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Thread: How do I decide where to place roads on a world map?

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  1. #1
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    Yeah, I know a lot of gimp users on here, and while they sometimes complain about slowdowns when running certain scripts (like fractalizing paths when they have dozens of rivers) I don't think i've heard anyone complain about slowdowns due to filesize.

    I'd say you should be pretty good to go - in fact, it might be worth it to try pushing the limits on a file just to see how far you can take it before you need to concern yourself, that way you can put less effort into worrying about files and more effort into the work itself

    I did that not too long ago, and it's a very subtle psychological difference, but for me it was noticeable
    (using photoshop here, but the underlying principles I'm talking about are the same for any software out there. know what happens when you get close to limits, and you tend to be more efficient and practical)

    That all aside, what Ascension said about roads is pretty much all I've ever learned.

    The only thing I can add is I like to think about it from a visualization perspective (will they actually look good on the map, and is it necessary information for the purposes of this map?), and keep in mind the economy of the realm they are in - can they afford roads? is it a small enough region that you want to show iffy dirt roads and such, or just stick to well maintained ones? Picture yourself as a merchant trying to use the roads, would you actually take the long way around the forest like the road does, or do you know that it's safe enough to take a shortcut? Why would people use the road if it doesn't take them somewhere worth going? all that stuff.

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  2. #2
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    Well, I've personally had serious slow-down issues on GIMP due to file size. It's the main reason work on my map seems semi-abandonned (it's not, but continued work on it, in the sort-term, is infeasbile when I don't have much free time in the first place and running a noise filter can take ten minutes or more on my not-fast-enough machine). When I was doing smaller-size regional maps the speed wasn't an issue, but when I started working on a full-scale world map, it just became essentially impossible.

    Granted, it's not all GIMP's fault: my machine only has like 3G of RAM and a basic graphics card (maybe 128M? I'm not sure I don't have it in front of me, atm). And the file I was working on is pretty big.
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  3. #3

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    Hmmm... Yeah...! All good points! I never thought about weighing between the long way and a shortcut... Thanks. And I'll have to see about pushing the limits of Gimp sometime, too, haha. You have a point there. It'd be nice to go all out without having to worry about file size.

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