Looking really good, Turganev. I really like the colour set you've used (apart from the river which looks a little too bright, as Torstan said). My only small crits are the building distribution and and size are very uniform. the wiggly roads are really nice tho.
Here's the latest attempt. I've replaced the bridges with the wooden plank/stone frame bridge pic that I created and I also added an extra bridge. I have also replaced the water but I'm not 100% satisfied with it. I'm going to think that one over for a bit and see what I can come up with. Any water tips would greatly be appreciated.
Cheers,
Tim
Paratime Design Cartography
"Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?" - Groucho Marx
That's a big improvement with the bridges. If you are feeling keen - looks like it so far! - it might be worth putting a feature in the town wall where it crosses the river too. It would be unlikely for the builders to have built that across as a diagonal. I know - I'm picking nits.
As for the water texture the first point is that it is too large - try reducing the scale by 50%.
It can also be worth having one layer for the colkour of the water and another for the highlights - the light on the surface. On your colour layer try a darkish blue in the middle of the river lightening to a mid blue at the edge. Then have a layer over the top with the river texture set to soft or hard light, and play with the opacity. You can get some good results by tweaking the curves on the texture layer so that the texture is much harder with clean edges on the light areas. Water tends to reflect very sharp highlights. Hopefully those will give you a fun hour or two's experimentation. Looking forward to seeing the results!
It might even be worth a try to make the river a solid color than go over it with small, low opacity airbrush of a lighter color then use the 'smudge' tool (or whatever the GIMP equivalent is) to show the direction the water is traveling.
This worked out pretty well with the aqueduct on my Seagaard map.
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Yep, the bridges are a great improvement.
The larger forests reverted back to their original state, though?
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
I always add in a sandy brown river bank as an outer glow or gradient stroke (set to shape burst in PS). Lastly, the bridges are a bit orange, maybe make em more tan-brown. Minor nits on my part, I know, so please disregard if ya feel like itLookin swell overall tho so keep on truckin.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
What's a shape burst? Sounds interesting - never heard of it!Originally Posted by Ascension
I always add in a sandy brown river bank as an outer glow or gradient stroke (set to shape burst in PS). Lastly, the bridges are a bit orange, maybe make em more tan-brown. Minor nits on my part, I know, so please disregard if ya feel like it
In PS you can have your stroke be a gradient. The default is Linear but there is Radial, Angle, Reflected, Diamond, and Shape Burst. Say I have a 10 pixel stroke with a black to white gradient...linear will put the white at the top and black at the bottom, radial will create something circular where the black is like a black hole with white at the edges forming a ring, angle works like clocks hands going around starting with black at midnight and going around getting lighter until white at 11:59, reflected will have white at top and bottom with black in the middle, diamond is like radial but instead of using a circular shape it uses a diamond shape, shape burst runs the gradient from black to white from outside in (similar to radial but in the opposite direction) but it keeps the shape of the object...this is sort of like increasing a selection size 1 pixel at a time...so that the stroke itself is white where it is closest to the object and black furthest out. This is very handy for making beaches (not as good as outer glow though) or black rings around a landmass on a parchment-style tan and black map. The stroke can also be applied outside or inside the object as well as centered on the edge. Lastly, you can also use a pattern as a stroke instead of a solid color or a gradient. The only downside is that the stroke does not fade out like an outer or inner glow. The following pic should explain it better.
Last edited by Ascension; 11-17-2008 at 05:13 PM.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
I hope you don't mind, Turgenev, but I took your map and had a play with the river (using photoshop). I used a reasonably desaturated blue, gave it a small amount of noise which I reduced the opacity to, bevelled inwards (to make the river banks) and gave it a gradient fill (which emphasises the banks a little more and adds a nice variation of contrast to the river over its whole length) and satin overlay (gives it dark and light bands so it looks a little like a sky reflection). I think it looks OK this way.
Thanks everyone for the wonderful tips! I've taken everything into account and here's my latest attempt...
Cheers,
Tim
Paratime Design Cartography
"Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?" - Groucho Marx
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