City Of Riverhewn WIP First map in GIMP

[jtougas]

Taken from the Riverhewn Daily Gazette: City government seeks qualified person in the field of placing buildings in a coherent manner consistent with the overall scale of the city. Interested applicants should apply at the City Depot. Post must be filled immeadiatley due to the untimely death of former city designer.....

I am struggling mightily with trying to populate this map. I have followed Pyrandon's excellent tut but I can't get my city blocks to look right. Is there maybe a technique I could use to make the blocks "pop" a bit? I'm not getting discouraged just yet.....

[jtougas]

In Breaking news: Riverhewn was once again populated today as thousands of displaced citizens flooded the city's gates. His Royal Majesty who rode into the city on a new narrow style coach commented that everyone had a place to live but him and was heard mumbling something about boiling soup and squirrels...

So as you can see I'm back to "borrowing" from mearrin69 (these houses are too good not to) I think I solved the problem by making the streets smaller. At this scale the previous streets were akin to the grand canyon. These are better.The city walls got "downsized" as well I reworked the farmland as it was also too large. I threw some trees here and there and added some "green space" to the city (a city this large HAS to have some parkland...) Still on the "to do" list is some kind of towers and reworking "Castle Shendenflar." I'm sure there are 2 or 3 hundred more things but those are the priority. Thanks to everyone here I'm learning what makes a great map. I'm not shooting for perfection here my first time but I would like to at least peek at it from a distance. As always feedback is requested and appreciated. Thanks!!

[mearrin69]

I really like your new trees and the streets in the city are looking very sensible.

My biggest issue with the map at this point is one of scale-matching between some of your elements. The trees look a little large in comparison with the field texture you have and positively gigantic next to the carpet of little houses. I'd suggest scaling them up a little bit. My Haibianr map as posted isn't full-resolution but it's pretty big so you should be able to grab out sections and leave the scaling up. the outer wall thingie strikes me as very large as well and I don't quite understand its purpose (sorry if I missed an explanation about that somewhere.

Another thing that strikes me is that you don't have any (well, many) buildings outside of the city walls. I'd put at least a few buildings near the gates and maybe even a small cluster or two along the main road at various places. Some farmhouses out in those fields wouldn't be amiss either.

Keep going. I think you're getting there. BTW, I appreciate the characterization in your posts. Thinking like that is a great way to get immersed as you're designing stuff you've never been able to experience yourself.
M

[jtougas]

From The Riverhewn Daily Gazette: Thousand of Riverhewn residents were awoken today to discover that the houses they went to sleep in were not in fact the houses they woke up in. His Royal Majesty who was a bit terse due to the fact that he was forced to sleep in his coach due to the fact that Castle Shendenflar has dissapeared was quoted as saying" Forget the soup and the squirrels..someone get me a Llama and a bag of squash.....


Ok here we go again...Gone are mearrin's great houses and in their place s new city blocks layout. Now I think this is a little better and maybe more to scale. I used some random roof textures on the blocks to give them some "life". And per mearrin's advice I added some houses around the outskirts of the city and in the farmlands.

Things still to do:
1. Figure out some kind of texture for my streets there too "flat"
2. Rework or redraw Castle Shendenflar
3. Figure out how to blend the "parkland" with the rest of the city

I'm sure there's more but that's what's next.

As always feedback is requested and appreciated. Thanks!!

[jtougas]

From The Riverhewn Daily Gazette: Riverhewn Guild Of Street Sweepers announced today that they have gone on strike to protest the sudden and apparently random appearance and disappearance of streets throughout the city. As a result a fine layer of dirt has appeared on all the city's streets. When asked for comment, street sweeper Halin D. Ung replied:"Are ye daft? the streets are made of dirt" No further comment was forthcoming....


Ok last one for the night. I think I figured out my streets. They were just TOO clean. I applied a "wash" of a brown over them (light opacity) and I like the result. I also applied this "wash" over the roof textures to dull them down and blend them a bit. Also added an "N" on my compass rose (kind of silly to have a compass and no directions on it eh?) As always feedback is requested and appreciated..Thanks!!

[Aval Penworth]

Check out the size of the buildings in the farmland. Some of them are bigger than your city blocks.

[jtougas]

From The Riverhewn Daily Gazette: The Shendenflar Emergency Management Department was activated today by request of His Royal Majesty to deal with hundreds of displaced citizens whose houses and businesses again dissapeared overnight. S.E.M.D Director Nota Clu was quoted as saying "what?.".....

Well, Phase 4. I think I have a handle on my streets AND I learned a valuable lesson. Be neat where you place intersections. After applying stroke to my streets I suddenly found HUNDREDS of places where the streets weren't drawn precisely enough and resulted in "overlap". A hour or so of erasing and I've got it back mostly to where it should be. I'm fairly satisfied with the overall "feel" of the map now I think it's just a matter of standing back and looking at it to see what needs to be fixed. As per Aval Penworths suggestion I rescaled the farmhouses and the outlying houses(scale who knew it would be THIS hard..) I also added a few new pockets of "civilization" around the city. as well as a few new trees. I finalized the City Wall with towers and the gates as well.

Things Still To Do:
1. Castle Shendenflar. I am not much of a "artist" so this will probably be a block with some towers and maybe some kind of roof texture.
2.Text: I am not going to go TOO crazy with labeling this maybe just the major streets,rivers the new villages and possibly the City Gates.
3. Outlying roads: I like the way they look I'm just going to fiddle with them a bit to get them right.

I would again like to thank everyone for their feedback and encouragement. I am having a great time with this and feel like I learn something new every day.

As always feedback is requested and appreciated..Thanks!!

*Edit* I just realized that when I saved I didn't have the "parkland trails" layer visible. There are very narrow "trails that run through the "parkland" on the outside of the city next to the walls. I'll update that with the next installment.

[mearrin69]

Looking better. I'm not really reading your textured areas in the city as individual buildings. Maybe you could erase out some alleys and apply a bevel or something? Pyrandon's tutorial might apply here.

You still have some outsized buildings and trees on the eastern portion of the map.

At some point how about some minor roads/trails to the outlaying buildings?

I think you're getting there!
M

[jtougas]

In Breaking news Citizens of Riverhewn were stunned today as every building in the city suddenly turned red. When asked for comment His Royal Majesty was quoted as saying:"What do I care? I'm still living in a coach."...


Ok here we go. (first a quick note to mearrin: man I'm gonna have to start paying you for all the help your giving me...)

As per the mans advice I added some alleys and broke up the big city blocks. Better? We will see...I also saved the right version this time so the new trails and other additions are visible.

Now to the BIG one. While I was playing around with the roof textures I came up with the idea you see in Image 2. Now I'm not sure I'm liking it just yet so I'm asking for opinions. Image 1 is monochromatic,image 2. is with roof textures.

As always feedback is requested and appreciated...Thanks!!

Image 1



Image 2

[jtougas]

From The Riverhewn Daily Gazette: Citizens of Riverhewn flocked to the streets tonight to witness the "Grand Opening" of the New Castle Shendenflar. His Royal Majesty and his wife were said to be overjoyed at the prospect of finally being able to move back in. There have been no reports of strange goings on for the last day and all seems to have gone back to normal in the city. In the harbor however More giant letters were found floating causing a back up in ship traffic. When asked for comment on this situation His Royal Majesty was quoted as saying "Of course there are, of course there are...."


I decided to start labeling tonight and I think It came out pretty good. Castle Shendenflar is mostly finished it's not that fancy but it'll do. I also added barbicans at the gates. I think I might stick with the roof textures but I'm still open to opinions. As always feedback is requested and sincerely appreciated...Thanks!!

P.S 10pts to the first to spot the "inside joke".....