January Entry: The Lost Continent

[bryguy]

Okay Ive redone the pages, and I think they look much better

I could hardly tell the individual pages apart from one another on the right side, so I gave them a slight drop shadow on the right.

I also scaled down the text at the bottom (it may be a little blurry, but that happened when I scaled it down to 1000x1000) , since it wouldnt fit at the size it had been with the new pages.


Havent had time to try out different fonts yet, but Ill do that in the next version

Now I have to get off for a bit, but Ill get back to work on it later

edit: ah i think i figured out why some of it is blurry. I think I used the wrong type of scaling, and the type i used blurred it

Also, I forgot the Latest WIP thing..

### Latest WIP ###

[Karro]

It looks pretty darn good. The only comment I have, and I know this would be hard to do, is that for a an old book just laying open, the lines of the map and the text are awfully straight. It looks like if I hold a ruler up to the computer screen, the text and other lines will line right up. This makes it look not so much like it's following the curve of the page.

I'm not sure how I'd do it, myself (I think there are some hints on it in RobA's GIMP tutorial on how to do distortion, if you're using GIMP) but it looks like they could use some kind of distortion.

You mention that it doesn't look right if you flatten it. Are you flattening in the right order? If you flatten your layers in the wrong order, you lose some effects, but in the right order and everything is preserved. IIRC, you have to flatten from top to bottom.

[bryguy]

It looks pretty darn good. The only comment I have, and I know this would be hard to do, is that for a an old book just laying open, the lines of the map and the text are awfully straight. It looks like if I hold a ruler up to the computer screen, the text and other lines will line right up. This makes it look not so much like it's following the curve of the page.

I'm not sure how I'd do it, myself (I think there are some hints on it in RobA's GIMP tutorial on how to do distortion, if you're using GIMP) but it looks like they could use some kind of distortion.

You mention that it doesn't look right if you flatten it. Are you flattening in the right order? If you flatten your layers in the wrong order, you lose some effects, but in the right order and everything is preserved. IIRC, you have to flatten from top to bottom.

Yea I know it is awfully straight. Im trying to think of a good way to fix it. For the text, I might just make a path and set the text to path, but the image is harder, as it doesnt look very good when I do it....

I think I gave the wrong impression, what I meant was what I have to do to get it to a size this site will accept is to save it as a .png, and then open the .png in GIMP and scale it down to 1000x1000. This last time I did it I used the wrong type of scaling (I have been using cubic scaling, as when making images smaller it keeps all the detail) so it ended up slightly blurry at parts.

Thanks for the comments Karro

[Karro]

Yea I know it is awfully straight. Im trying to think of a good way to fix it. For the text, I might just make a path and set the text to path, but the image is harder, as it doesnt look very good when I do it....

I think I gave the wrong impression, what I meant was what I have to do to get it to a size this site will accept is to save it as a .png, and then open the .png in GIMP and scale it down to 1000x1000. This last time I did it I used the wrong type of scaling (I have been using cubic scaling, as when making images smaller it keeps all the detail) so it ended up slightly blurry at parts.

Thanks for the comments Karro

Hmm. Not experienced enough with GIMP to know how to handle this.

No prob on the comments. Your's is easily in my top 5 for this month!

[bryguy]

@--> Jfrazierjr

Yea Im thinking I might go with something like that, probably The Alphabet of the Magi or Tengwar Noldor.

@--> Karro

Yea trying out the text to path, it keeps messing up my computer, so I dont think that will work. Ill probably have to import parts of it into Inkscape to get the curves on the stuff, if I can find it/remember how to use it


And Im glad Ill be on someones top 5

[RobA]

Try this as a displacement map on the page:


(You will have to scale it to cover the text and image)

Set it to y only, and as large as you want.

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

Personally, I would go with one of the runic looking fonts, with hard sharp angles and no curves. Rune is one I kind of like. Of course.... if you really wanna go overboard, perhaps you could do it in binary or mathematical language other than Base10 for the "letters".

[bryguy]

Cool, guess Ill have to start experimenting with it


Before yesterday, I had never used it, as I didnt know u needed an image to use for it


Changed the font to Alphabet of the Magi and used the displace tool on all the map objects


### Latest WIP ###

[Karro]

Cool, guess Ill have to start experimenting with it


Before yesterday, I had never used it, as I didnt know u needed an image to use for it


Changed the font to Alphabet of the Magi and used the displace tool on all the map objects


### Latest WIP ###

Very cool. The curve on the page now looks great, and the lines aren't unnaturally straight-looking. The font is Fantastic.

I've already repped you once for the map, so I can't rep you again just yet, but nice job, just the same.

[Nomadic]

Well I can, so have some rep. That is an excellent job you've done there. I myself can't see anything else you need to improve.