CG June 2019 Mapping Challenge: Ruins of Toqair

[ladiestorm]

I may be jumping the gun a bit, but this challenge has me excited. I've always wanted to do an underwater map, for underwater adventures... so I'm jumping right in. This map is the ruins of a city that has sunk into the ocean. Or perhaps the city was engulfed by the sea. Either way, it's a long lost ruined civilization at the bottom of the ocean.

Right now, I'm just trying to get the reefs somewhat correct. The ruins themselves, will come later...

### Latest WIP ###

[ladiestorm]

I'm still working on this... although I may have to change out the water I'm using. As beautiful as it is, it's detracting from the rest of the map. You can barely see what's under the water...

### Latest WIP ###

[Adfor]

One of the main things that is always hard to get right is how water distorts in the view of the human eye. A challenge like this would be a wonderful chance to toy with that idea.

I agree that it is very difficult to see what is going on with what is currently (punny) going on, though I like it so far!

Cheers!

IR

[Mouse]

Have you tried a reversed Edge Fade Inner sheet effect?

Set one on the water sheet that leaves the outside edge at 100% opacity, and the inside at 0% opacity. This should give you a window through the surface of the water that you can adjust by varying the distance over which the fade takes effect.

It works better on square maps, but it might just solve the problem here.

[ladiestorm]

I tried that, it didn't seem to work... it's still giving me a proper inner edge fade. I will see if I can figure out what's going wrong, because I notice that it also has a transparency... even though there is no transparency effect on it. It's like it's copying the effects from another sheet, but that's not possible... is it?

[Mouse]

Ok, well... here is a slightly different way of doing it.

-Draw your rectangle of surface texture at least 200 map units bigger than the map all the way around.
-Right click the circle tool and pick Ellipse, then draw an ellipse of solid magenta (colour 6 in the palette) to fit your map, leaving a 100 map unit gap around the outside edge of your ellipse.

-Add the following sheet effects to the surface sheet:

--Colour Key (default settings)
--Edge Fade Inner (default settings, but set the edge width to 100 *map units*)

Ok everything and see what you've made.

...

I really hate posting images to other people's challenge threads (Admin - if this causes problems with the thumbnail scraper please remove the image below? Thank you ), but this is how mine looks done this way with the effects turned off (left) and the effects turned on (right). The Ellipse drawing tool is available under the right click menu on the Circle tool. In this example I have made the SCREEN sheet semi-transparent so that you can see how far the surface extends outside the edge of the map.





If you want a thinner or fatter Edge Width than 100 map units you may have to adjust the size of the rectangle, and the size of the ellipse, but if you use the snap grid they're really easy to redraw in a matter of seconds.

EDIT: if you prefer a rectangular shape, then just draw a pink rectangle instead of a pink ellipse Just remember to keep it 100 map units inside the edge of the map (or whatever distance you have set as the Edge Width in your EFI effect)

[Bogie]

In case you didn't notice, I posted some more coral reef items.

Another idea, when I made my waterfront map, the main focus was the water and the ships with the underwater items just barely visible. I used a solid water base and placed the submerged items on top of the water but with a low opacity ( about 20% ). So even though they are above the water, they look like they are under it. Not sure if that will work for you, but you could try a little higher opacity so the submerged art shows more. https://www.deviantart.com/bogie-dj/...sion-759496091

Also here are some transparent water fills I have:

[ladiestorm]

I found a way to make things work... I just need to tweak here and there... and I will definitely check out the coral!

[ladiestorm]

Well, we found a work around the issue I was having, so here is my latest WIP. As far as I can tell, this map is pretty much complete. I may still tweak here and there... but it's done.

### Latest WIP ###

[Mouse]

Nice one, Storm