All those little details are really awesome. Chapeau!
And great that you took Rotenburg ob der Tauber, I live not so far away from this place. By the way if you are interested in seeing digital models of Bavarian medieval places you can have a check at this site from the Bavarian government. The text is in German, but you just need to scroll down and klick the videos.
One technique I have picked up to construct complex, odd-shaped structures is to use the house tool with gable roof type and the shape set to 9 (trapezoid). Using these settings I can overlay houses so they are connected and the roof lines line up correctly. See image below.
[Image_11647]
I also used this technique to connect structures made with the house tool to make long running, direction changing wall as seen in the image below. The wall is the slim speckled orange structure running along the southern edge with the six-sided towers dispersed along its run.
[Image_11648]
The 45 degree turned sections coming off the 90 degree corners of the port facility were made by using the house tool to make the "extra" gable then re-positioning it to the outside point of the 90 degree bend.
Latest count: 264,625 entities occupying 18318.21 K memory. What is the CC3+ ceiling?
A note on the scale of the map. I created it at 6000 x 4600 feet. After I started the map I made came to the conclusion (possibly tragically) that I needed more real estate for the city. I didn't want to start from scratch, so I double the scale by resizing my grid overlays to wind up with dimensions of 12,000 x 9200 feet. When I adjusting settings for shadows and such I just half the dimension to get the proper setting (i.e if a building is 10 feet high I would input 5 instead of 10).
Below is a shot of the entire map area with districts and some roads labeled.
Posted By: QuentenSo inspiring - I will wait till you have finished before attempting my next city. This is flabergasterlingly stupendifyingly magnificent
Here is a shot of the west side of the city. You can see the Market Bridge. I made the bridge by cutting a piece out of a square guard tower form the Jonathan Robert's Cities set and pasting it together in SketchBook. Then I divided some of the stone differently and touched up the final drawing to minimize the quilting effect from a repeating pattern.
On the west side of the bridge on the southern side is a garrison of soldiers who are part of the city watch. On the northern side is a large pinkish building which houses Elandian officials who collect tolls from the traffic on the Old Highway. After crossing the bridge into the city you arrive at the main market square sometimes referred to as the New Market. On an island in the pond to the south of the square is a statue of King Melek who rebuilt the city after a fire destroyed most of it. He built the current walls which enclose approximately one square mile of land. He reigned for close to one hundred years after inheriting the crown at the age of twelve. He was know as King Melek the Builder and the city was renamed Melekhir in his honor after his death. He was the last righteous king of Elandia.
I have to add my kudos as well. Fascinating techniques and results. Great job.
I love seeing someone else do such a large map with so many details. I also have used Google maps of some European cities like Rothenburg for inspiration. I did a single block (of Waterdeep) using the same type of techniques you talked about here, but you taking it to such a much larger instance (a city, not just a single block) . And what you have done with the roof lines is something I will come back to the next time I look to do a city.
Oh, and I really like how you did the contour lines and shading to indicate the hills.
The structure just north of the East Gate is the eastern garrison of the town watch. The brown u-shaped structure butted against the north side of the garrison is a stables. The blue structure to the north of that is a tavern. The large brown structure just outside the gate and across the bridge is a stables. The orange building on the north side of the road from it is an inn. The road inside the city walls heading north leads to the Valley Gate.
My mapping has slowed down a bit as of late. Other tasks have required my time and to some extent I am waiting to catch my second wind. Maybe I should have named the city Marathon.
Was it a very difficult thing to do to make the background? I think you said you used PS or GIMP, but cant remember right now. I am starting to think that others might like to know how you did it if you could adapt it to GIMP - which is quite often used by CC3ers for things like this, and for making new symbols. Its kind of the unofficial-official bitmap editor for us because its used in many of the Tome exercises where a bitmap editor is required for stuff like making new city symbols, so quite a few CC3ers are more familiar with it than might be thought at a glance.
Do you think a GIMP newbie might be able to follow a set of straightforward instructions to create something like that for themselves?
Quenten, I am glad the map has been of benefit to you. I know that I have learned and been inspired a great deal by viewing the works of others and by their tutorials. It is my intent to pass on what I can of what I've learned.
Sue, I did the background in SketchBook which has been made free for download by Autodesk. Sometimes I take the work I do in SketchBook and tweak it it PS. For drawing I prefer SektchBook to PS. I don't have any experience with GIMP. The background is three or four different (if I remember right) parchment layers as a base. I tweaked the order and interaction of the layers to find what I liked best. I looked for tone and texture. Then I drew the linework on a separate layer. I initialy laid out the hills by drawing contour lines on a separate layer. I added different color for each contour. Once I had the hills drawn and colored in like I liked, I shaded and highlighted on separate layers to created depth. Shade was a multiply layer and highlight an overlay layer. Another note. I initially laid out the rivers in CC3+ and saved to a PNG. I used this as a guided in SketchBook when doing the background. If you look at the thread on Cartographers Guild (I reference the thread at the top of this thread) you get a small glimpse of this process as I worked it out.
Comments
And great that you took Rotenburg ob der Tauber, I live not so far away from this place. By the way if you are interested in seeing digital models of Bavarian medieval places you can have a check at this site from the Bavarian government. The text is in German, but you just need to scroll down and klick the videos.
https://www.schloesser.bayern.de/deutsch/service/bayern3d/index.htm
I really love the the digital model of the imperial castle of Nuremberg:
https://3d.realitymaps.de/Kaiserburg/
And of course Neuschwanstein ;)
https://3d.realitymaps.de/Neuschwanstein/
But maybe most interesting for you is the town of Landshut
https://3d.realitymaps.de/Landshut/
[Image_11647]
I also used this technique to connect structures made with the house tool to make long running, direction changing wall as seen in the image below. The wall is the slim speckled orange structure running along the southern edge with the six-sided towers dispersed along its run.
[Image_11648]
The 45 degree turned sections coming off the 90 degree corners of the port facility were made by using the house tool to make the "extra" gable then re-positioning it to the outside point of the 90 degree bend.
Hopefully these tips prove useful to you.
There is actually a really good German Restaurant in the area run by a German man and his sister. The food is very authentic.
A note on the scale of the map. I created it at 6000 x 4600 feet. After I started the map I made came to the conclusion (possibly tragically) that I needed more real estate for the city. I didn't want to start from scratch, so I double the scale by resizing my grid overlays to wind up with dimensions of 12,000 x 9200 feet. When I adjusting settings for shadows and such I just half the dimension to get the proper setting (i.e if a building is 10 feet high I would input 5 instead of 10).
Below is a shot of the entire map area with districts and some roads labeled.
On the west side of the bridge on the southern side is a garrison of soldiers who are part of the city watch. On the northern side is a large pinkish building which houses Elandian officials who collect tolls from the traffic on the Old Highway. After crossing the bridge into the city you arrive at the main market square sometimes referred to as the New Market. On an island in the pond to the south of the square is a statue of King Melek who rebuilt the city after a fire destroyed most of it. He built the current walls which enclose approximately one square mile of land. He reigned for close to one hundred years after inheriting the crown at the age of twelve. He was know as King Melek the Builder and the city was renamed Melekhir in his honor after his death. He was the last righteous king of Elandia.
[Image_11671]
You can see the shops along the bridge which was fairly common in the olden days.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%A4merbr%C3%BCcke
Thanks for the link.
[Image_11710]
Finally reached the East Gate.
[Image_11711]
More construction near the Old Market Square.
I love seeing someone else do such a large map with so many details. I also have used Google maps of some European cities like Rothenburg for inspiration. I did a single block (of Waterdeep) using the same type of techniques you talked about here, but you taking it to such a much larger instance (a city, not just a single block) . And what you have done with the roof lines is something I will come back to the next time I look to do a city.
Oh, and I really like how you did the contour lines and shading to indicate the hills.
[Image_11735]
The structure just north of the East Gate is the eastern garrison of the town watch. The brown u-shaped structure butted against the north side of the garrison is a stables. The blue structure to the north of that is a tavern. The large brown structure just outside the gate and across the bridge is a stables. The orange building on the north side of the road from it is an inn. The road inside the city walls heading north leads to the Valley Gate.
My mapping has slowed down a bit as of late. Other tasks have required my time and to some extent I am waiting to catch my second wind. Maybe I should have named the city Marathon.
Was it a very difficult thing to do to make the background? I think you said you used PS or GIMP, but cant remember right now. I am starting to think that others might like to know how you did it if you could adapt it to GIMP - which is quite often used by CC3ers for things like this, and for making new symbols. Its kind of the unofficial-official bitmap editor for us because its used in many of the Tome exercises where a bitmap editor is required for stuff like making new city symbols, so quite a few CC3ers are more familiar with it than might be thought at a glance.
Do you think a GIMP newbie might be able to follow a set of straightforward instructions to create something like that for themselves?
I am glad the map has been of benefit to you. I know that I have learned and been inspired a great deal by viewing the works of others and by their tutorials. It is my intent to pass on what I can of what I've learned.
Sue,
I did the background in SketchBook which has been made free for download by Autodesk. Sometimes I take the work I do in SketchBook and tweak it it PS. For drawing I prefer SektchBook to PS. I don't have any experience with GIMP. The background is three or four different (if I remember right) parchment layers as a base. I tweaked the order and interaction of the layers to find what I liked best. I looked for tone and texture. Then I drew the linework on a separate layer. I initialy laid out the hills by drawing contour lines on a separate layer. I added different color for each contour. Once I had the hills drawn and colored in like I liked, I shaded and highlighted on separate layers to created depth. Shade was a multiply layer and highlight an overlay layer. Another note. I initially laid out the rivers in CC3+ and saved to a PNG. I used this as a guided in SketchBook when doing the background. If you look at the thread on Cartographers Guild (I reference the thread at the top of this thread) you get a small glimpse of this process as I worked it out.