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Thread: CHAUMU - practice map

  1. #1
    Guild Novice voo's Avatar
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    Post CHAUMU - practice map

    Hey again
    More practice mapping here, this time mapping out a zone called Chaumu, a location from my personal game project. This time I chose to give my map a higher level of polish by putting in a few extra goodies, namely custom made compass and location icons, a key/legend, long/lat lines, a border, a title and paths. Overall I'm quite pleased with this one, rivers still giving me trouble but i think they're better here. Thoughts and comments appreciated
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  2. #2
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    I really like the way you did the terrain. The oceans are great, and it's got a very consistent feel to the palette throughout. Overall I'd say great work.

    There are only two things that stand out to me while I look it over. The text for the northernmost town blends a little too closely with the background colour, kind of loses itself in the terrain. The second thing I notice really stands out in the thumbnail moreso than the map itself - the different regions have a very straight banding across the land. I'm guessing there's a gradient involved in setting the colours from north to south? If you broke those colours up a bit to make it less obvious that might help it look a bit more natural.

    how DID you do the terrain/mountains, anyhow? I *really* like that.

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    Guild Artisan LonewandererD's Avatar
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    Holy crap that's awesome, repped. I hate to crit anything but the city/town symbols are a little too "noticeable", they stand out a bit too much.

    -D-
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    I like it, and agree with CoyoteMax regarding the text and 'color bands'.

    It gives me a game board kind of vibe
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

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  5. #5
    Guild Novice voo's Avatar
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    Cheers for comments lads.
    Here's a small update with some fixes and some minor visual improvements(debatable). The opacity of the village text was raised slightly, hopefully its a readable now(I didn't notice any problems with it before, so let me know if it needs to be buffed up more), Some coloration was added to the greater text labels, a pretty unnecessary title change, and an attempt to subtly break up the "banding". Regarding the symbols, yes they are a little bit too noticeable, but I'm thinking I like it as its part of the style I was going for. I might hate them tomorrow though, but for now they're staying as is.

    @Coyotemax
    The terrain/mountains were done with a combination of standard overlay texturing and brushed bevel mountains. 3 different layers of varying opacities were used to build up the mountains, and the terrain was made up of 3 different textures, with cloud filter layer masks.
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  6. #6
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    Voo: nicely done, then! the basic techniques you describe are in pretty common use, but i've not seem them applied quite the way you have before. Kudos to making the technique your own!

    And yes, this has gone from "wow nice map" to "holycrap, nice map" The breakup of the banding works very nicely, and the text pops out that little bit more yet still keeps from dominating.

    And if it's any consolation I kind of like the town icons myself. If you do decide to change them tomorrow (i've gone through the same kinds of phases myself, heh) I'd suggest seeing what they look like if you shrunk them down to about half size, that might look really nice, but still keep them matching the compass

    Well done, sir!

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  7. #7
    Community Leader Jaxilon's Avatar
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    I agree, this is way cool looking. I love your terrain, I'm going to have to fiddle with some of the things you mentioned once I understand them better.

    As for the city Icons my first thought was that I wish they had different shapes so I didn't have to remember What the colors meant. I suppose you would get used to that quickly though. I don't mind the jewel look they have though.

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  8. #8
    Guild Novice voo's Avatar
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    more updates...

    This time I reduced the icon size, made a minor change to the border fixed up the paths, added some minor forests and also some scattered craters with the biggest addition being the custom painted sea monster.

    I'm thinking this is done, if anyone has any final suggestions to improve this I'd love to hear em.

    Cheers
    Rainer
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by voo; 12-18-2009 at 04:38 AM. Reason: wrong file oops :P

  9. #9
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    Hot Dang!!!
    (sounds close enough to the actual phrase you surprised outta me)
    that's gorgeous. I'd be proud to call that a finished map. I love the critter!

    My finished maps
    "...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."

  10. #10
    Community Leader Jaxilon's Avatar
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    This came out great. I love the sea monster. The whole thing is sweet.
    “When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden

    * Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt

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