That background is beginning to pixelate rather a lot. You could try scaling the fill down a bit... quite a lot?
Some really nice concepts coming along there
And yes, you can add several images to one comment. You just have to edit them.
If you want to put comments between them you can insert them by using "[Image_xyz]" Where xyz is the image number given to the image you have already uploaded the first time, and which should be visible at the bottom of the comment box next time you edit the comment.
Aaaah, thank you Sue, I am really no good with those things, thanks! I try it right the next time!
The pixel-background is because I zoomed so deep in that you can see what the Tear of Desperation had for lunch :-). I will do the scaling after I added alle the background colours for grassland etc., but yes, you are right, it hurts the eyes (maybe it's because I've made screenshots, no rendering).
By the way at the moment I work on a region called 'The Dark Land', an area somewhere hidden in the icelands (I put it to the noerthwestern border of the map). The sourcebook says not much about it, only that it is called the dark land, that it is very hard to go there, that it is a region where the one who gets there needs to pass 40 challenges and at the end he may find a newly kingdom (such phrases are dangerous at RdW...).
I somehow tried to integrate this in the things I've done already at the map (volcanos etc.) but now I wonder what could be the salt&pepper to add there? A temple? A ruin? Some magical?
The joy of mapping: We just put a happy litte steppe fire over there :-)
Not sure where it will be at the end. It's mentioned in a sourcebook that steppe fires with a front of many kilometers from time to time devastate the lands...
By the way thanks Remy Monsen, I tried out the RGB effect from your lates blog post on the gras, it worked very well. Thank you for explaining! Having a Monsen, as Quenten said :-)
The ash is a fill from Digital Overland style.
The gras is a marsh fill from Mike Schley with an RGB on Blue -0.01
The Fire is a picture of a cloud I found in the Profantasy Folder (subfolder Terraformer - don't know what this is exactly :-)) which I converted to a bmp and made a fill out of it.
Agreed. I use a lot of RGB sheet effects, and this demonstrates their power really well.
Another great effect (though its usually better to use this one if you only want to change the colour slightly rather than a lot) is the Hue Saturation Lightness effect.
The Dark Land description makes me think of The Nothing in Michael Ende's "The Neverending Story", as a kind of blank page waiting to be written upon, or equally, something that could destroy the world if it is NOT written on!
Not sure if it would work too well, but maybe some ghostly half-formed structures or creatures might spice-up the current Dunkle Land illustration? As if they were coming into existence as a new kingdom by someone trying to meet the 40 challenges, say (and following this "Neverending..." idea).
Would a small dead tree symbol or two work in the burnt steppe land as well? Maybe with a leafy bush symbol or so in the unburnt part? The wall of fire looks wonderful regardless of that.
Absolutely Wyvern, good ideas! The steppe fire scenery needs more details, a burned tree is a good one. I was just so happy that this idea of a steppe fire, which I have in mind since weeks, turned out this way, that I shared it bevore it was completely done. :-)
Your thoughts on Michael Ende reminded me that I should read this book again, it‘s too long ago.
For this map my to-do list with ideas from this forum now already became quite long and I think I will take a rest now from mapping to think about on how to implement them on the map. Also getting some inspirations from reading a good book will generate new energy...
I have a lot of loose ends on the map now which all needs to get elaborated in detail. You can find a high-res version of this work in progress here:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak-JjeRFvmSPrhemUoDvUfX2syGn
As I said, now it's time for a rest to get some new ideas. Thank you all for your input! I continue posting after the rest :-)
Ah, and for the time beeing one question to Sue: I was scaling down the parchment background as you suggested, but it doesn't look good as I got these typical squares everywhere. Maybe you have a suggestion for this.
On the other hand, with a certain resolution, it might look likes folds... or what do you think?
Oh I didn't realise you were using those ones in particular.
Those are meant to be folds, but maybe they don't really suit this map all that well. They are a bit sharp and distracting.
I can't remember off the top of my head if all my textures were included in that set, but these are seamless updates of what I have in my own folders - without folds (these are 3000 pi square and extremely large, so can be used at a larger scale than most fills).
This folder has been shared without editing privileges to make sure no jokers get into it and change things around. I am hoping (since I am a bit new to OneDrive) that you can still download them.
Please see the comment below for advice about how to use them.
Actually, I think you may be using one of the non-seamless parchments as if it was seamless - hence the mismatch. I can't really tell. What's the name of the one you are using?
No worries, it‘s not urgent, I can tell you the name today in the evenning, atm I am on a horse farm with my daughter as every Sunday - that’s one result of my middle earth map for her: she wants to be like Eowyn...
And thanks again!
I have uploaded a few seamless tiles to the first link in my comment above.
One of them might be ok.
They do look rather desperately plain, but the thing about seamless parchment is that if you have a very large map the texture must necessarily be pretty bland or you get a lot of rather distracting repeated patterns when there are more than 10 or so repeats across the map. The pretty textures are tempting, but plain is best if you don't want to see those patterns like a crazy carpet grid. They are also 3000 pixels square, so although they will withstand a lot more enlargement than most tiles I wouldn't recommend downloading them all into the one folder and using them all as bitmap fills at the same time in the same map, or it might slow you down quite a bit.
Pick one or two to try and put them in your User folder inside the Tiles folder here: C:\ProgramData\Profantasy\CC3Plus\Bitmaps\Tiles\User, and import Bitmap fills (remembering to tick the Create new resolutions box before you OK.
I am working on a couple of non-seamless textures for the second folder (no link to it yet) which will be 6000 pixels square, but these will be jpg images and invisible to CC3+ as fills (a fill has to be a png file). Because they are very much larger they can be a bit prettier than the seamless tiles. If you decide to use one of them you will have to import it as an image in the background. I'm doing it this way for two reasons. Firstly, 6000 pixels is unreasonably large as a fill, and secondly that a jpg file is a whole heck of a lot smaller than the png.
It would be great to know the size of your map in map units, and whether you have used the standard symbols at the default scale (1), or larger or smaller than that so I can work out if I need to compensate with the size of the images to prevent pixelisation. It would be a shame if I made the image parchments just a fraction too small to stay tuned in your map, as it is a particularly excellent map.
Well, Sue, I don't know what to say except thank you so much. The tiles I downloaded from your link work perfect, but not just that: They are so high res that now I have quite new options in terms of which scale I take etc. I tried several different scales and each gives it's own touch, I am not quite sure with which one I will end, all options are great.
I used your parchments in some maps bevore because I like them very much, especially the scroll. With these additional ones you will have a monopoly for my maps.
Do you still need map size and symbol scale? if yes, where can I find this? 0_o
You are so helpful and provide such useful content. I'm a bit lost of words.
Thanks!
Edit: i hate this so much. Finally I've made it to bring a link alive, now all paragraphs/wordwraps are ignored. I am not made for this (yes, I've read Monsens thread. Several times...) grmp. Call me a BBCode-idiot
Most of them were lying around not doing very much. Some are very close to the ones in the bonus issue of last year's annual, so I created a new naming protocol so that they don't get confused. "P XY.png", where XY is the number of the paper/parchment.
Thank you for uploading a copy of your map file. I guessed that 6000 pixels square should really be enough, so I managed to persuade my machine to produce a small set of backgrounds of that size here:
If you chose to use any of the images in this file they should be used as images and imported that way (Import file), not as fills. They are jpg files and won't in any case be visible to CC3+ if you try to import them as fills. I would say that "image parch 05" is possibly the closest to the original colour and tone of your parchment if its a match that you want.
And just between you and me - I still have to go and copy the syntax for creating a hyperlink every time I need to make one
And to answer your other questions - I proved to myself today that I can't make graphics files that are any larger than those 6000 pixel images at the moment. My machine simply can't do it. So even if I had all the details I asked for about your map and 6000 pixels wasn't large enough, It would just have been impossible to make them any larger. Happily, though, they may be large enough...
So thank you for the map copy - which answered the size question anyway (being smaller in both dimensions than 6000 pixels including the white border), and please don't worry about the scale of the symbols.
If you ever need to work out what scale you pasted a particular symbol at in the future, just use the Info menu (Info/List), select the symbol in question and click ok. That will bring up a blue window listing all the vital stats for the symbol. The scale it was pasted is the second to last line.
Thanks for all. JPG 1 and 2 are unbelievable, I will use one of them for my next map!
For this map I will leave it as it is with your fills, maybe play around with the scale :-)
I made quite some progress on reading the 'Neverending Story' again, great reminder Wyvern :-)
Also I did several minor things on this map, small pieces of the puzzle (some hills, some local context etc.).
Regarding my to-do list from this forum I had my first shot on the suggestion from Texas Jake to add some mist to the Iceland-mountains. Also I played a bit around to find some fills for snow, tundra and dry grassland. Still room for improvements, but compared to my attempts in past maps I think it goes in the right direction. Suggestions welcome!
Thanks Jake!
And another place from the original sourcebooks. Not a special symbol this time, but an interesting place, inviting for adventures.
The Castle of Ravormos:
Abandonded since long times, the Castle of Ravormos is based in the Ravormos swamps. Not far away from the former capital of this barbarbian country, the town of Ravormos. The capital was moved for unknown reasons and nowadays the Khan of the four united barbarian kingdoms is sitting on the bony throne in the city of Noland.
The castle has the nickname 'the Trap of Ravormos', as many people went there but only a few came back. The castle is empty since generations but not a ruin. The few people who went there and made to return were of legendary wealth and came back with special and magical abilities.
Those who returned reported that they had an inner constraint to move to the castle. Month bevor they reached it they had nightmares about the castle and the nightmares came true. Some of them got help from friends, but only those with nightmares returned. It seems that soemthing in the castle calls selected individuals via these nightmares and only those may (or maybe not) return.
Unfortunately no one of those who survived gave more details about what happened in the castle. So it is on the DM to elaborate on it...
got your point Sue. Actually I don‘t like coastlines as I don‘t like such harsh breaks, but I see that I somehow have do define the land. Maybe I try a beach! Thanks for the input!
Hah, and I saw just now a cheeky single mountain who made it to the foreground, he needs to step back :-)
I like the soft breaks, Jensen. I think adding a beach would look good. Another alternative would be to add a slight darkening via sheet effect to the edge. That would give it a bit of a rounded edge and make it look like it is rising out of the water, I think.
Comments
Some really nice concepts coming along there
And yes, you can add several images to one comment. You just have to edit them.
If you want to put comments between them you can insert them by using "[Image_xyz]" Where xyz is the image number given to the image you have already uploaded the first time, and which should be visible at the bottom of the comment box next time you edit the comment.
The pixel-background is because I zoomed so deep in that you can see what the Tear of Desperation had for lunch :-). I will do the scaling after I added alle the background colours for grassland etc., but yes, you are right, it hurts the eyes (maybe it's because I've made screenshots, no rendering).
By the way at the moment I work on a region called 'The Dark Land', an area somewhere hidden in the icelands (I put it to the noerthwestern border of the map). The sourcebook says not much about it, only that it is called the dark land, that it is very hard to go there, that it is a region where the one who gets there needs to pass 40 challenges and at the end he may find a newly kingdom (such phrases are dangerous at RdW...).
I somehow tried to integrate this in the things I've done already at the map (volcanos etc.) but now I wonder what could be the salt&pepper to add there? A temple? A ruin? Some magical?
Who knows?
Maybe a mystery is more bewitching.
Not sure where it will be at the end. It's mentioned in a sourcebook that steppe fires with a front of many kilometers from time to time devastate the lands...
By the way thanks Remy Monsen, I tried out the RGB effect from your lates blog post on the gras, it worked very well. Thank you for explaining! Having a Monsen, as Quenten said :-)
The gras is a marsh fill from Mike Schley with an RGB on Blue -0.01
The Fire is a picture of a cloud I found in the Profantasy Folder (subfolder Terraformer - don't know what this is exactly :-)) which I converted to a bmp and made a fill out of it.
I will add some heavy dust later.
Another great effect (though its usually better to use this one if you only want to change the colour slightly rather than a lot) is the Hue Saturation Lightness effect.
Not sure if it would work too well, but maybe some ghostly half-formed structures or creatures might spice-up the current Dunkle Land illustration? As if they were coming into existence as a new kingdom by someone trying to meet the 40 challenges, say (and following this "Neverending..." idea).
Would a small dead tree symbol or two work in the burnt steppe land as well? Maybe with a leafy bush symbol or so in the unburnt part? The wall of fire looks wonderful regardless of that.
Your thoughts on Michael Ende reminded me that I should read this book again, it‘s too long ago.
For this map my to-do list with ideas from this forum now already became quite long and I think I will take a rest now from mapping to think about on how to implement them on the map. Also getting some inspirations from reading a good book will generate new energy...
I have a lot of loose ends on the map now which all needs to get elaborated in detail. You can find a high-res version of this work in progress here:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak-JjeRFvmSPrhemUoDvUfX2syGn
As I said, now it's time for a rest to get some new ideas. Thank you all for your input! I continue posting after the rest :-)
On the other hand, with a certain resolution, it might look likes folds... or what do you think?
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak-JjeRFvmSPrhgmuZbJuAPtUIpG
Those are meant to be folds, but maybe they don't really suit this map all that well. They are a bit sharp and distracting.
I can't remember off the top of my head if all my textures were included in that set, but these are seamless updates of what I have in my own folders - without folds (these are 3000 pi square and extremely large, so can be used at a larger scale than most fills).
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AgJAv-rukPfHpWoeKSXP1V4naI4l
This folder has been shared without editing privileges to make sure no jokers get into it and change things around. I am hoping (since I am a bit new to OneDrive) that you can still download them.
Please see the comment below for advice about how to use them.
And thanks again!
One of them might be ok.
They do look rather desperately plain, but the thing about seamless parchment is that if you have a very large map the texture must necessarily be pretty bland or you get a lot of rather distracting repeated patterns when there are more than 10 or so repeats across the map. The pretty textures are tempting, but plain is best if you don't want to see those patterns like a crazy carpet grid. They are also 3000 pixels square, so although they will withstand a lot more enlargement than most tiles I wouldn't recommend downloading them all into the one folder and using them all as bitmap fills at the same time in the same map, or it might slow you down quite a bit.
Pick one or two to try and put them in your User folder inside the Tiles folder here: C:\ProgramData\Profantasy\CC3Plus\Bitmaps\Tiles\User, and import Bitmap fills (remembering to tick the Create new resolutions box before you OK.
I am working on a couple of non-seamless textures for the second folder (no link to it yet) which will be 6000 pixels square, but these will be jpg images and invisible to CC3+ as fills (a fill has to be a png file). Because they are very much larger they can be a bit prettier than the seamless tiles. If you decide to use one of them you will have to import it as an image in the background. I'm doing it this way for two reasons. Firstly, 6000 pixels is unreasonably large as a fill, and secondly that a jpg file is a whole heck of a lot smaller than the png.
It would be great to know the size of your map in map units, and whether you have used the standard symbols at the default scale (1), or larger or smaller than that so I can work out if I need to compensate with the size of the images to prevent pixelisation. It would be a shame if I made the image parchments just a fraction too small to stay tuned in your map, as it is a particularly excellent map.
I used your parchments in some maps bevore because I like them very much, especially the scroll. With these additional ones you will have a monopoly for my maps.
Do you still need map size and symbol scale? if yes, where can I find this? 0_o
See the map with your Pachment 03 dirty
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ak-JjeRFvmSPrhtKrngTLsCJDiC4
You are so helpful and provide such useful content. I'm a bit lost of words.
Thanks!
Edit: i hate this so much. Finally I've made it to bring a link alive, now all paragraphs/wordwraps are ignored. I am not made for this (yes, I've read Monsens thread. Several times...) grmp. Call me a BBCode-idiot
Most of them were lying around not doing very much. Some are very close to the ones in the bonus issue of last year's annual, so I created a new naming protocol so that they don't get confused. "P XY.png", where XY is the number of the paper/parchment.
Thank you for uploading a copy of your map file. I guessed that 6000 pixels square should really be enough, so I managed to persuade my machine to produce a small set of backgrounds of that size here:
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AgJAv-rukPfHpWvcs0vTsUszDACZ
These are NOT seamless.
If you chose to use any of the images in this file they should be used as images and imported that way (Import file), not as fills. They are jpg files and won't in any case be visible to CC3+ if you try to import them as fills. I would say that "image parch 05" is possibly the closest to the original colour and tone of your parchment if its a match that you want.
And just between you and me - I still have to go and copy the syntax for creating a hyperlink every time I need to make one
So thank you for the map copy - which answered the size question anyway (being smaller in both dimensions than 6000 pixels including the white border), and please don't worry about the scale of the symbols.
If you ever need to work out what scale you pasted a particular symbol at in the future, just use the Info menu (Info/List), select the symbol in question and click ok. That will bring up a blue window listing all the vital stats for the symbol. The scale it was pasted is the second to last line.
For this map I will leave it as it is with your fills, maybe play around with the scale :-)
Also I did several minor things on this map, small pieces of the puzzle (some hills, some local context etc.).
Regarding my to-do list from this forum I had my first shot on the suggestion from Texas Jake to add some mist to the Iceland-mountains. Also I played a bit around to find some fills for snow, tundra and dry grassland. Still room for improvements, but compared to my attempts in past maps I think it goes in the right direction. Suggestions welcome!
And another place from the original sourcebooks. Not a special symbol this time, but an interesting place, inviting for adventures.
The Castle of Ravormos:
Abandonded since long times, the Castle of Ravormos is based in the Ravormos swamps. Not far away from the former capital of this barbarbian country, the town of Ravormos. The capital was moved for unknown reasons and nowadays the Khan of the four united barbarian kingdoms is sitting on the bony throne in the city of Noland.
The castle has the nickname 'the Trap of Ravormos', as many people went there but only a few came back. The castle is empty since generations but not a ruin. The few people who went there and made to return were of legendary wealth and came back with special and magical abilities.
Those who returned reported that they had an inner constraint to move to the castle. Month bevor they reached it they had nightmares about the castle and the nightmares came true. Some of them got help from friends, but only those with nightmares returned. It seems that soemthing in the castle calls selected individuals via these nightmares and only those may (or maybe not) return.
Unfortunately no one of those who survived gave more details about what happened in the castle. So it is on the DM to elaborate on it...
Hah, and I saw just now a cheeky single mountain who made it to the foreground, he needs to step back :-)