April 2021 Mapping Challenge: San Francisco 2185

[Tiana]

So conveniently I'm playing a game in a cyberpunk setting right now. It's in San Francisco 2185, using Carbon 2185 as a ruleset (reskinned 5e). I'm playing Syggy a "korporate kid" with mixed heritage, a genderfluid male-leaning polyglot (speaks Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish) who's a combat hacker and a total diva.

First, I acquired this data using an ArcGis dataset, so that I would have accurate streets.


I removed the labels and made it look more 'Matrix' but I wasn't feeling this direction. At this point I was planning for something like 'glitch art' but I decided against it.


So I made it look like this instead. Then I also altered the city expansion to suit the setting stated changes to San Francisco (artificially made land with the sea held back by a wall)


I added the seawall and boundaries between caste-style regions within the city, and bravely did Chinese calligraphy, something I've done a handful of times for previous maps.


I added the English text and a focusing vignette to take the attention away from the western side of the coast, so that we could use that for any game notes without covering anything vital, distracting, or otherwise bright. I still wanted it slightly there, to give the sense of the wider world.


Knowing that everyone else hates vibrance more than I do, I made it more moody.


I then ended up cropping it to this view for the 'screen' for the game to focus on the area where we're playing instead, and fiddled a bit more with the 'mood' tone.



### Latest WIP ###
I am not sure if I will be continuing past this point. We'll see if I get more time to work on our San Francisco. I'd really like to put some in world sponsorship or ads on it, some UI elements. The campaign setting is pretty fun, I recommend checking out Carbon 2185 if you're into bleak corporate dominated cyberpunk.

[TimetoDraw]

I really like the neon pixelated effect you have going on here. Great colour scheme too.

This may just be my personal preference, but is there too much black around the focus landmass? Unless a legend is going there, how about framing in closer to the focus in the middle by making the canvas slimmer?

Reading your post again, you are thinking of some UI elements and ads, that would look awesome.

[Eowyn Cwper]

The only thing I like more than the map is your workflow! It's amazing.

[jshoer]

Even if you don't do any more work on this, I'd suggest that you post a single image with the "latest WIP" tag, to make sure the thumbnail scraper gets the right one!

[Tiana]

I really like the neon pixelated effect you have going on here. Great colour scheme too.

This may just be my personal preference, but is there too much black around the focus landmass? Unless a legend is going there, how about framing in closer to the focus in the middle by making the canvas slimmer?

Reading your post again, you are thinking of some UI elements and ads, that would look awesome.

Nah, you're right, I got carried away with trying to make it wallpaper sized more or less, so that it wouldn't match the book's map too much but I've taken it in for the next version. Even though I added some ad logos as clutter I chose to take it in, what do you think? The logos are technically vectors so I could make them fill in more space but I liked how they fit here and there's still room for me to do a cyberpunky frame.

The pixel texture is a combination of duplicating the map on a glow layer with a mosaic effect and a CRT texture.

The only thing I like more than the map is your workflow! It's amazing.

Well, I'm glad you appreciate seeing it. I know it's a bit vague and handwavy. If you're at a loss for how something happened feel free to just ask.

Even if you don't do any more work on this, I'd suggest that you post a single image with the "latest WIP" tag, to make sure the thumbnail scraper gets the right one!

Thanks, but I've actually done a bit more work so that won't be a problem now!

### Latest WIP ###

[jshoer]

The new additions make this *very* cyberpunky!

[Tiana]

Thanks.

I sketched an idea for a user interface frame, slapped on some buttons for two locations in our game.

### Latest WIP ###

[TimetoDraw]

Much better framing. I adore the purple colour scheme.

Last thing, if the border is desaturated or a more neutral colour, it keeps focus on the centre. Just a suggestion, the purple frame works too.

Well done, I love this, would fit within any grunge sci fi rpg.

[tilt]

Looking great, love the purple map. I would agree with TimetoDraw about the border perhaps drawing focus a little, and personally I would sharpen up the border and buttons

[Tiana]

I don't tend to do desaturated for personal work. I love color. Clients can have grey if they ask for it. You'll have to settle for darker. Sure, it was extreme, but I was aiming for "this is the holopad of the user". Now it's more reflections of a cyberpunk window.

"Sketch" usually means "this is not the final form".

This might be though, because we're kinda running out of time and I have to work.

### Winner ###