Please, continue fooling....that works on it's own as interesting art...
This next image has nothing to do with the direction I'm taking with the map. I was just fooling around and decided to post the results here, so enjoy.
Please, continue fooling....that works on it's own as interesting art...
Actually I'm planning to create couple of new maps with this style at some point .
EDIT: I'll post a new map created with this style to another thread.
Last edited by Jykke; 03-26-2009 at 04:58 AM. Reason: had to correct something
I have faced some problems with this map, as I don't really know how I should implement towns & other landmarks to the scene. It would be so easy if I just could take a medieval castle and place it where the town / city would be, but this is Heian period Japan, and the buildings have to look like that ..and it would be nice if the towns had that certain shabby look with all the city streets and so on. I actually tried to create some building models, but mapping a whole town seems like a big job. And even if I'll manage to do that, I'm still not sure how to get it to the actual map and have it look natural on it. Here's a block of the city without any roads and so on.
EDIT: of course it will be from a more isometric kind camera angle when I implement it on the actual map
Last edited by Jykke; 04-02-2009 at 03:11 PM.
Your 3D work is amazing! Really good job.
However, it just doesn't look like Japan to me. I would suggest that you do a little bit of research into the look of Japanese mountains and land - even just a Google image search ought to give you some really good visual imagery to work from.
Regarding the buildings, I can imagine you are probably quite limited with building models, and making a proper period Japanese town would be a project in and of itself. If you want to keep things at a manageable scale, small villages are probably best.
If you could manage to do something with the roofs, things would look better still. Roofs in Japan are one of the most distinctive features of the architecture, whether it's thatched traditional roofs or ornamental tiled roofs.
I don't suppose rice paddies are an option? It could be especially fun to put in some terraced fields, but again it would make the whole thing that much more complicated. Rice paddies everywhere that you currently have plains would certainly make it shout "Japan!!"
Thorf, thank you for the good tips.. I'll look in to those problems and see if something can be done Maybe I'll get a more versatile 3d program to get better results (Vue has quite poor 3d modelling features) EDIT: As this is one of the best tips I've gotten so far.. have some rep for it
Last edited by Jykke; 04-06-2009 at 09:25 AM.
Encouraged by Thorf, I started modelling a more realistic looking japanese building that I will be using in the actual map also. Here's what I've got (it's on the table at the moment..) I'll probably start a new thread on the town mapping section for this sub-project. EDIT: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=5072 link to the new thread
Last edited by Jykke; 04-07-2009 at 12:29 PM.
yet another try with the forest.. seems like there is too much of it. It doesn't look as natural as I want it to be. So back to tweaking.. etc
Very nice building! That ought to set the scene quite nicely.
I'm glad you got some use out of my advice. I've been living in Japan for almost ten years, seeing mountains every day, so I just couldn't resist.