Calling all City Mappers

[ravells]

No, I meant each city having its own stylesheet. I think we can get away with different styles of maps for areas but I'm not sure about city districts.

[RobA]

Please explain stylesheet in this context, Ravs. I don't follow

-Rob A>

[NeonKnight]

I think by Style Sheet (Using my City of Deestan as an Example) the stylesheet for that city would be close crowed buildings, with tight streets and lots of thoroughfares. Compare to the city of Koppolex. Should multiple mappers be involved in mapping one city, the city would need to conform to a singular style otherwise it can look really jarring.

My thoughts.

[ravells]

Hi Rob, pretty much as Neon puts it, having an agreed palette of colours and an agreed way of depicting buildings - e.g. a 3 point black stroke with a 50% gray interior....that kind of thing, it's really so that all the elements in the map are consistent - not sure if style sheet is the right word!

If we do have one, it would have to be a style that is reproduceable across as many applications as possible, e.g. CC, PS, Gimp, Illustrator etc.

[Torq]

Imagine I do a city map by myself. Then Neon wants to map a specific alleyway in that city. Are you saying that he will be bound by a stylistic convention that I have applied even if our maps are on completely different scales? Or are you applying it only to cases where different mappers map areas on the same scale within a larger area? I'm not sure that the idea really works with the theme of stylistic individuality and geogrpahical continuity that we spoke of earlier in the project regarding the area maps. There is no "style sheet" on that level, is there?

Torq

[NeonKnight]

Imagine I do a city map by myself. Then Neon wants to map a specific alleyway in that city. Are you saying that he will be bound by a stylistic convention that I have applied even if our maps are on completely different scales? Or are you applying it only to cases where different mappers map areas on the same scale within a larger area? I'm not sure that the idea really works with the theme of stylistic individuality and geogrpahical continuity that we spoke of earlier in the project regarding the area maps. There is no "style sheet" on that level, is there?

Torq

No, I personally do not see that.

For example, when I map out my cities, I like them plain and not really photo realistic as it is easier to depict individual buildings and features in a city that way (my thoughts). When I zoom down to an alley, I like the more photo realistic, increased detail. Show me the pile of garbage, the broken crates, the homeless hovel against the wall, the drainage gutter etc.

I think the 'style' should, as you state, remain consistent across the whole at the same scale. Again, using Deestan as an example (because I have yet to finish it), if someone was to be mapping for inclusion one of the outlying burroughs, it would jar if it was done with a pallette and style completely different from the rest.

[Torq]

Would it jar, if they were two distinct maps here or on the wiki which would not be held up against each other by the viewer? I can understand that if you using a product like Redrobes' Viewingadale which allows you to see both maps against each other in the same space, it would be jarring to see two very distinct styles. I'm interested becasue if we are looking for stylistic matching, shouldn't we have done it for the region?

Torq