May / June '18 Lite Challenge: Realms of the Ageless

[Straf]

Thanks Aeshnidae, I've tried to keep them as low as possible while still being able to recognise the different territories.

I've now labelled all of those territories.

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[Mouse]

Generally the map is looking really good

But you asked about the labels...

The labels which fall partly in the ocean when the land mass they relate to is in one piece are (in my humble opinion) slightly misplaced, and would look better if they ran along the long axis of the country or region to which they relate.

The font is legible, but it needs to be more opaque (I can see things through some of the letters), while at the same time they are extremely dark compared to the rest of the map and might benefit from being toned down to a mid tone grey to prevent them from completely dominating the map as if the labels are the main and only feature. If you decide to keep the labels where they are at the moment, then they also definitely need a glow to break the coastline in their immediate vicinity...

I hope I wasn't too mean, and that these thoughts were helpful in some way!

[Straf]

Thanks Mouse. As always with these things it's a balancing act. Trying to find the best blend mode is one challenge. I could go for 'normal' and try to get the colour to fit. I'm still pretty much experimenting.
I placed some of the labels where I did because I was trying to think where I was going to place other labels for things like rivers and mountain ranges. Perhaps I should place those first and then fit the big labels in where I can.

I'm going to try flattening the map itself and working on that to try to reduce the memory overhead a bit. The canvas I'm working on is 8000 x 8500 and if I apply a filter or whatever to a full layer it seems to take a bit of an age, and in some cases causes the system to grind to a halt. It's particularly irritating when I select something, apply an effect, wait for it to finish then realise I've applied it to the wrong layer so I have to wait, undo, wait, reapply and then wait some more. If nothing else this map will cause RSI from me twiddling my thumbs

[Mouse]

You could use much larger but very transparent labels for the regions like they do on OS maps, so that you can have them in the right place, but actually be able to see the river names etc through them?

[aeshnidae]

I like the idea of transparent labels for large regions. I'm not sure if it would work with this particular color scheme but it could definitely be worth a try. Another option may be to condense the region names so they're not quite so sprawling. I think as long as you're consistent with font style and size, your coloring will make it will be clear that the name applies to the entire region.

I feel your pain on computer lag due to large canvas size. I like having a large canvas but my laptop most certainly does not. I've had decent luck watching my file size and then doing a "copy merged" and pasting into a new document to keep working (after closing the huge document). I screwed up with flattening several times because I forgot to save it as a new file, which is a real bummer!

[Straf]

By transparent do you mean stroked but not filled letters?

[aeshnidae]

I thought Mouse was talking about this sort of thing (see the text in the red boxes). But if not, she can correct me and then I can learn something new!

[Mouse]

Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about in my first comment - clear, visible, but not overstated - full opacity, but grey instead of black

When I later mentioned transparent labels I was talking about the massive labels that stretch right across a whole country on smaller scale OS maps. It depends on the series and style, but I remember some of them are outline text, or even transparent and barely noticeable - again to avoid having the labels be the single most dominant thing on the map against a relatively pale background. After further thought, though, I think the scale you are working at the outline text would be far less suitable than just dimming the brilliant black labels you already have there down to the kind of grey in aeshindae's example

[Straf]

I haven't been able to do much on this until now so here's where I'm up to. I have some more features to add and then a shed load of labels.

### Latest WIP ###

[Straf]

I've managed to get the cities and towns labelled, although I'm not sure I like how they've turned out. I'll have to mess a bit with them. I've also added a number of symbols for castles/ruins, towers/beacons, and temples. These will need to be labelled too.

So the story behind this is it's a largish continent map for adventuring. The different countries will have various alliances, or not, with each other. The towns and cities will have the usual merchants and nobles as well as the local militia, guild houses, and colleges. The ports most likely house quite a large number of lowlifes such as fences, assassins, mercenaries and perhaps mime artists. The castles, towers and temples are to be dungeon type settings.

The quick and crazy is knocking something of this magnitude together in a few weeks. It might not be a big deal for most but it is for me so there

### Latest WIP ###