New Mapping Style Test

[ravells]

I've been playing today with a pure vector mapping style. In my usual lazy way I want to make maps as quickly as possible so I used line-styles to make city icons. Basically, you draw each building, put it in the linestyle, and then if you want a city you just have to draw a line. The software picks buildings at random within parameters you can set. The longer the line, the longer the city. Only thing is trying to find a style that fits with this sort of city drawing...I'd really appreciate any advice on what you think fits with the cities, what doesn't, suggestions etc. I've done a few variations but I'm not really happy with any of them, I think the last map (with the least eye-candy) is the one I like best so far.

Cheers

Ravs

:: Attached some example linestyle cities so you can see them closeup. It's quite good, if you don't like the city you can just keep hitting the linestyle button and it will generate a new random one for you. ::

[Ascension]

So it puts in towers and roofs and walls like a random image pipe/tube thingy? That might be the coolest thing ever and my idea of a holy grail. You could adapt the brush for ISO work as well. I like any of them but the trees look a lil off somehow in the first and oversimplified in the other two. I like the idea of the white circle thing around the cities in the first two but it does look better without as in number three cuz they're cutting through the buildings. Nice stuff, bro.

[Carnifex]

I'm also a lazy bastard. Line-styles and layer-styles ftw

[the-golem]

Hmmm... I really like the loopy forest, better than the individual trees. the loops look evenly spaced, is that a type of linestyle also, or are those all hand drawn?

[ravells]

Cheers Ascension: Yeah, it's like a tube but everything stays in vector so you keep the crisp lines. Iso would be more of a challenge though...might give it a try. I'm using Serif Drawplus, but I'm sure inkscape has a similar capability. I've given the forest more texture, made the roads and cities a little smaller- any better?

Carnifex & golem: Yeah line styles rock, particularly for lazy bastards like me and Carnifex, the forest edge and the trunks are line-styles. It's great because it means the radius of the semicircular loops are adjustable (just make the line width bigger or smaller). It has limitations though - if you make the line width too big, the circles don't join. Also when you fill the shape it only fills the underlying blob (and not the loopy edges). You can sort of get away with it as an artiistic choice, and it's not so noticeable when the loops are small.

Does the perspective view look too gimmicky? Serif converts the vector into raster to make perspective so some definition is lost.

[Steel General]

The forests look good in the 'perspective' version, but the buildings look "flat".

Neat stuff here Ravs!

[Coyotemax]

It's a neat effect, but I'm not sure if it really suits the style as it is. Like SG says, the buildings are a little flattened out looking for this, mayne if they were iso the perespective would fit them better, not sure. I really like the original version, and the perspective is neat, but I I don't think this style needs a gimmick to make it look good

[ravells]

I played around with it....but not happy yet - I'll keep footling. I forgot to post the map which inspired this whole effort (attached). I love this map, it's simple, tells a story and entirely internally consistent....unlike mine, well at least for the moment.