Update(?)
I'm not really sure this is much of an update. My work schedule picked up this last week, so I (again) have not gotten as far as I would have liked (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). I have played with a couple of things, not for the better by and large I'm afraid.
First thing I am most generally pleased with is the progress on re-drawing the buildings (considering they are not yet done, don't bother looking at them). It's a pain to re-do them, but I like right angles, and it will give me the opportunity to correct the population dispersal problem. That neighborhood at the bottom of the map was far too large, put that way to make a desirable population count (2500-3000 at 3.5 average adults/household). By squeezing a few more people into the north, I can cut houses in the south,. You may notice that as many buildings as possible were given a perfect North/South orientation (definately more convenient to the mapper, @Sigurd *poke*). As per ravells' very first comments/suggestions about my town I have attempted to use fewer rectangles, but upon reviewing his latest Port City, I realize that I cannot compete with his idea of irregularly shaped buildings (@ravells *poke, poke*).
Second, to me, but probably the first thing anyone will notice is the forest.
The only good thing I can say about it is it's a vast improvement from how it was represented previously. Gandwarf made the comment in jfraziers tut, too "clip-art", and I think the term applies even more here than there. I also think it's too busy. It will probably be redone. Can anyone point me towards some botanical resource information? I have questions like; What kinds of trees could I likely find at 40-50 degrees north lat, about 1500-2000' elevation? How many different species is one likely to find in one forest? Diagrams of tree species dispersal in a forest, and diagrams of tree crowns for specific species.
Altered the hue of the grass, NOT happy with it's current state. trying to find something more lush (living green), not neon. If I fail in this I will go back to its initial color.
@jfrazierjr, I've toned down the grass texture a bit. I'm not sure what to use as an alternate grass texture. I do intend to add a lot of soil/dirt, to break up what currently appears to broad expanses of grass (around the buildings of town, animal enclosures, the graveyard, and a few barren patches out in the open will be mostly dirt). It took me forever to figure out which layer mask I had to alter to get the river to blend better with the swamp (my first guess was actually correct, but there was another mask interfering that I had to track down to erase a handful of pixels on the river's edge). And thank you for the forest suggestion, I like this "style" much better, even though I need to re-do the forest, again (for the fourth time).
@torstan, I still think the forest needs to be toned down, but I do think its current state is better than before. Sorry I haven't quite finished the buildings yet, but thanks for the tip. That's exactly what I want (I think).
@Everyone, Thank you all so much (esp jfrazierjr and torstan) for your patience with me and continued attention, even though I appear to crawling along to the lot of you.
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Building shapes look great, darn near perfect, I'd say. Trees look good overall...you have green trees and light green trees. I'd suggest adding more color variation like yellow-green, orange, mustard, olive, ochre, mud, tan, etc. On a new layer use an airbrush and play with the various colors and make blobs of color then set the blend mode to overlay. So far so good.
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
Not much of an update my arse. This is coming along nicely. I agree with ascension about the building shapes. That's some patience you've got there. It will show in the final result.
I also agree with the forest. The pattern is great - but a little bright and sharp for my liking. On the other hand, I don't go for photo-real maps so maybe others can comment better than I. I'd suggest lowering the opacity of the forest layer a little, or lowering the saturation and contrast a touch. The same goes for the rock - you'd never see veins of minerals ina rock at this scale, though the texture is nice. Perhaps take the rock layer, duplicate it, and fill the rock with a mid to dark grey on the lower layer. Then lower the opacity of the textured layer and see how it looks.
As for speed of progress - you should see my threads - they are positively glacial. No worries about slow updates - it gives us lots of chances to carp and criticise - ahem - I mean constructively comment .
*cheers*
Hooray, an update I'm actually (relatively) happy with!
Not too much has changed in the last 24 hours, but I have found a grass hue that I like, that's pretty much enough to make me happy.
@Ascension, boy, I was nervous to pursue your advice (orange, mustard, and tan?) but I did. I can't really discern too great a difference. It still looks green to me. I think it brightened some of my darker spots. I am red-green deficient though, so maybe you can see a difference where I cannot. (I'd have guessed being color blind to reds-greens, that the other colors would have jumped at me. Go figure.)
@Torstan I toned down the volume on the trees a bit, before I followed Ascensions' instructions, and they jumped right back up. On the rocks, I just went ahead and used the small tile function on the original fill. Tell me what you think.
The swamp, the swamp! Look at the swamp! What's the consensus? Does this look more, or less like a swamp?
Ok, I'm not sure about the road developments in the NE quadrant, anyone have an opinion? Also, you guys got the hexes visible this time. 1 hex = 100'
Last edited by Feralspirit; 03-01-2009 at 04:43 AM. Reason: Oops, forgot a couple of things.
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Again?
*crickets*
(Note to self; No love for last swamp, try again.)
Oh, I can hear the groans. (Stern's Bridge is back?)
Alright, after a month of plodding this is what I've got-
Still on the to do list; Furrows and Crops, Another try at Rocky Terrain, Shingles and Chimneys(?), Grunge(?), Other Do-Dads (fountain, ballista, cart, boat), Finishes (scale, labels, key, rose), other that the guild recommends.
Credit to RobA for Fantastic Water Wheel. The only icon I found that reduced to .05 (I think) and still looked good.
Last edited by Feralspirit; 04-03-2009 at 01:21 AM.
Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -Voltaire
Wow that is coming along nicely. I am eager to see what you come up with on the crop front as that is soemthing I am trying to figure out on my city maps.
Dean
Dean
\"Nonsense, your only saying that because no-one ever has!\"
This looks nice, dude...certainly better than most of the things that I've done at this scale. Don't worry about crickets...I get em all the time and it usually just means that no one has anything that needs to be tweaked. I certainly hope you do more like this, it's very nice.
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
Wow, what a difference 1 post makes
Looks great. There are a few things though. One of them is the shadows. I was liking the different heights of the buildings and was wondering how you managed that. Having said that, based on the length of the shadow, the trees are HUGE!!. Much taller than the fortress. I suggest that the shadow for the trees shouldn't be any longer than of a three story building.
I also like the way you used the shadow of the fortified bridge to help give some relief to the river and the shoreline. But, you need to watch the shadow on the two towers at the end of that bridge, The way it looks with the shadows is that the middle tower is shorter than the ones at the end.
The thing about shadows is that they all have the same light source (the sun) and the length of the shadow shows the relative height of the tallest point from the ground. If the sun is at 45 degrees, the length of the shadow is roughly equal to the height of the object casting it. Things like peeked roofs and variations in ground level could screw that up, but that is basically the way it works.
Don't get me wrong, I like what you have done (and I am curious how you did the varying shadow length), I just happen to notice shadows a lot.
Have some rep for the way it is turning out.
Art Critic = Someone with the Eye of an Artist, Words of a Bard, and the Talent of a Rock.
Please take my critiques as someone who Wishes he had the Talent
Great update... still just a bit dark overall
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.
This looks great - definitely one of the best threads for showing how fast something can improve. I love the swamp texture you ended up using - that's very cool. I also like the woods.
My one note on it as it stands is that the buildings are all casting shadows, but they don't have any shadows on the roofs. The roofs look like they've been lit from above.
I can't help on the shingle texture I'm afraid - I had a shot at it, but came up with nothing. CGtextures might be your best bet.
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