That worked out a bit better, though its not perfect. For some reason the command generates a bit of an odd result with the square test areas. I've told it to stay away from the edge by half the spacing, but its only doing that on the left and top.
It probably won't affect anyone too much, as I suspect it will be pretty rare to have any area of dune land that is exactly square.
Ok. Thanks to all your wonderful help I have been able to complete (for now) the drawing tools. Having just completed this work I realise I have still missed at least two things - the urban conglomeration tools, but I may do symbols for that instead of drawing tools, since they are very much harder to imitate using just a polygon with a fill and a few effects.
This is what the full set looks like at the moment. Please feel free to comment about whether you think all of these are really necessary.
Thanks, Roy I just hope Ralf can make something a bit more sophisticated than this (or at least weed out the unnecessary tools) for the annual, because at the moment scrolling down through this lot is causing some serious green screen time - and I have a new computer!
What about freshwater swamp/march, and perhaps bogs/quicksand. Just a thought. And I think the number of tools is not really a problem - it is so much easier to use.
The marsh tool isn't showing correctly, though I can't work out why. It's set up to draw on two sheets to give you an island with a muddy fringe. These are drawn on previously created areas of open water.
The problem lies not so much in the fact that there are a lot of tools, but in the way that scrolling down them causes 1 second green screen every time you roll the mouse - on a map that is barely started. It would probably be much worse if your map was nearly complete.
I am hoping that Ralf can somehow arrange things a little better than my crude 'all in the same bucket' approach.
No problem. It's taken me weeks to work it all out. There are just so many different types of fill - and all vary enormously between the different sheets. Sometimes its hard to tell if two samples are meant to be of the same thing. So I've had no choice but to make a personal choice about which sample to take more seriously than any of the others and try to make just one version of everything.
Now, if its taken me this long to sort it all out, I can't really expect anyone else to immediately identify what each of these fills are - especially when the marsh fill is misbehaving in the illustration of itself. This is what it creates (you have to paste the little reeds around the edge yourself).
Thanks to everyone for helping me along with this so far. I've had more than my fair share of attention over the last few weeks with all my little issues.
I'm only a little mouse, and things just wear me out after a bit, so I'm going to take a short snooze and get back to it all later.
To be honest I really hated the dunes in the original when I first clapped eyes on them. I thought they were the ugliest part of the map and thought immediately if there was a way I could kind of forget they were there. But after a while they kind of grew on me, and now I like them every bit as much as the rest of it. It's part of the style. We are just used to hills and things being less bumpy and bell-like than this. That's all.
I had quite a giggle about my lumpy dunes. And like I said to Quenten - I really didn't like them when I first ever saw them. They are uniquely alien to eyes that have grown up seeing the more contemporary forms; the much flatter curves that are used in maps today.
I'm really tired right now. Sorry if you thought I was having a go at you. I was just chatting away with the mile-a-minute mouth I seem to have when I'm tired.
Is the Garden, parkland ellipse fill necessary? I suspect from the fact you've added it, it is, but I'd have expected it could have been drawn using the parkland smooth fill with the ellipse-drawing tool option. Maybe this is a special case from several of the original maps though?
Not sure what the Freestyle, current settings fill is - perhaps something used in your own fill style construction process?
Should the four Walls, dyke fills be superimposed on that uniform background colour which seems to extend right across their drawn extents and beyond? I note the Relief fill has this too, so possibly they should be, but they caught my eye as unusual.
Everything else is looking great though!
Hope you get the marsh island fill to cooperate soon...
The ellipse fill is to help with drawing the typically geometric patterns of the parkland. A lot of them have circular centres. It's not strictly necessary, but I'll let Ralf decide if it stays or not.
That freestyle tool is useful to me for the way I work. So many times I just want to draw a polygon that involves tracing the edge of another polygon. You can't do it without a drawing tool, though, so its just handy to have one that you can use with the current settings you've just chosen. I thought it would be handy for others as well, but maybe not. Again - Ralf can decide.
The Walls, dyke tools draw white lines that have no feature at all unless they are in a map with the default map background. Without that background there would be nothing showing. Similarly, the Relief tool only gives a clue as to what it is if it's used in context against the paper background.
That marsh island fill is a strange one. Sometimes it shows correctly, and other times it doesn't. It's showing the more extensive background polygon of mud on top of the smaller pasture foreground. I may do an FCW image for that tool as well so it's less confusing.
Don't worry too much about the number of drawing tools.
But back to the straight vs smooth tools, I would only include both if it was normally expected that both would be needed by the mapper. If you as a style developer don't see a use case for a straight version of a fill for example, don't include it, the main idea is to have the tools available that people would normally use for the style, not the rare edge cases. But if you think both would have a normal use in the style, include both.
Remy - I think I really am going to have to cut back on the sheer number of tools, but it would only take a couple of clicks from Ralf to recreate the ones I'm going to delete. The flickering I've got an a nice new modern machine is a bit ridiculous to say the least.
Thank you, Jim Don't worry - you aren't the only one who finds macros a bit of a challenge. The only ones that work for me are the ones that Remy has written, or at the very least corrected.
Here's an update on the new example map. I expanded the original mile square because I couldn't fit what I wanted on the map in what is a relatively small area for the style to cover. It would have been a relatively small settlement surrounded by a few fields and not much more.
Unfortunately, that means the map is now a bit too large to fit on this forum, so I've posted a vertical slice of it showing the more complete section to give you an idea of how its going. When I've finished it I will find a way to post the whole thing, even though I don't use any of those drop-box things.
Giving us the whole thing is easy, Sue. Just use the Window's Snipping tool to take a screen shot of the map in CC3. Save it as a jpg or png and insert it in the forum.
Are you making up the terrain? It looks really nice. The fort part reminds me of the approach to Fort Pulaski, in Savannah Georgia. This is after a Hurricane went through, but the approach winds through marsh and it kind of surprises you when you get to the fort.
Yes, the terrain is pure fantasy, though there are a lot of elements within it that echo the basic character of the original Ferraris map - the style of the fort, the dykes, the extensive wetlands, and more that isn't visible in this extract.
I could easily show the whole thing. That's not the problem. The problem is that by shrinking it down to just 1024 px wide you can't see any of the detail. The inking becomes just a blur.
Thanks for sharing the pictures! It can be hard to visualise what something really looks like if the only time you've ever seen a fort like this is on the Ferraris map.
I've finished the texturing for the example map. Now I just need to do the symbols - Perch archery poles, bridges... all the things that can't be done with fills.
[Image_13546]
Here is a different full sized extract. The full map is 3500 px wide at this resolution.
Comments
Hmmm. That's exactly what I'm trying not to do - over-pack them I mean.
I think I might have to make a new catalogue without the multiple dune symbols and mess around with the spacing in SYMFILL.
It probably won't affect anyone too much, as I suspect it will be pretty rare to have any area of dune land that is exactly square.
This is what the full set looks like at the moment. Please feel free to comment about whether you think all of these are really necessary.
The marsh tool isn't showing correctly, though I can't work out why. It's set up to draw on two sheets to give you an island with a muddy fringe. These are drawn on previously created areas of open water.
The problem lies not so much in the fact that there are a lot of tools, but in the way that scrolling down them causes 1 second green screen every time you roll the mouse - on a map that is barely started. It would probably be much worse if your map was nearly complete.
I am hoping that Ralf can somehow arrange things a little better than my crude 'all in the same bucket' approach.
Now, if its taken me this long to sort it all out, I can't really expect anyone else to immediately identify what each of these fills are - especially when the marsh fill is misbehaving in the illustration of itself. This is what it creates (you have to paste the little reeds around the edge yourself).
[Image_13503]
I'm only a little mouse, and things just wear me out after a bit, so I'm going to take a short snooze and get back to it all later.
[Image_13504]
Rob
Do you really think so?
[Image_13509]
LOL! I just realised how much like the legendary "Does my bum look big in this?" question that was! :P
So: Do my dunes look big in this map of mine?
Thanks for the compliment on the rest
To be honest I really hated the dunes in the original when I first clapped eyes on them. I thought they were the ugliest part of the map and thought immediately if there was a way I could kind of forget they were there. But after a while they kind of grew on me, and now I like them every bit as much as the rest of it. It's part of the style. We are just used to hills and things being less bumpy and bell-like than this. That's all.
Rob
I had quite a giggle about my lumpy dunes. And like I said to Quenten - I really didn't like them when I first ever saw them. They are uniquely alien to eyes that have grown up seeing the more contemporary forms; the much flatter curves that are used in maps today.
I'm really tired right now. Sorry if you thought I was having a go at you. I was just chatting away with the mile-a-minute mouth I seem to have when I'm tired.
Not sure what the Freestyle, current settings fill is - perhaps something used in your own fill style construction process?
Should the four Walls, dyke fills be superimposed on that uniform background colour which seems to extend right across their drawn extents and beyond? I note the Relief fill has this too, so possibly they should be, but they caught my eye as unusual.
Everything else is looking great though!
Hope you get the marsh island fill to cooperate soon...
The ellipse fill is to help with drawing the typically geometric patterns of the parkland. A lot of them have circular centres. It's not strictly necessary, but I'll let Ralf decide if it stays or not.
That freestyle tool is useful to me for the way I work. So many times I just want to draw a polygon that involves tracing the edge of another polygon. You can't do it without a drawing tool, though, so its just handy to have one that you can use with the current settings you've just chosen. I thought it would be handy for others as well, but maybe not. Again - Ralf can decide.
The Walls, dyke tools draw white lines that have no feature at all unless they are in a map with the default map background. Without that background there would be nothing showing. Similarly, the Relief tool only gives a clue as to what it is if it's used in context against the paper background.
That marsh island fill is a strange one. Sometimes it shows correctly, and other times it doesn't. It's showing the more extensive background polygon of mud on top of the smaller pasture foreground. I may do an FCW image for that tool as well so it's less confusing.
But back to the straight vs smooth tools, I would only include both if it was normally expected that both would be needed by the mapper. If you as a style developer don't see a use case for a straight version of a fill for example, don't include it, the main idea is to have the tools available that people would normally use for the style, not the rare edge cases. But if you think both would have a normal use in the style, include both.
I was going to try macros years ago, got a headache, and never looked back.
Thank you, Jim
Unfortunately, that means the map is now a bit too large to fit on this forum, so I've posted a vertical slice of it showing the more complete section to give you an idea of how its going. When I've finished it I will find a way to post the whole thing, even though I don't use any of those drop-box things.
Are you making up the terrain? It looks really nice. The fort part reminds me of the approach to Fort Pulaski, in Savannah Georgia. This is after a Hurricane went through, but the approach winds through marsh and it kind of surprises you when you get to the fort.
https://cf-images.us-east-1.prod.boltdns.net/v1/static/5618154292001/d7593b22-144a-4ae0-9c91-f084169ecb44/fff196e6-105c-4cd4-992c-785ec9a7354f/1280x720/match/image.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uwmcskFO6yU/TYBHpYC4CSI/AAAAAAAABL0/1wmlZ-GbmKk/s1600/scan0190.jpg
Yes, the terrain is pure fantasy, though there are a lot of elements within it that echo the basic character of the original Ferraris map - the style of the fort, the dykes, the extensive wetlands, and more that isn't visible in this extract.
I could easily show the whole thing. That's not the problem. The problem is that by shrinking it down to just 1024 px wide you can't see any of the detail. The inking becomes just a blur.
Thanks for sharing the pictures! It can be hard to visualise what something really looks like if the only time you've ever seen a fort like this is on the Ferraris map.
I've finished the texturing for the example map. Now I just need to do the symbols - Perch archery poles, bridges... all the things that can't be done with fills.
[Image_13546]
Here is a different full sized extract. The full map is 3500 px wide at this resolution.
[Image_13547]
I'm thinking of mapping Dorset with it. Maybe the County Council will buy the map for their website for the price of a year's Council Tax :P