World of Milosha

[Jaxilon]

@Jaxilon- Only issues I'm having with the Assault Fortress's is the fact that steam power is a little advanced for my world. Maybe they have a few Gnomes held hostage that have designed the steam power system along with gun powder. Always wanted to add some blunderbuss to my game. I'll just have to keep tinkering with the ideas.

Wel, the other thought that I had was making that wheel on a gear works with a galley full of slave laborers or zealot Dwarfs all cranking away like mad. I imagined two chains with as many sprockets as you can fit down there, each with it's own seat. Would be seriously tough work but with a gear master there to shift the "machine" through it's paces you could have a decent little thing going. Naturally you would need a dwarf named "Lance Armstrong", hehe.

[arsheesh]

Hello again A R. I do not know of any way of changing the color/font of all of the text layers all in one go. If you merged all of the layers together onto a single transparency level, then you could use the color select tool to select the text, and then change the color of the entire set of text at once. However you would no longer be able to use the text tool to manipulate the text at this point, so altering the size or font of the text is out. Although tedious, I think that your best option-if you want to preserve the ability to alter the text size or font-is simply to use the text tool to alter each text layer, one by one. You cannot do this simply by selecting the text tool and then clicking on any given area of your map that has text on it (this method only works if the text you have clicked on is in fact the active layer that you are working on). What you need to do is to find the text layer in your layers dialogue window, and then double click it. Once you've done this, the text window for that particular set of text will open, allowing you to work on it. Note that if you have already merged your text layers to any other layer, this option is no longer open to you. I hope that helps.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[arsheesh]

Wow, guess I took so long in writing that this response has become obsolete!

[arsheesh]

Well, as for your second question, I was in need of a study break so I decided to work on your map title. Here's what I've got, if you are interested, send me a private message with your email address and I'll send you the png file.

[A R Frost]

Ok here is the version with the text and color changes.
For those of you who do hundreds of cities with nice text for there names, my hat is off to you people. Just normal types text is a pain in the butt...

It just needs a title logo and a legend box and it should be done for my first world map attempt.

Thanks to all who viewed it and helped fix the eye sore that it had in it.

Allan

[A R Frost]

Ok
Here is the almost final version.
Thanks to arsheesh, for the kick ass title text. It fits in perfect.

I did a legend box for now, but like all of my stuff the text is horrible. One day I'll figure it out.

Thanks to everyone who helped...

Allan

[Jaxilon]

Woot, I found the direction I was given by RobA to create labels in Gimp - especially if you need/want to put them on a path.

I make my entire map (or as much as I can) without labels, icons, etc in gimp.
I then do a save as to a jpg.
I import that jpg into inkscape, select the image, then size the canvas to fit the jpg. I lock the background layer (where the image is), and create new layers for things like city labels, rivers, titles, etc. I use layer visibility to reveal only the layer I want, and export it from inkscape as a png.
In gimp I use Open as Layer to bring in that png for final compositing (drop shadows/glows, etc.)

If I want to change text, I flip to my inkscape file and modify it there then delete the existing layer and again us Open as Layer.

When I know I'll do this a lot (like in my recent woodcut map) I used a linked layer set of scripts for gimp I reference here.

If there is interest, I can make a quick tut on it.

-Rob A>

I'm thinking he should make a tutorial as he said this wasn't the first time he's explained it when he told me. If you are not using Inkscape I'm fairly sure you can do the same thing with another vector program.

[Diamond]

That's some pretty decent work; don't knock your abilities! Heck, we all gotta start somewhere, and your early efforts are certainly nothing to be ashamed of!

If I could change one thing about the text, it would be to add a thin 1-pixel black stroke around it to make it stand out a little more, and maybe additionally add a slight outer glow around the country names. I'm not sure if you have text effects like that in GIMP though, so if not, never mind.

Regardless, the whole thing looks very good. Repped!

[arsheesh]

I agree with Diamond, you ought to give yourself a little more credit. I also think the border was a good choice, it compliments your map nicely.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Jaxilon]

It is coming along quite nicely. You could use a map scale to show how big this all is, if you wanted to add another thing to it.

You can make one yourself or if you like there is a script you can download for Gimp that does it for you. Found here.

I've used it since I figured out how to fill in the variables (that took me a bit of screwing around). I like to then tweak it and change things in gimp but it's a easy way to make a quick one.

FYI - There are lots of plug-ins for odd things in gimp as you will find out. Just make sure you save often as I've had some harrowing experiences not doing so.