Introducing Kimarnock's Ruhba -- Vandy's first CG Map

[Hoel]

It probably has a few errors itself. It's the art of fortification rather then the sience.
I'm waiting for someone to make a map for a gunpowder world, then we can talk about sience.

[Vandy]

PERSONAL REPLIES

Ascension - Y'know, there's a silly thing about making mistakes. When your goal is to get to the top of a greased flagpole and (in your own "warped" sense of goals) there are no other options, mistakes have a way of really "tripping" you up! I do understand what you're saying and certainly will make my share of them. I just hate doing so, though...

Hoel - Thanks for the suggestions on defensive walls. I really like what you've suggested and most certainly will be employing / deploying a number of said suggestions.

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Speaking of city / defensive / fortified walls, I've searched through a number of threads here at CG and have found many different examples of city walls from very simple line art to a somewhat detailed top-down view of the wall. Is there a ready resource that one can use to make said walls or, is this something I need to create myself?

I'd much rather use an available symbol or object but certainly am willing to create my own if necessary.

Looking forward to your input in order to take the next step in getting Kimarnock's Ruhba completed.

Regards,

Gary

[Hoel]

I make mine with one layer of lines for walls, with pattern overlay for at top down view. Towers go on a second layer. If it's a larger scale i might forgo the pattern overlay thou.
CD seems to have some tools for walls.

[Ascension]

I just use a square pencil in photoshop and draw lines, then use layer styles, as hoel said...pattern, inner shadow, outer glow, color, etc.

[Steel General]

What Ascension and Hoel said...

[Vandy]

PERSONAL REPLIES

Hoel - Thanks for your information on walls. As I'm still not completely comfortable with PhotoShop (CS2 or Elements) as I usually use PainShop Pro, I'm not familiar with Pattern Overaly and am having trouble finding it? I did follow your advice as to putting the various defensive elements on their own layers for ease in editing.

Ascension - That's pretty much what I did to "lay down" my defensive structures -- used brushes. I haven't done any finishing on the walls yet as I'm still trying to be somewhat faithful in following Pyrandon's tutorial.

Steel General - My above comments...

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WIP UPDATE

Hello, All.

After studying Hoel's suggestions for defensive walls and structures, I've layed out the city walls and defensive structures I'll be using for Kimarnock's Ruhba.

Some notes on the below image:

1) The small "dots" along the walls are upper wall towers that stick out from the main wall.

2) As you can tell, all city gates (with the exception of the very inner keep) are doubled. The large squares around the gates could be though of as gatehouses or barbicans with a gate structure between them.

3) The squres attached to the ends of the city walls can thought of as bastions or barbicans.

4) The stand alone squares on the islands and in the south can be thought of as redoubts, a tower house or a guard tower.



Also, I've "grown" the canvas size for the image. Its dimensions are now 2300 x 1700 pixels. As you will be able to see, I've editied in sea and land cover for the extra pixels.

I do have a question for you concerning resolution. This is an area in which I have little practical experience as I've never really had an opportuninty to be much concerned with it. Currently, my map is using 72 pixels per inch. My questions are as follows:

1) What are the benefits of going to a higher resolution?

2) What are the drawbacks of going to a higher resolution?

3) What is the general "rule of thumb" when it comes to seting a resolution?


Thanks, in advance, for your comments and answers. Have a great day!

Regards,

Gary

[Redrobes]

Hi Vandy, I would recommend looking through some of this thread as those questions are answered at the top part of it.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2596

Basically it depends. What matters in your case is the total image pixels not the pixels per inch unless your going to print it. Then these pixels per inch will determine the maximum size you can realistically print the map out to. 100 ppi is about the minimum, 200 is ok, 300 is good quality. You can go to 600 if its black and white line art but its starting to get a bit overkill by this point.

Downsides ? Well memory on PC goes up with resolution. Also you might find that its a bit more work shuffling more pixels about.

Rule of thumb is determine what your map is for. 72 is ok for screen, 200/300 for print. If able, double these when working on the map and then do a slight blur and half size it for the final output (keeping your working version at the old double res in case you want to modify it).

So for this months map for print challenge 48x36 inches poster at say 200dpi is 9600x7200 and ideally you should be at double this until the final size. For an A4 map to print and hand out thats about 2300x1650 preferably doubled up to about 5Kx3K or so as your working size.

If your using vectors then all this is moot since vectors don't have a ppi until you raster them for printing or output.

[Steel General]

I usually work at 200ppi and then scale it back (usually to around 125ppi to meet the megapixel limit) to post here.

[Hoel]

Nice! You really took my sketch and ran with it!
-South of the northern east gate there's a small glitch in the wall where two lines doesn't connect.
-It looks a bit like the north and east wall are below the slope of the ridge, I'd pull it back bit there
-If you use paths and stroke them instead of drawing freehand, the walls will look smoother.
-I like the size of the towers compared to the wall thickness
-A round bastion or barbican is stronger than a square one (they were square on the sketch to separate them from the wall towers)

I don't know much about PSP, but in PS you have something called blending options, with things like drop shadow, bevel and stroke. There's also a few overlays, color, gradient and pattern. I use pattern overlay with a stone texture and another stone texture on a thin stroke to get my walls.

[Redrobes]

In PSP you can flood fill with a pattern. Theres two boxes in the color tool bar one foreground and one background color. On each is a little arrow bottom right which opens up color type. They are No Color, Pattern, Solid and gradient. So choose pattern and pick one from the pattern swatch which includes all windowed images as patterns. So get some stone as an image on the screen and set it as the fill pattern and flood the walls with a nice stone.