I am working on a map for a campaign I would like to run next spring. Are there any suggestions or improvements that you could suggest? What do you like and dislike?
I like the autumn like forests in the south western part of the map. Also, great job on the wall. The towers might be a bit oversized but working with smaller towers would mean a great deal of additional work, therefore I think it is justified to have the towers in the size you are currently using. I am not sure what size the map is supposed to be, but if it is around the standard size of 1000x800 miles or km, then the cities in the south are way too large. I think it would suffice to use one symbol to symbolize that there is a city.
I don't know if it is your intent or not, but my first impression is that the geographic areas are too distinct from one another. i.e. you have forest and then suddenly mountains, etc. But, that may be how you want it to look
My favorite CC3+ style, Herwin Wielink! I agree that the symbols might be on the large size, but then that's always a struggle. Also perhaps fade the different fills a little more so they flow into each other more than just stop and start. Increase the fade edge and decrease the inner opacity. That should help things to look more naturally blended. Good job on the autumn trees, BTW. That's something I struggled with for a long time and was never happy with until I 'autumnized" the Wielink forest fill, and that works perfect for my purposes.
Thank you for the comments! Hadrian I love that forest and I have a number of things in there that aren't very apparent at first glance that I am very pleased with. So I'm not very happy with the port cities either. Its supposed to the massive city surrounding the entire cove with large parts entirely abandoned separating more populated areas. But when I saw I didn't like it, I went to erase all of them and ended up erasing the marshland too. It was late and I kind of said to heck with it at that point. The wall was a huge pain and I really wish there was an actual wall symbol but I didn't see one so I made due with what I had.
Entrails the areas are supposed to be pretty distinct from one another with little to no overlap between them. The mountains and walled section are supposed to be completely cut off from the other areas. I think I will add some vegetation to the southern portion of the mountain area. I would like the marshland of the port cities to mesh with edge of the hills a little more but whenever I mess with it I don't like the outcome.
Scott I really love the Wielink style too. It has a more grim tone than the rest of the styles which is what I wanted for this map. I am torn between the symbol sizes often. In regards to the forest thank you I put a good bit of work into that area. I wasn't too pleased with the yellow trees at first but the more I built it up the better I liked them. I am struggling with the fade however. Right now they all have inner fades and I have messed with them a little bit but I'm not too pleased with any of the results. I think the problem is that between any of the areas is this patch of default land and whenever I mess with the inner edge it just seems to make the area I' working on smaller and widening that patch of default area. Is there anything I should be doing to fix that? Current settings are at 0.5 edge width and 80% inner opacity for inner edge fade.
I really love what you have done here, you've taken this style and made it your own, and done something I haven't seen before that is really cool and interesting! I absolutely love the mountain area and the walled cities. Keep up the great work!
...well, if you don't want to see the land between your fills you could try making the fill areas larger -- even overlap slightly -- so that when you apply your edge fade and they "shrink" or "pull away" there is less land space visible between them but they still have that fade.
A thought on your symbols -- if you want a slightly more "realistic" look you could vary the building symbol sizes slightly so you have sort of a more random look to building groupings. Same for tree symbols in the forest. And applying a black glow will make your symbols pop and stand out. It's really whatever you like and suits your purposes, though. There is no right or wrong way.
Thank you for the praise Pixel. I have a newly edited map that I am about to upload into show and tell. I hope that you enjoy the refurbished one as the original.
Scott I went ahead and erased those old cities and put in one that I think looks much better and hopefully conveys the idea that this used to be a massive metropolis that has since degraded vastly and now has large portions of are uninhabited by any living or sane individuals. What would you suggest for making those areas larger? Would you just place a larger form of the previous terrain over the top of the previous one or is there something else you would do?
Comments
I like the autumn like forests in the south western part of the map. Also, great job on the wall. The towers might be a bit oversized but working with smaller towers would mean a great deal of additional work, therefore I think it is justified to have the towers in the size you are currently using.
I am not sure what size the map is supposed to be, but if it is around the standard size of 1000x800 miles or km, then the cities in the south are way too large. I think it would suffice to use one symbol to symbolize that there is a city.
Cheers,
Hadiran
Entrails the areas are supposed to be pretty distinct from one another with little to no overlap between them. The mountains and walled section are supposed to be completely cut off from the other areas. I think I will add some vegetation to the southern portion of the mountain area. I would like the marshland of the port cities to mesh with edge of the hills a little more but whenever I mess with it I don't like the outcome.
Scott I really love the Wielink style too. It has a more grim tone than the rest of the styles which is what I wanted for this map. I am torn between the symbol sizes often. In regards to the forest thank you I put a good bit of work into that area. I wasn't too pleased with the yellow trees at first but the more I built it up the better I liked them. I am struggling with the fade however. Right now they all have inner fades and I have messed with them a little bit but I'm not too pleased with any of the results. I think the problem is that between any of the areas is this patch of default land and whenever I mess with the inner edge it just seems to make the area I' working on smaller and widening that patch of default area. Is there anything I should be doing to fix that? Current settings are at 0.5 edge width and 80% inner opacity for inner edge fade.
A thought on your symbols -- if you want a slightly more "realistic" look you could vary the building symbol sizes slightly so you have sort of a more random look to building groupings. Same for tree symbols in the forest. And applying a black glow will make your symbols pop and stand out. It's really whatever you like and suits your purposes, though. There is no right or wrong way.
Scott I went ahead and erased those old cities and put in one that I think looks much better and hopefully conveys the idea that this used to be a massive metropolis that has since degraded vastly and now has large portions of are uninhabited by any living or sane individuals. What would you suggest for making those areas larger? Would you just place a larger form of the previous terrain over the top of the previous one or is there something else you would do?