*** July 09 challenge voting - Enchantment ***

[mmmmmpig]

Clearly there were 2 that stood out from the rest. I went with Tear's mainly because of the color scheme. It seemed very airy and ethereal. Kudos to all who entered this month though. It was nice to see a good smattering of entries after such a short time frame.

Thanks to those of you who voted for mine. I wish I had more time to work on it, but the vacation was amazing.

I hope to get to some more detailed C&C this week.

[AslanC]

Something about Tear's map made me feel a hint of memory... a shadow of something from my childhood... and that took me away from my desk for a few seconds... well done sir... you got my vote.

[mmmmmpig]

Here we are with C&C. Remember these comments are only to help and not to hurt. Again, I am critting and commenting from a place to make us all better. Some of these will seem very nit-picky, but that is because the devil is in the details.

Tear: you got my vote. This map is absolutely incredibly well done. I have 2 small quibbles about the map itself. One is purely aesthetic and the other is philosophical.
The aesthetic: I think there is not as much of a sense of floating as there could be. Maybe adding some more background haze under the floating land would do it, or some more obvious clouds beneath the land mass.
The philosophical: Using real world terrain and areas is a perfectly acceptable practice and I am not saying not to do this, but I think you could have made a bit more effort to obfuscate the landform that this is coming from. The fact that another member recognized the land form and offered a the picture that your map area was created from means that you did not, in my own personal opinion, modify the land form enough. Push, pull, stretch, add, and subtract. Especially if the contest is about being “enchanted.” I was momentarily brought back to the real world with the real world example.

All that being said, this map is phenomenal and quite deservedly got my vote.

joão paulo: The concept behind this map is very strong. I think it is a form that could have been pushed a bit further (time permitting). I love that the cardinal directions were indicated by the four biomic landscapes. I feel the place where you could have pushed this further is in the rest of the figure.
There was no idea of even an abstracted place. The top of the image could have been indicative of the sky or air or the stars while the floor of the image could have represented land or grounding or something. This is such a great concept I want to see it pushed further. It could be very allegorical or ancient religion texty like the Egyptian Book of the Dead or something like that. Great Stuff!

Jykke: This one almost got my vote, just barely missed out, in fact. I have some small points that I want to mention.
Point 1: The concept is pretty awesome, especially if the squid below has a deep sea culture living on its body as well. It could be a cultural battle as well as a mega beast battle.
Point 2: I think the landforms need more variation. Make it a community on the turtle’s back with farms and houses and everything (granted it is easier said than done). I was looking forward to seeing some farmland and areas that were not forested. Point 3: the lighting is a bit dark. I am not sure (I am sure you mentioned it) what software you completed this within, but it is never a bad thing to tweak levels in an image manip program after the 3-D engine renders it. It may not be an accurate lighting scheme, but this is an illustration and often illustrations require some modifications to straight up physics.
Point 3: The insets that you added to the map don’t quite work. The one of the fort is great, but the one of the tower is not as useful. Maybe some extra data is required for the towers. Garrison numbers, a diagram, schematic, something else. It looks hastily pasted onto the image.
Point 4: Nemo needs an incredible wake.
Point 5: These are all very nit-picky issues, so take them with a grain of salt. This is a badass map.

Mmmmmpig: Finish your stuff, you hack.

Xyll: I love the beginnings of this. Here are some things I thought might be good elements to help finish this out.
-Settlements in the fire and ice realms.
-Towers and gates along the wall
-A transition landform for the wall to sit atop of
-Great concept, I hope you get a chance to finish it

Drahyden: It is like a funhouse/magical version of a hypercube. I like where you are going with this and I hope you are able to finish it. I really like the hex structure of the rooms. And the honeycomb look of the final map. You have some nice areas on that map to add illustrations of your rooms style and such. Please finish it.

Darken: For something rough and simple, I get amazing amounts of pleasure watching the little boat come into and out of the bay. I think this has the bones of something truly magical. I could it becoming something really fun given time.

Elfspeaker: The concept is a strong one. It is unfortunate that you didn’t get a chance to finish it up. Here are my hang-ups. If each isle is supposed to be a separate realm, I feel that there are a bit too many islands and that they are a bit too similar inn look and feel. I would suggest removing some of them and making the others larger and more varied.

Great entries everyone! To those who finished congrats, to those who didn’t good starts. Again, these are just my own personal observations and suggestions, so treat them as such.

On to next month.

[Gamerprinter]

I have to really agree with Mmmmmpig regarding the discrepancies in Tear's map. The fact that the base map was not yours and someone else's work is a big "no no" in my opinion. Also the background treatment using what appears to be a very grainy and low res skyscape image, didn't work for me at all. Had these two issues not been as they are, I wouldn't have needed to flip a coin, giving Jykke my vote - your's would have been the obvious choice.

Torq, one of our CLs who hasn't been around for a few months, did an island in the sky map last year that was a superlative job. While it was more a top-down map, rather than isometric like yours, his map really shined in the efforts to show the ground below the floating island. In his map, he placed some cloud layers between the island and the ground, as well as blurring out the ground level to simulate a "depth of field" effect - as your vision would be focused on the island itself, rather than the distant ground far below.

Your map is certainly "enchanting" but the discrepancies were serious enough that it couldn't get an automatic vote. The gods of fate determined my vote for Jykke, instead.

GP

[Gandwarf]

Still, Tear seems poised to win

Great writeup by the way mmmmmpig. You should be the commentator for all our challenges

[mmmmmpig]

Gandwarf: I would love to hear others comments and crits for all the entries as well. the only way to get better (other than practice) is to get feedback

[Tear]

@mmmmmpig: Thanks for the feedback. All valid points. I'll keep them in mind for future projects.

[Jykke]

I gave my vote to tear for good sportmanship. I would have liked to see a high resolution version of your map

Those who voted for my map, thanks for the support!

[Gandwarf]

Hmmm... looks like the race is over.

[Blamenck]

I voted for Jykke - it seemed more detialed, more vibrant and higher quality than any of the other entries.

The reason for this is becuase I wan't too keen on the font used in Tear's map and it seemd that it has been overclothified. Apart from that it is truly magical, but Jykke's tops it for the effort I think.