Reply With QuoteYup, exactly what I meant...look forward to what you have in store.Originally Posted by Ascension
If you're referring to the white text, have no fear...it's just a placeholder for now. Once I come up with names I'll also change the style.
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)
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Yup, exactly what I meant...look forward to what you have in store.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
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Well, I joined the repping bandwagon. I think it's a great map!
I especially like the vegetation, although the water is beautiful too.
One question, why do the villages and towns have a bit of a checkered look to them?
Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.
Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...
Beautifully done, Ascension, this is stunning. I really like the idea behind the cities / towns, but (for me) they are not quite there - the shapes are lovely, it's the texture and drop shadow which don't quite look right.
The checkerboard is a pattern overlay with a low opacity...I was aiming to accentuate the "blockiness" by adding that. Not sure if I'll be keeping it. The drop shadow...well...I'd rather not put in a cast shadow on something so small but if I must then I must.
Today's update: spent the whole darn day naming things and messin around with a faux 3-d effect, then messin around with styles but ended up using the same things as on the corresponding settlement with a few lightening touches so as it can be legible and not blend in so much. The font for the settlements is Cardinal with a text warp of shell upper, +50 bend and vert distortion of -20.
The 3-d effect was quite easy: copy the text layer, move it under, color overlay of medium gray, move it up 1 pixel; copy this layer 9 times (for the cities but only 5 more for the towns and only 3 more for the villages) and move each layer up 1 pixel as you go; merge the layers; 1-pixel black stroke and a noise gradient overlay. I'm sure there are some other ways to do it better in a vector program but I try to stay all within Photoshop.
Still lots to do like naming the sites, mountains, valleys, rivers, bays, etc.; think about that cast shadow for the cities; title, frame and scale; cast shadows for the text; and other doo-dads as I think of em.
Last edited by Ascension; 07-07-2009 at 05:16 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 love the lettering! Very original!
I'm going to have a play with your city idea later, I really love the effect, but want to tweak it slightly differently.
I have to admit while that's a novel idea for the text and it looks great - it doesn't do much for me *shrugs*. I think I'd like it more if the entire map had that 3D look to it.
The forest/vegetation is fantastic - any special trick to it? I also like the idea of showing the area that a city covers rather than just having a dot/square/etc.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
SG -- the forest is just one of the scattered dry brushes (PS default but I don't remember which one...it's sort of spikey looking) with a tiny bevel and some color.
Today's update: redid the entire lettering (converting to CelticHand and removing the text warp but using a perspective distortion), named the sites, decided to not overload the image with naming lots of other stuff, put the mountains back in, and put in the finishing grafix. This one looks just about done but I'll go over it tomorrow. If anyone spots anything let me know.
Last edited by Ascension; 07-07-2009 at 05:16 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
OK thanks - I'm almost disappointed (just kidding), here I thought it was going to be some really neat process, and it's just a default brush...what a let down.
I do like the lettering better now.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Hey, I'll just add in that this is a very cool looking map. I approve whole-heartedly!
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Pimping my worldmap here. Still WIP... long way to go, but I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far...
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