This place is cool!

[Mr.Fatboy]

Hello everyone! I stumbled upon your site about a week ago and have been hooked ever since. The amazing maps, the helpful tutorials, the supportive posts and advice. I am impressed, you should be proud of what you have built. I can't wait to get through more content.

I am an artist, mostly painting and drawing, with limited computer skills, so I always drew out my maps by hand (years of RPG). You have inspired me, I loaded Gimp 2.8. I actually created my first map, I'll try to post it again soon, didn't work last time I tried. I ran into some technical issues, I created an animated brush, which won't animate, and I can't figure out how to put words on paths, but otherwise it went pretty well. It took forever drawing everything out by hand (mouse), but that's part of the fun I guess.

I'm a fan of the Xanth novels, Rob Salvatore books and cool old maps. I'm trying to build a new art portfolio while creating RPGs and writing (poorly) in my spare time (and now a new hobby, fantasy cartography!).

I'm looking forward to trying isometric maps and learning more about texture and color. Has anyone found a way to replicate gold leaf?

I'm looking forward to learning a lot from everyone!
Mr.Fatboy

p.s. if I posted twice I apologize, my browser crashed the last time I tried to post.

[Mr.Fatboy]

OK, I'm having trouble loading the map. I converted it to a PNG file, 4.3 MB, the GIMP file was over 17k. I went and disabled the enhanced loading feature, but it didn't help. When I hit the icon to add an image, I locate the PNG file, but the upload button doesn't seem to do anything. Any thoughts? thanks

[Jalyha]

I don't know if it's not doing anything. It should put some numbers in your reply box... that's the image.

If the image is too big, it will tell you it's too big.


Sometimes it takes a long time for it to upload, though. Try clicking the upload button again and then wait a few minutes.

If it doesn't work, maybe try a different file type... like make it a jpg?

[Falconius]

You might be prevented from uploading images here until you've reached five posts, or so I would imagine.

Welcome to the guild though!

[Jalyha]

Aren't there people that post a map in their first, introduction post? I can't remember which post I added a picture to...

[Azélor]

Welcome to the guild ! Yes a lot of people post an image in their first message. And only those that are successful receive rep... I know the rules are more strict now than before so it might be a security issue.
Anyway a 4 mb PNG should not be too big from what I have seen so far. My PNG maps would be more around 70-100 mb. That's why I recommend not to use this type of image unless in some cases.
Also, 4mb image may take some times to upload.

[Mr.Fatboy]

It must be my pc or my internet...I saved as a jpg, under a KB now. The add image button still isn't doing anything, so I enabled the enhanced downloading again and went to manage attachments. I let it try to load the jpg for almost an hour and nothing... I saw the thread about this issue, the only advice seemed to be try at a less popular time. Any thoughts?

thanks!

[Jacktannery]

After you select the file in the 'add attachments' box you have to press the 'Upload' button. Did you remember to do that?

[Mr.Fatboy]

Success!!! thanks to all. I had to disable the enhanced downloading and load as jpg.

Please let me know what you think. As I mentioned above, I haven't figured out how to add words to paths yet, so the city/island names are horrible, poorly sized, placed and colored... so be gentle, but definitely open to suggestions. I'll take all of the help I can get actually. I can't wait to revisit those tutorials. Thanks so much!!!

[Gamerprinter]

Welcome to the Guild! In most applications you draw your curved line (sometimes I need to make the line invisible in my program), then type your text making sure that the line length isn't longer than your curved line (the line should be longer than your text for best results). Then you'd select both your text line and your curvy drawn line, then apply some function usually called "align text to path". Then the text attaches to your curvy line. You may alternatively add spaces before or after your text line to fit it better, but that's all it entails. (I don't know what software you are using, but "align text to path" is pretty common in both image editors and vector applications - I use vector (Xara Designer Pro 9).