rivulets to the larger lake. Very nice and, frankly, inspiring.
That's really kind of you Dogtag. Thanks. I'm afraid, however, that hiding the rivers to the falls was more of a necessity, while the falls are still under development and causing a few positioning problems. A lot of this map is down to a combination of the film-like view I have of the world I'm trying to express in this map, and all the work-arounds I have to use to get over the problems I encounter when my dreams turn out to be a bit TOO grandiose! When I manage to solve all the problems, however (like the waterfalls, which are a very necessary part of the map), it looks ok.
Shall I expect to see lots of cliffs, waterfalls, forests and pools from you in the future?
Comments
Remember that when using this, you can define a new symbol in CC3(+) that incorporates both image files in one symbol. That way you get an easy to use cliff with waterfall symbols, without having to modify the original artwork. Works easily with the varicolor symbols as well.
It might be worth noting that the fall doesn't rotate all that well if you want to adjust it a very tiny bit (I tried), so here is a slightly different Fred I managed to create before Windows 10 ate my graphics package for brunch. The rotation is slightly different here - more suited to the rotation I use in the map I was working on - about 3 degrees anticlockwise.
I may try to add a third waterfall to the collection if there is any demand for it - these are not professional graphics, so you may wish to wait for better.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Thank you both for being so kind. I hope these prove to be useful to others - and no, I don't mind a bit if people want to "adjust" them in any way to better suit the purpose
I don't know. What do you think? Please be honest, now.
Honestly, I liked it better as the first, smaller, Yosemite Falls-style waterfall. Remember to keep in mind the overall scale of your map, too! I know you said you want people to be able to zoom in to see detail but your map and your readers (and the poor computers) may be better served, at some point, by creating regional maps from the main global map.
Did you say this is for a novel (or series of novels)? Is it going to be printed on paper?
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Might I suggest making the waterfall slightly transparent on the top river side, to allow the lake water color to show through a bit. It would blend better I think. (Just a suggestion, it is great as it is now.)
Scale? Yes. I'm definitely having a really big problem with this - some kind of a mental block, which is funnier than you think, since I once trained to be an Ordnance Survey cartographer for real... In those days, however, female cartographers were never taken as much more than a joke... I also have something of an obsession with needing the map to be a map of the entire world, just like the one the expedition have to carry around with them on their journey, along with the rather cantankerous Aktan cartographer, who's responsibility it is to update it as they go... but I would be telling too much if I carry on explaining why, and I have already been asked not to spoil the story
Fortunately, this isn't intended as a printable map, since the books will all be e-books (I don't like the idea of half a forest being cut down just to bear my words). This will be an electronic map to be explored online on the website. I really can't get my head around different views. They don't seem to work the way I think they should on my widescreen laptop, so I will carry on rendering it as one vast image, though I'm thinking of chopping the render into segments and making it so that when a user is looking at it on the webpage and gets to the edge of the map they can click the next button (up, down or either side) to get the adjacent sheet in view. I'm hoping that won't be too difficult to arrange (though I admit I could do with some advice on that front - a handy online png viewer that will do the job I describe, perhaps?). I have planned to write a series of five, and have attached a very much reduced set of covers to let you have a few clues
Never mind. I will do my best to remember, since I can't flick between pages without loosing what I've just typed.
Thatguy - yes, it is difficult trying to make any waterfall look good coming over the top of a cliff because the mind just yells "That can't be right", I'm hoping, however that doing away with the tails will somewhat improve the problem. I will upload the improved falls when I have time to do them over the next few days.
Shessar - yes, transparency would definitely help. The only reason I created the tails as long as they were in the first place is because the transparency of the cliff symbol itself doesn't really come anywhere near the edge of the cliff. I've since decided, though, that it would be easier to put the lakes and rivers sheets above the symbols sheet, which means I won't have to worry about that any more... and thanks for the compliment
I've attached a visual analysis of the waterfall/cliff/perspective problem, which boils down to this:
The cliff itself (apart from being a mound rather than a U shape), has a very concave face aspect, shown by the red lines marking the basic form of the cliff. Sometimes its difficult to tell if the cliff overhangs, or if ridges protrude - shown at the point circled yellow. Here, it is practically impossible to tell if a waterfall should smash into the protruding rock, or fly past it on its way down.
The waterfalls have an unexpectedly powerful perspective to them (Isn't that just the way - if I'd TRIED to do a perspective drawing it would have gone wrong!). You can see this, even in the waterfall with the chopped off tail, by the way it has a definite origin either to the left, or right, as mirrored in the screen shot.
I can't do anything about the cliff, but I will see what I can do about the directional nature of the waterfalls
First fact: 90% of the time, waterfalls aren't vertical, especially near the top. They fly out from the edge of the cliff at anything between 5 degrees and 15 degrees off vertical, and only slowly arc back towards it. Most never do because of the second fact.
Second fact: uninterrupted falls are extremely rare. Most falls hit at least one obstacle on the way down and bounce all over the place - each time fanning out and becoming more spread out and transparent. The obstacle can even be an opposing jet in the same waterfall.
Third fact: I'm really no good at drawing realistic water (lol) but something about the way I'm smearing the lines I draw seems to be close enough to achieve a close approximation
Having learned all of this I will have another go, but not right now. Its nearly 2 am where I am.
If you rotate the cliff so that it lifts at the right hand end the ridges down its face are more realistically vertical, and its clearer where the water should really be hitting the rocks or disappearing behind them on the way down (like with the scribbled waterfall I started with). I had automatically rotated the cliff in the original drawing without even realising I had done it, but when I started to work on the waterfalls so that other people could use them, I made the mistake of NOT rotating the cliff before I started.
I will turn the cliff back to where I had it in the first place before I carry on, just because it looks better that way when you start adding water features to it.
You see, when I hit "do it" all three symbols suddenly disappeared, and didn't seem to turn up anywhere I could see them. I ended up undoing it and leaving it as 3 pieces ready for your advice in this example map (shown above).
Please can you help? I just need to know what folder I'm looking in for the result
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
~Dogtag
Shall I expect to see lots of cliffs, waterfalls, forests and pools from you in the future?