Google Groups for FGII Games:
European FG2 RPG - Fridays & Sundays (8pm UK time)
Using Ultimate FGII and can accept unlicensed player connections on some of the games
I love the map, but I too have to say that the "squareness" of the forest edges are a bit distracting. Still, I like the subdued colors and the style that you have chosen. I think that it works well.
Here is the next iteration. I've changed the forest fill to a more 'tree top' type rather than static. and I hope I've got rid of the pixellations in the fill. I've also changed the mountain fill to a different seamless tile....but I don't think it really works (I've kept all the old fill styles on Kesh for comparison).
Dunno...what do you lot think? I seem to spend the majority (at least 80%) of my time making and trying different styles rather than drawing the dang map.
edit: added a second one with borders.
Last edited by ravells; 10-22-2007 at 06:03 PM.
I think this is much, much better! The trees are far more pleasing to the eye.
The mountains work, I think, except the fading, which is more distracting than anything else, IMO.
Nice work!
Don
My gallery is here
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"Keep your mind in hell, but despair not." --Saint Silouan [1866-1938]
Well, the map itself is the easy part, right?
The forests appear to have some depth, but the mountains don't. Partly due, I think, to the drop shadow on the forest borders.
This map is looking very attractive. Keep it up!
edit: oh yes, and I like the forests very much. Precisely the style I was looking for a few weeks ago.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
I'm afraid I still prefer the second map of the last set. I don't think either of the newer ones improves on that one. The mountains on these ones don't work for me at all, the just don't say "mountain" to me at all. The forests also look higher than the mountain terrain where they meet. I also like the variegated ground cover on the map 2 of the previous set.
Google Groups for FGII Games:
European FG2 RPG - Fridays & Sundays (8pm UK time)
Using Ultimate FGII and can accept unlicensed player connections on some of the games
I'm inclined to agree with you Ian, although the tree fill I think is a slight improvement. I had a think about the variegated ground cover and although it looked prettier than just having one level of variegation, I thought it didn't really give any information about the land. I'm going to play with a variegation which involves farmers' fields and hedgerows and other types of ground use elements, so at least the texture has a meaning.
I'm going to ditch those mountains. In fact, I'm going to ditch the idea of using a seamless fill for mountains (they never seem to look right) and build up a series of hand drawn Erwin Raisz type mountain symbols. I think that even if I lose the feathering on the current seamless fill and put in a drop shadow, they'll still look manky. Using hand drawin individiaul symbols will also solve the problem about what to do where forest and mountain meet. As you say, Ian, the forest appears to float over the mountains using individual symbols I can have the mountain tops peeking out of the forest. In a way I wonder whether having one obvious hand drawn element in the map (like the mountains) will make the others seem more hand drawn? Worth a try.
Brian: I'll post up the seamless tile fill for the forest in in the mapping elements section of the site a little later.
Thanks chaps!
Last edited by ravells; 10-23-2007 at 09:04 AM.
I'm really pleased with the ground textures now, I'm going to leave them. I made a seamless fill of some fields from google earth to mark the populated areas and desaturated the more wilderness areas. I also overlaid some noise over all the land areas. The mountains need changing next - not looking forward to it as I'm going to have to forgo my lazy filter ways and actually draw something.
Last edited by ravells; 10-23-2007 at 04:24 PM.