Ziadon (City Designer 3)

[Gandwarf]

Well, I struggled about 16 hours with this map and now declare it finished. See this thread for more cities and the WIP: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...newpost&t=2991

I cut and pasted the map together again, so there might be some small artefacts. However, I think I tracked down most.

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So, this is Ziadon (see http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2977 for its location on my world map).
It is one of five great cities in The Valley, my fantasy world. The city once started humbly as a mining town, as there is a lot of silver to be found there in the ground and mountains. Immense wealth attracted the wizards and from the time they got involved in the city its growth exploded. Mining operations moved farther and farther away from Ziadon, but the city prospered.

New walls were added over the years as the city grew. The last wall dates back only about twenty years. Construction was started during one of severals conflicts with the great city of Sirilion, that lies to the southwest.

A river that springs from the mountains empties into a small lake. The lake itself drains into several tunnels to lower grounds. There's a lot of catacombs underneath the city, most created by extensive mining in the past, and those that are not flooded are used to house the remains of the dead.

Ziadon is very rich because of its silver deposits, but it has always lacked other natural resources. Farmland is scarce and mainly concentrated near the river. It was so valuable to the rulers that large areas have even been walled off. Timber has also been a problem in the past and the forest in the east is the largest planted forest in the world. It is carefully maintained.

During the revolution the wizard that ruled Ziadon was eliminated by Alliance agents and a few weeks later the city was infiltrated through the catacombs by large numbers of Alliance troops. Ziadon was already on the brink of revolt and the garrison was overwhelmed. The palace guard, dark skinned mercenaries from Padras, renowned for their loyalty and battle skill, died almost to the last man protecting the lesser wizards still remaining. Most were able to escape thanks to the sacrifice of the guard.

Ziadon is now ruled by the Alliance and the slaves that once had to work the mines and farms have been freed.

[ravells]

This is really beautiful! Looking at the map from a distance, though, I'd be tempted to desaturate the fields as they draw the eye more than the city which should be the main focus of attention.

Lovely work, Gandwarf.....city maps take ages and this is a beauty.

[cereth]

Another great map! The mountains/rock seem a little distracting to me...maybe they're a little too light. Overall it looks awesome!

[Steel General]

Gandwarf, you have the patience of a saint. I would have pulled out what's left of my hair and stabbed my eyes out with a spork before being able to finish these kind of maps.

Great job as always...

[RobA]

This is a beautiful effort. The amount of detail you pack in is incredible!

A few suggestions for improvement (that may be a CD3 limitation, I don't know):

- Shadow lengths should reflect the relative heights of objects, and the farm wall shadows make them look the same height as the city wall shadows.

- The wall tower shadows look doubled up on the wall shadows.

- The jaggies. It is a limitation of CD3 that it can't anti-alias?

But really, another great city map!

-Rob A>

[Gandwarf]

This is a beautiful effort. The amount of detail you pack in is incredible!

A few suggestions for improvement (that may be a CD3 limitation, I don't know):

- Shadow lengths should reflect the relative heights of objects, and the farm wall shadows make them look the same height as the city wall shadows.

My fault, I don't pay much attention to the shadows. I don't need large versions of my map, so the details can be a bit messy.

- The wall tower shadows look doubled up on the wall shadows.

This is a City Designer 3 problem I think.

- The jaggies. It is a limitation of CD3 that it can't anti-alias?

My fault, I should create the maps in a higher resolution. What I did now was zoom in a lot in City Designer 3 (at a level where you are zoomed in enough that you can see the jaggies), made screenshots and pasted them all together in Paint Shop Pro. I can't save these large maps because CD3 crashes (most likely due to memory problems).
But again, I don't need large versions of my map. CC3/CD3 can make crisp and clear maps if needed.

But really, another great city map!

-Rob A>

Thanks, still have a blast making them. I get a lot of new ideas for my stories because of these maps. I had some general ideas about the city of Ziadon, but most of the map was created on the fly. Like the layout, the waterfall, the lake, the large planted forest. So the end result is always surprising to me as well.

[Midgardsormr]

- The jaggies. It is a limitation of CD3 that it can't anti-alias?

Unfortunately, yes. I struggled a lot with text aliasing on my first CC3 map. Eventually, I gave up on it and composited the text in a raster editor instead. The best solution I've seen so far is to export at higher than necessary resolution, bring it into a raster editor, do a 1 pixel blur, and then resample it to the correct size. edit: but now I see that that's not a viable solution in this case.

Gandwarf, I'm curious about what you were doing with the Sirilion map that was cleaning up the edges so well, but was so tedious that you gave up part way through. I wonder if someone else might have a suggestion that would speed up that process for you, or even automate it.

[Gandwarf]

Gandwarf, I'm curious about what you were doing with the Sirilion map that was cleaning up the edges so well, but was so tedious that you gave up part way through. I wonder if someone else might have a suggestion that would speed up that process for you, or even automate it.

The Sirilion map is larger than the Ziadon map. It's a beast and CC3 crashes all the time when I try to move around or zoom in. It's also REALLY slow. It takes about 15 seconds to load all the effects. I have to move around and zoom in to make dozens of screenshots and then paste them all together in Paint Shop Pro. It's almost impossible for me to paste them spot on and a few pixels difference can have some very undesirable effects because roads don't meet. Often I will only notice this when I have pasted some screenshots together and then have to redo some parts. Very tedious.

I read some other workarounds for the CC3 crashing problem on the Profantasy forums. Like creating a PDF. I will have to try that some time. Any other tips are certainly welcome

[Gandwarf]

Also I am starting to realise I need to learn how to do a good border. And I need shields or heraldry for the larger cities (the wizard houses).

I suck at creating that kind of stuff though

[NeonKnight]

I think you need to set up all shadows to utilise the Global Light Setting. As it is, your mountains/Hills appear to have the Light coming from the North West, while the ground shadows run opposite that.

Otherwise very imporessive.