Thread: A map to accompany a story

Here is the next iteration. I've changed the forest fill to a more 'tree top' type rather than static. and I hope I've got rid of the pixellations in the fill. I've also changed the mountain fill to a different seamless tile....but I don't think it really works (I've kept all the old fill styles on Kesh for comparison).

Dunno...what do you lot think? I seem to spend the majority (at least 80%) of my time making and trying different styles rather than drawing the dang map.

edit: added a second one with borders.

I think this is much, much better! The trees are far more pleasing to the eye.

The mountains work, I think, except the fading, which is more distracting than anything else, IMO.

Nice work!

Originally Posted by ravells

Dunno...what do you lot think? I seem to spend the majority (at least 80%) of my time making and trying different styles rather than drawing the dang map.

Well, the map itself is the easy part, right?

The forests appear to have some depth, but the mountains don't. Partly due, I think, to the drop shadow on the forest borders.

This map is looking very attractive. Keep it up!

edit: oh yes, and I like the forests very much. Precisely the style I was looking for a few weeks ago.

I'm afraid I still prefer the second map of the last set. I don't think either of the newer ones improves on that one. The mountains on these ones don't work for me at all, the just don't say "mountain" to me at all. The forests also look higher than the mountain terrain where they meet. I also like the variegated ground cover on the map 2 of the previous set.

I'm inclined to agree with you Ian, although the tree fill I think is a slight improvement. I had a think about the variegated ground cover and although it looked prettier than just having one level of variegation, I thought it didn't really give any information about the land. I'm going to play with a variegation which involves farmers' fields and hedgerows and other types of ground use elements, so at least the texture has a meaning.

I'm going to ditch those mountains. In fact, I'm going to ditch the idea of using a seamless fill for mountains (they never seem to look right) and build up a series of hand drawn Erwin Raisz type mountain symbols. I think that even if I lose the feathering on the current seamless fill and put in a drop shadow, they'll still look manky. Using hand drawin individiaul symbols will also solve the problem about what to do where forest and mountain meet. As you say, Ian, the forest appears to float over the mountains using individual symbols I can have the mountain tops peeking out of the forest. In a way I wonder whether having one obvious hand drawn element in the map (like the mountains) will make the others seem more hand drawn? Worth a try.

Brian: I'll post up the seamless tile fill for the forest in in the mapping elements section of the site a little later.

Thanks chaps!

I'm really pleased with the ground textures now, I'm going to leave them. I made a seamless fill of some fields from google earth to mark the populated areas and desaturated the more wilderness areas. I also overlaid some noise over all the land areas. The mountains need changing next - not looking forward to it as I'm going to have to forgo my lazy filter ways and actually draw something.

Here it is again, but with the mountains done using RobA's latest instant relief mapping trick...well not so instant, it took awhile and it's still rough around the edges but worth keeping at! I love the way the forest now traces the contours of the mountains rather than sitting flat on them.

I really like the way you applied t hat to the map...its an awesome technique, but I think it needs some tweaking...And after lookign at gamerprinters maps and this map, I think I figured out whats got me in an uncanny valley with these approaches...

Its the "shininess" of the bevels...In this particular map, the bumpiness is too shiny...or glossy if you will, and I think thats whats unsettling to me...the highlights should be a VERY VERY light effect, try using a different color as the highlight color (photoshop's bevel filter will let you specify the color and layer mode of both highlight and shadow, not sure about other programs) but play with that a bit...

I'm going to also add this to GP's thread...

Originally Posted by ravells

Here it is again, but with the mountains done using RobA's latest instant relief mapping trick...well not so instant, it took awhile and it's still rough around the edges but worth keeping at! I love the way the forest now traces the contours of the mountains rather than sitting flat on them.

ooh-

One thing I forgot to mention...lighting. For this to look "normal", the main source of light should be coming from behind your left shoulder...that would be like the sun at your back. Note that this will make shadows differently than the "light from the top-left" that is often used for representing 3-d.

For my maps, I put one light above and behind the viewer and a fill like straight overhead. That might help a bit. Also, they may be too high for the map...they seem to kind of hump up, rather than blending up (unless this is what you are trying to achieve...I tend to have preconceived ideas of a mountain...)

-Rob A>