The Leonis Archipelago - WIP

[fifty]

So, I've been mucking about with curved text and I must say I'm not sure I'm doing it right?

I've tried just taking the text that i've got and hitting the little warp text button.. this sort of works but it does distort the font so I have to keep the curve quite "shallow":



Or I can use the pen-path tool to write it out again, which doesn't seem to distort the font as much... but I dunno, it still don't seem right, maybe not even as good as the warped text..?:


I'm just not sure either are an improvement over the earlier 'straight' version???

Opinions please!!!

[Chashio]

If you go with curved text, you'd probably want to keep it pretty shallow anyway... I like the warp better than the pen... maybe because of the darker/more visible characters. Pen tool... meh... Shapes converted to paths might be better - you can keep the curves more uniform sometimes than with the pen tool and path point adjustments. Maybe it's easier than I know. It did take me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to put text on a path so you probably should get someone else's advice on the best way to do it. With recent maps of mine, the labels were all raster letters from the beginning, so where they're on a curve they're mostly just arc-warped a bit or I rotated the letters individually around a central point if the arc was going to be too deep and distort things too much with a warp adjustment.

Whether either of your examples is an improvement over straight, I don't know. I'll leave that to the others. The map looks nice though.

[fifty]

After some playing I took your advice and went for shallow warped text on those labels that lent themselves to it. I've stuck on a few 'route lines' and a bunch of depth readings too.



I think this is done now unless I've missed anything obvious?

[Chashio]

The numbers a little thin for easy reading. Don't know if that's important to you or if it doesn't matter. But it might be interesting to see what it does to the map if you put the numbers inside the outer ring and spoke handles of ship wheels... like your location icons, but larger and lighter, faded value. Just a thought. You've done a good job with this.

[fifty]

Hi Chashio,
I sort of wanted the depths to be very much a background thing, I did do a little tester as you suggested but I think I'm happy as they are.

I've positioned them at narrows, channels and anchorage points as they might appear on a real chart, and tried to put more around the busier ports and routes and less further away. But ultimately I don't want them to busy up the chart too much.

Besides my experience with real naval charts (I sail a bit) is that the soundings are always really small and difficult to read! ;D

As always thanks for the C&C though!

[Ilanthar]

I agree with Clashio, that's a good job. And I'm finding those numbers quite intriguing too. Do you intent to use it as travel distance? Or the positioning of the pirate's lootings?

[fifty]

Hi Ilanthar,

Ahh no, they are measurements of the depth of water in at low tide and are used to determine:

1. if you have enough water below you to get a ship with a particular draft (depth under the waterline to the bottom of it's keel) safely across a particular bit of ocean floor without running aground.

2. If you have enough anchor chain to reach the bottom and hold without slipping (I won't bore you with the various different types of anchor for particular sea floor or the calculation for how many multiples of the depth in chain and rope you need to get a safe hold!).

e.g.

[Chashio]

Hi Chashio,
I sort of wanted the depths to be very much a background thing, I did do a little tester as you suggested but I think I'm happy as they are.

I've positioned them at narrows, channels and anchorage points as they might appear on a real chart, and tried to put more around the busier ports and routes and less further away. But ultimately I don't want them to busy up the chart too much.

Besides my experience with real naval charts (I sail a bit) is that the soundings are always really small and difficult to read! ;D

Well then it works beautifully

My experience with real naval charts (I just like to look at them) is that the soundings ARE always really small, difficult to read... and my opinion is that it doesn't always need to be so, does it?