This thread should continue the discussion started in this thread.
So, I'm a complete starter in map making and I want to make a map for a game of mine. I'm not a complete beginner in Photoshop, but I've only used it for web designing, and I've created very little content myself.
About the map: the city of Denandsor is located in the Southeast of Creation, the (main) world of the scenario Exalted, created by White Wolf. The city was made during the apex of civilization, the First Age, by overpowered God-Kings who literally rule the world. The city was completely made by sorcery, and it's centered around a very powerful Manse, that is, a structure that canalizes Essence naturally found in a node (Essence is the basic energy of the scenario). Denandsor was, in the First Age, the world's capital of magic stuff. They were specialized in Magitech, that is, a mode of building artifacts that blended magic and a form of Essence-based technology. All the city was protected by powerful automata, which were badass robots. During a period of history known as the Great Contagion, the rulers of the city accidentally activated an Artifact that drove everyone insane, and that kept people out of there. For that reason, when the map is done, all of the city is completely empty, and partially covered by jungle. The automata still roam the streets, though.
Some other details that I should include in the map:
-The city is described as "relatively small", but for the First Age that's still about one million people living within the walls.
-The totality of the city was dedicated to the arts of artifice, so no one (or veeeeery few people) living there aren't somehow related to the artifact making. That means that they imported all their food, clothes and similar stuff, and that there are few houses and many, huge labs and factories.
-It is stated that several minor forges and stuff were constructed outside the walls.
-The center of the city is the Manse. It's supposed to be huge. Over it, there is a 500 yards tall tower that served as a library.
-The city is geomantically perfect. The Essence flows perfectly, which means that everything must be perfect. Exactly how to translate that to a map is kind of hard, but I have some ideas. For example, everything has decagonal our pentagonal themes. The walls are decagonal, and the central Manse is pentagonal. Five is kind of a special number in Exalted (there are five castes for each Exalted, five Elements, five abilities per caste, etc.). Also, I'm thinking about five roads converging in the central manse and separating the rest of the city in five parts.
-The scenario doesn't mention any geographical features in the area, but we know it's a jungle. Also, I'm supposing there is a river (maybe made with Sorcery too) and that the city is perfectly plain.
-The city will have a maximum diameter of 10Km.
-I'm guessing most of the mortals in Denandsor lived in their Exalted masters' mansions, so there will be few small houses within the walls and a few of them outside.
-Like everything in the city, the waste problem was probably solved by Technomagic. I don't know, maybe you just throw all the trash in a big dump that transforms it in non-offensive natural manifestations of the five elements or something like that. Anyway, I won't bother about that.
That said, let's talk about the more technical stuff. I'm following Pyradon's tutorials for city-building in Photoshop. I wish I could finish it until Sunday, but I think it's unlikely.
Any suggestions - I repeat - any suggestions are enormously welcome, specially on the technical parts and on how to make the architecture look "perfect".
Thank you all very much.
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Actually, I kind of like the first one more from an idea stand point. The repeating pattern (though not necessarily that one) strikes me as a cool idea. So a city divided by a large geometric shape and each section sub divided into a geometric shape, and each buidling the same geometric shape within....
Joe
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Well five pointed stars are traditional in late military defence:
Definitely possible to base a city around a core such as that.
Thanks, that's all interesting. I'll try to use the repeating pattern idea, and the central Manse will probably have that pentagonal shape.
I've found a technical difficulty, though. The tutorial I was following so far was Pyradon's tutorial for building city maps. The map he uses as example, though, is for a "natural" city, which doesn't quite match the profile of Denandsor.
What I have so far is attached. Explaining: every piece of open terrain outside the walls will be covered with trees. The city is right in the middle of a jungle. I don't know if I mentioned before, but nothing lives in the city at the time this map was made, though there are animated creatures that have been keeping the city clean and protected in the last eight centuries. The Outer purple decagon is where the walls will be. The inner light blue decagon and the other light blue lines are the main roads. They are about [Distance between the walls and the center]/1,618 units away from the center, so I guess that also helped to gave a "perfect" idea to the architecture. Also, the central manse is pretty much huge.
My idea from this point is to define the lesser streets, maybe organizing the blocks in varied geometrical shapes, place the other places of interest (there are a few I'd like to insert...), and, once everything is placed where it should be, start beautifying it with textures, colors and such. I'm not sure how I'll do that yet, but I intend to make most of the city in a bright blue color, trying to give it a "glowing" idea.
Thank you all again, the Cartographer's Guild has been helping me a lot.
P.S.: the original image is 3500x3500
Last edited by Arthur; 06-28-2008 at 05:43 AM.
Another change of ways. Instead of making a nearly realistic map, I now intend to make something more like a schematic representation. For a city like Denandsor, doing otherwise would be too time consuming and the result wouldn't be great. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from this map:
I have inserted a few textures, though, and it is know looking like the attached image.
Thats a real neat map. You obviously have a great deal of experience with your art packages.
I think this map is briliant. It makes me want to try my hand at doing a schematic type map myself. Beautiful work, Arthur!
My only comment is that I wonder if it is worth using a colour other than the light blue for the 'modern' area, when I first saw it I thought it was a water mass, but looking at the key put me right.