Innkeeper at the Darkwood Inn. The Foul Punster of the Cartographers' Guild!
Better role playing than dragon slaying!
i'm glad that my critiques of the map haven't been taken in a bad light. my whole process for designing maps is different that others. everyone has a style they use and that's the reason i like this site so much. some people here have a style i like and want to emulate. i would love to be able to do maps that look great like the town of Koppolex, but i don't have the software for it right now. i am envious of you photoshop users out there.
a lot of folks here do some great maps. i'm always amazed at the quality of work. i think some of my own maps have been enhanced by the cunstructive criticism of the users here, and that is why i think this site is great. thanks arcana, and everyone else that makes this a vibrant forum.
Okay, I'm finishing up the tutorial & the map, and I could use some help. Farm fields. These are throwing me into fits.
For this style of map I can't seem to get the right field feel; either they turn into a texturized, processed blob of crap that is totally unrealistic, or they become artsy-fartsy-sketchy pieces of crap. I even tried copy-pasting in photos of fields like I did in my Eneini tutorial, but its not working either because that looks like...well, photos I copy-pasted in!
Any ideas you PS gurus out there? Help!
Don
My gallery is here
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"Keep your mind in hell, but despair not." --Saint Silouan [1866-1938]
Here is a very quick suggestion. I've used the fields fill I posted in the textures section to make a field in the top left corner. About 45% opacity with a stroke brush that suggests hedgerows. May need more fiddling with but I'm late for work. I think getting fields to work also involves making sure that they fit realistically into the landscape - maybe putting hedgerow strokes on either side of the roads might help too?
I'll try again tonight, I think that using a filter on the fields fill to make it less 'realistic' might help too.
Ravs
Last edited by ravells; 11-14-2007 at 03:35 AM.
Hmmm... why not try this:
Take your base ground layer (with the shadows and heights) or merge your base ground layers together (making copies of course). Then turn this into a channel. If the difference between the darks & lights isn't enough, use Levels to increase the contrast.
Then take your farm field pattern layer and run Lighting Effects on it using the heightmap channel. That might make the fields look more like they're shaped to the land better. Also, turning the opacity down should help it blend better too.
I'd try it myself right now, but I too am late for work. Good luck!
Joshua
Graphic Designer
& Amateur Photoshop Cartographer
Ravs and Joshua: thanks for your suggestions, fellas. I ended up going with a "faking" technique involving the texturizer filter and a layer mask. Not great, but I like it the most so far, and it does not stand out like a sore thumb. Thanks for your help--both your ideas gave me the idea to do what I eventually did!
You can see the results in the tutorial: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=1150
Don
My gallery is here
__________________________________________________ _______
"Keep your mind in hell, but despair not." --Saint Silouan [1866-1938]
Nice looking result, although I'd be tempted to lower the opacity a little so it picks up the tone of the underlying land a bit more.