Community Atlas - Artemisia - Spiros Isle - Helinesa
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I thought I would map out a village before undertaking the larger task of a city (Stromphe) - though I have almost finished the geography of it.
So here is the beginning of Helinesa, in the NE of Spiros Isle. PLEASE HELP with your advice and criticism. Encouragement is nice, but the map will be better for your critique/advice.
So here is the beginning of Helinesa, in the NE of Spiros Isle. PLEASE HELP with your advice and criticism. Encouragement is nice, but the map will be better for your critique/advice.
Comments
If you want some advice for the further development, here are a few things:
-For the shore (beach or rocks), I usually use two sheets: One without edge fade effects and one with an edge fade inner effect that is put on top of the other one. This way the fill nicely covers the coastline but also blends in with the lands.
-In my not so extensive experience, the scale of the textures can be quite an issue with cities. If they are scaled too large, they look pixelated in close view, but if they are scaled too small, they look repetitive in full view. Especially for the background fills it is therefore important to use as a high resolution as you can get. Don't hesitate to use fills from overland styles, if you have large open spaces.
-You seems to use a slight bevel effects on the road, which is very nice, especially at the coast. However, in my experience an inverted bevel effect looks even a bit nicer. But this could lead to issues at the coast, since you don't want to create the impression, that the sea level is higher than the road. This can be avoided by using different sheets. I use a bevel effect on the docks sheet, then an edge fade inner (or no effect at all, if it is only used between two sheets with the same fill) on the blend sheet and an inverted bevel on the roads sheet.
-Also, on dirt roads I sometimes use two sheets, one with the inverted bevel and one with a slight blur either on top of it or below it. If I put the blurred sheet on top of the other, I also add a transparency effect. If the blurred road is put on top of the ordinary street sheet, the same sheet can also be used to draw dirt onto paved roads, as it would naturally occur if people walk from dirt roads onto paved ones with dirt still clinging to their boots ect.
-Also, cobblestone fills can be quite tricky to work with, especially on larger scale, because they sometimes don't render nicely, if scaled too small. But in order to make it look realistic, it is sometimes necessary to scale it rather small. Because of this, I mostly use dust roads instead of paved ones, especially with the Jon Roberts City style.
Thank you so much for your detailed advice - it is so appreciated, and will be heeded. One question, why not put he blur on the same sheet as the bevel? can you show me an example? Also, I do prefer the bevel, rather than the inverted bevel, but I will give your suggestions a go and see how they work out.
Regarding the Roads: In my experience the bevel effect does not work well with blur or edge fade inner, if the bevel size is rather small. Therefore I avoid using them on the same sheet. Also, it is of course perfectly fine to have different preferences regarding the bevel effect on roads. If you prefer bevel instead of inverted bevel, there is no need to try out my suggestion. I think I can see what kind of road you have in mind, that would be better represented by a bevel effect than a slighted bevel. Some time ago, the dirt road in the forest besides the village where my parents live, was fixed. They just put new gravel on top of the existing road and rolled it down. When thinking of it now, it actually exactly looked like a road with a bevel effect on it.:)
But there was also this old dirt road that really had dug itself into the surrounding lands, as if someone used an inverted bevel effect on it.:)
I would fractalise the coastline a bit more - too many "straight" sections...
For the village, it may be worth making one of the harbour-access roads wider than any are presently, given there's often a need to move wide wagon-loads to and from the sea (timber for boat repairs, boxes of fish, stacks of lobster-pots, etc.), and even to get small craft through to launch and recover them - depending on the nature of the harbour, naturally.
* CD3 Vector (Classic and Shaded) has some small boats and carts; at this scale and with a slight blur effect, you might get away with those here, but I'm not sure. The boats are under "Miscellaneous", the carts under "Vehicles/Roads".
* CD3 Bitmap B has a selection of hand-drawn carts wagons, chariots, horses, etc. (under "Vehicles").
* The SS2 pack has a rowboat with and without oars (Bitmap A, under "Cave").
I don't yet have SS3 or 4 installed however. CC3+ and SS1 don't have any top-down symbols like these, as far as I recall.
Just a detail: Since the top of the lighthouse is not made out of glass, the light would be obstructed in some parts. But I am not sure how this could be done, if you want to stick to the circular light entity. I think Monsen has a turtorial on complex shapes, which has a description on how to cut out parts of shapes.
Also, I'd suggest to make the entity larger and add a really strong edge fade inner effect.
Maybe add a shadow for the two larger ships? The docked one may need moving to a higher sheet than the quay, or it won't throw shade on the quay properly (given its sails are raised).
I would like to publicly thank the Forum community, and especially HadrianVI, Wyvern, Lorelei and JMunsenII for all the helpful advice and general encouragement. This was my first village brought to completin - thank you.
If I could make one suggestion at all, it might be to add just a touch of blur to some of the symbols (which would probably require a separate sheet), such as the top 3 boats and the bottom 3 wagons, and maybe the boat and wagon(?) by the lighthouse. They just seem kind of sharp or "extra contrast-y" to me. That said, I must repeat that I think this map is brilliant and adventure-ready!
Did I mention how cool the rocks and wheel ruts were? I did? Good.
Cheers,
~Dogtag
~Dogtag
Have to say too that the PNG version on the linked Nibirum Atlas page looks absolutely gorgeous!
*doffs cap*
~Dogtag