Muhalli - Baby steps...

[teije]

Well, here's my first feeble attempt at mapping with CC3. I'm planning to map all of Inner Muhalli (the first map) but am doing it section by section to avoid getting overwhelmed by it all!

The first map is really just a sketch off of the original hand drawn maps - just the continents, islands and rivers are done so far. The S. continent of Ghur-Nami still needs its mountains put in... The red square indicates the area for the second map.

So the second map shows the islands of Joilhu & N Nindar. Joilhu recently won independence from the Nindari empire and has settled back into its happy squabbling minor states.

Any and all feedback appreciated - esp. on the borders. I've played around a bit, and am not so happy with how the fills turned out. How do other people represent borders on a regional map? I've used the default symbol set for CC3, but will play around more to find one I like once I get more proficient at using it.

This is very WIP, so please be nice...

- teije

[Gandwarf]

You are getting a grasp of CC3 I see. Nice work so war. I have never done political boundaries so hopefully someone else can help you. They do need some more work.

Some more suggestions:
- Put some fills under the mountains and hills. Under the hills a darker grey for example. The political fills now come through your mountains and that detracts from the "mountainy" feel.
- You might want to add an effect like a glow to the cities and towns.
- Watch out you don't put to many types of trees together too closely. The normal trees with the palm trees look a bit unnatural to me.
- The northern continent has a river that wouldn't normally be there I think. One river runs from the mountains to both the see and a lake? Or the lake is on higher ground of course, but your map doesn't really show that.

[Steel General]

I'm not sure how you would do them in CC3, but if I were to do them it would be with some kind of low opacity solid line with an inner glow on/along the borders. Ascension did something like this on one of his maps and I think it's a great way to accomplish representation of political borders.

PS: There is a tutorial that NeonKnight put together for doing political borders here

[Hoel]

Something is wrong with the attachment, I can't open it. I see the tumbnail alright

[Steel General]

I was able to open it earlier, but now I cannot.

[teije]

Hmm - I opened it okay (from a different computer too) but it did take awhile - perhaps it's rather large for posting. Next one I'll make smaller.

Sure wish I'd read Neonknight's tutorial before I did the borders - that would have saved me some time yesterday!

The lake is on higher ground, but yes, I'm not showing that. I'll work on the fills. For the trees I need to think about the climate for the islands - it's a warmer world than ours but that part isn't tropical, so probably the jungle is out of place.

I'll post a revised one in a couple days (taking my son to the Red Wings hockey game tonight!)

- teije

[Steel General]

It seems to be working Ok now.

[Midgardsormr]

Sometimes PNGs exported directly from CC3 have an error which prevents some versions of Firefox from displaying them. Make sure your CC3 is fully patched--I believe there was a fix for that in an update last year.

I can't see it, either, but you should certainly take a look at Neonknight's tutorial; it produces results similar to Ascension's work in Photoshop.

[teije]

My CC3 is up to date - anyways next time I'll export to JPG for posting. Sorry to those who can't view them (although it isn't that great...).

~teije