Ok, total time 7 hours, probably about 40% finished (ack!). CD3 crash gods are kind to me right now. Need to sleep.
Ok, put in another 2.5 hours. This map is going to be difficult to finish. There's still loads of stuff to be done and my computer is crashing all over the place. I might even have to divide the map in several chunks in CD3. And yes if I ever finish this I will post a higher resolution version.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Ok, total time 7 hours, probably about 40% finished (ack!). CD3 crash gods are kind to me right now. Need to sleep.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
That's the thing about cities - they are a huge amount of work compared to regional maps where you can get away with covering large parts of the map with textures. It would have taken me three times as long to have to created that city...you did well!
Total work logged about 10.5 hours now. Progress has been great tonight and I think I will actually be able to finish this map
Also I am liking the way it is turning out. I wasn't too happy about the earlier WIP's, but now it's going somewhere...
Not sure about some of the mountains/cliffs yet, but we'll see what happens.
Last edited by Gandwarf; 12-16-2008 at 05:59 PM.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
12 hours. The end is near
I should be able to wrap this up in a few more hours.
----------------
Updated: 13.5 hours.
Last edited by Gandwarf; 12-17-2008 at 07:19 PM.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Finished the map in about 16 hours. Posted it in the Finished Map section also: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...newpost&t=3723
--------------------------------
So, this is Ziadon (see http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2977 for its location).
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.
Last edited by Gandwarf; 12-18-2008 at 05:58 PM.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Been messing with a generic test map to see what kind of shadows I could get on a hill (there's some discussion about it in the Ziadon thread). Not yet sure if I am going to finish this map. If someone is interested in it, I might.
-------------------
Update: I think I will finish this map. Added another version with some different looking fields. Experimenting with them because the fields look a bit too bright. I toned down the colors somewhat.
Last edited by Gandwarf; 12-20-2008 at 07:56 AM.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Wow, you can make CD3 sing. I haven't been able to use it that well, and keep ending up back at Photoshop. I like the program, but it just crashes too often for me!
I have to say, on my XP comp (this one) it (almost) never crashes on me. On my Laptop which is Vista it really likes to crash alot
I am using it under XP and it only crashes on the very large maps. But then it crashes a lot. I am used to saving the map after each series of changes and before moving or zooming in. I also save several files to make sure if a file gets corrupted or something I am not royally screwed (never had a corrupt file, but I like to feel safe).
But on the smaller maps I am experiencing no problems.
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...