[Award Winner] Atlas Walkthrough [Fractal Terrains & Illustrator]

[Badger]

HR... Please don't hate me... I just happen to keep having a lot of questions...

When you set up your Illustrator file... size 16x10, what do you initially have the color mode at (CMYK or RGB?) and at what raster effect DPI do you set it at? (300dpi?)

And, I'm new to Illustrator, so bare with me as I stumble threw this tutorial. Thanks.

[Sigurd]

Hey Rob - really appreciate the tutorial.


Two fractal terrains questions:

1. I'm assuming you're saving 'views' from your globe view. Do you ever get near the poles? What would a map of one of your poles look like?


2. What CC2 setting do you use? When I opt to save as JPG I generally have to build with a CC2 export for the selection. I can't find a setting that exports the graticule.


-Sigurd

[HandsomeRob]

HR... Please don't hate me... I just happen to keep having a lot of questions...

When you set up your Illustrator file... size 16x10, what do you initially have the color mode at (CMYK or RGB?) and at what raster effect DPI do you set it at? (300dpi?)

And, I'm new to Illustrator, so bare with me as I stumble threw this tutorial. Thanks.

CMYK, 300dpi. No sweat.

Also... don't wait for the grid to load. I can never get a 1 degree grid to show up in FT either, but when you save the jpg, it will be there.


Sigurd-
Here is a map of the north pole. It works just the same as any other area of the globe, because I have chosen a map projection. As for CC2 settings, I don't use CC2 so I have no idea. Sorry!

-Rob

[HandsomeRob]

I have an only slightly newer version of FT. When I save a "view" it makes me use a CC2 Setting as part of the export. The setting is inside of Fractal Terrains.

During your export do you Screen Capture? Or export views? or export numbers of files to cover your region?

All I do is go File > Save, and use .jpg as my file type. I don't think my version supports views...

Hope this helps!
-Rob

[Sigurd]

Thanks, It actually helped a lot.

I needed to use a different option in the program

[Sigurd]

Step 7. The Graticule
Unfortunately, I don't know of an easier or more accurate way to do this step. To get a nice grid of latitude and longitude lines, I turn on the graticule image I created in FT way back at the beginning, and trace it with the pen tool. I really wish I knew of a better way to handle this step, but I don't.

I exported a completely white layer beneath the graticule for the selection. No shading, white everything. Then I used the photoshop magic eraser to erase everything that was white and saved it as a PNG (preserves transparency)

I'm using this file instead of the JPG and its seems to work very well.

Sigurd.

[HandsomeRob]

Good idea, Sigurd. I prefer to keep my graticule in vector format however, so I would still be tracing it anyway.

-Rob

[Sigurd]

Good idea, Sigurd. I prefer to keep my graticule in vector format however, so I would still be tracing it anyway.

-Rob

Absolutely, but the JPG isn't vector and the PNG is transparent to make tracing simpler.

I'm (grudgingly) still keeping Illustrator in the loop to have vector roads and such and then the graticule might as well be vector.

Sigurd