City of Curton

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

Hello everyone.

About three weeks ago I was approached by the author Hans Cummings, the ENnie Awards Submissions Coordinator and Public Relations guy, and he asked me to make a map for his new book. He's given me permission to show it to everyone so here it is, the city of Curton. Enjoy.

Barliman · February 2018

Very good work. I like the sprawl outside the walls.

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

Thanks Barliman

[Deleted User] · February 2018

Any chance of a city/town like this for the atlas? And we need some done in Artemisia for the Realms Works projects too?

ahawk1972 · February 2018

If you don't mind me asking how to you make the outer city walls?

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

@ Quenten: I really want to. I'm under serious pressure to find work or make money somehow now though so I haven't had much time to do anything except commissions. I haven't even really been able to work on my youtube channel as much as I want to either. I plan on releasing my symbols for free to everyone that I make in Perspectives 3 but I will be starting a Patreon account so people can influence what I make and vote on different building styles and stuff. But trust me, I do want to make some cities like this and with other styles as well. I was considering doing one for the Minotaur culture in Artemisia using the symbols from the standard CC3 set.

@ahawk1972: Well, I couldn't find any free standing wall symbols so I made my own. That is why there are so many towers. they cover up my bad mistakes when trying to make my own symbols. But I think they turned out great. If you look up the city of Mok Torkan you will see a different way that I also made walls for the city.

ahawk1972 · February 2018

Any chance you would share these walls? I think they are amazing!

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

Thanks, I'm glad you like them but I can't share them. They are modified symbols and we cannot share modified symbols according to our licensing agreement with Profantasy.

However, if you would like to get some of my other symbols that I made in perspectives 3 you can go to the Cartographer's Guild and look on their forums in the Mapping Elements thread. There you will find my isometric buildings. They are under a thread titled "Isometric Building Symbols for CC3+ (or any other program you want to use them in)".

These are not modified symbols but symbols that I created so you are free to use them as you wish except that you cannot sell them as is for profit. They must be used in something like a map or a greeting card or something.

ahawk1972 · February 2018

Awesome thanks so much, and I didn't know about the rule sorry.

Thanks,

Loopysue · February 2018

But we are allowed to show ahawk how to make them for himself in a new thread perhaps (and if Tony has time, since I really can't even breathe at the moment)?

Is that right... Remy? Ralf? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick at some point?

...

Really great used of the style, Tony. Congratulations on a commission well done

Monsen · February 2018

Posted By: LoopysueIs that right... Remy? Ralf? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick at some point?

Sure, as long as you don't post the symbols themselves (original or modified) in a usable state. For example, a work in progress screenshot from an image editor where you are working with the symbol is fine, but posting the just the actual symbol (original, work in progress, finished) is not.
Note that this is based on the license agreement for the official ProFantasy symbols, for symbols from other sources, you need to check their eula, but generally, as long as the eula allows you to post your work (containing the artwork in question), the same should be fine for them. As a general reminder, also remember that a lot of the free artwork out there doesn't allow redistribution (which a modified version of the original symbol falls under), so all this usually still applies to free stuff, not just purchased artwork.

Loopysue · February 2018

O..K...

So, its down to which of us can break off enough time to do one of those 'tuts in a thread' things on the subject.

I'm not sure I know which symbols you used, Tony, or exactly what you did to them. Do you have time to give us a hint if you haven't got time to do the actual tut?

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

It's simple really.

1. Find a city symbol you would like to get a particular wall direction and shape from.

2. Put the symbol on your map.

3. Hide all of the sheets except for the Symbol sheet.

4. Export it to a program like Gimp or Photoshop, making sure that none of the options for anti ailiasing or any of the others are checked. I did it in Gimp.

5. So in Gimp, you bring up the erasor. Then you erase everything except the wall section you want. You will probably have to zoom into the picture to do this.

6. Once you've got nothing but the wall section you want left, go to the magic wand in Gimp.

7. Click the magic wand onto the white area outside the symbol.

8. Go over to the layers and right click on it.

9. Go down to add alpha channel and left click it.

10. Now press the delete button on your keyboard. This will bring up a checkerboard pattern. This pattern lets you know that your background is now transparent. This is the tricky part because anything that you haven't erased won't be transparent. So you will probably have to be really careful when erasing things to be sure you get it all. That can be tricky because when erasing stuff you are usually doing it off of a white background and a lot of the symbols have white in them so it can be hard to see what you've erased.

11. Now you go to the "image" menu and open it to "Scale Image" and make sure your image is the scale you want it to be by entering the image size and then pressing the "Scale" button.

12. Next you go to the "File" menu and left click on the "export as" line and follow the rest of the instructions. Once it is exported you have your symbol.

13. Take your symbol and put it in a folder where you keep your custom made symbols and pull up a map to test it on. You always want to test it to see if it works because sometimes you might have made a mistake when making the symbol. For instance, you might have left some color in the wrong place, or the symbol might pixelate out too much when brought to a certain size and not fit in with the rest of your symbols. If this happens, you have to start over and try to make it again.

Loopysue · February 2018

Oh I see.

I had it all wrong in my imagination, then. I thought you would just open the png directly in GIMP and the background would automatically be transparent.

Ok.

Thanks for that, Tony

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

Well, it might be, but I didn't do it that way. You might have just made the whole process more easy for me..lol

EDIT: Yup, it works that way Sue. I just tried it. Thanks for giving me an easier way to do this.

Loopysue · February 2018

Does it?

Oh... right.... ok...

You're welcome

Are you going to do the tut in a thread then?

I don't think I even know which symbols those walls came from to be able to duplicate what you did anyway *scratches head thoughtfully*

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

I used all three of the walled city symbols that had the tudor buildings on them from the Mike Schley overland style. I'm not sure if I have the time to do a full tutorial. I wouldn't know how to get a screenshot of some of the major mistakes to avoid when doing it either. Some of your mistakes you will only be able to see while the symbol is in Gimp, or once you try to place it on a map and the color weirdness becomes obvious by not blending in with what you have on your map.

Loopysue · February 2018

Tudor walled city walls....

I'm a bit worn out right now, but I'll have a look in the morning.

Maybe the colour issues were as a result of you rendering them out from CC3 and then processing them to transparent in GIMP? I don't know anything about the technical details, but it sounds a bit like a difference of colour profiles *says she taking a wild stab at it and probably making the guys who know choke with laughter over their cocoa* :P

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

I'll have to try to make one and see, though some of it was definitely from not erasing enough of the symbol properly. It can be kind of difficult to get it right, depending on what part of the symbol you are trying to use.

Loopysue · February 2018

When you open it in GIMP, maybe it would help to see what you are doing if you add a layer of solid white underneath the image layer.

When I'm mapping in GIMP, I find that where there are lots of transparent smears of colour that are barely visible you can detect them more easily if you just duplicate the image layer on top of itself several times - making everything less transparent and far more visible.

You have to be careful when erasing the transparent fade-out areas, though, because you can end up with sharp edges on things that shouldn't have sharp edges at all.

Tonnichiwa · February 2018

I was able to actually detect the parts I missed by using the wand again once I made the background transparent. It would then put a moving line around anything that I missed so I was able to see where I had made a mistake. But it's a pain switching from the wand to the eraser if you are zoomed in.

Loopysue · February 2018

I just click the eraser tool.

I bet there are shortcut keys for all those tools. I just gave up learning shortcuts forever ago, when I realised I was going to have to learn a completely different set for each app I use.

I get the ones I know muddled up as it is - GIMP shortcuts in Krita and vice versa! LOL!

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City of Curton

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