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Thread: Trader's Pass WIP

  1. #1
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    Wip Trader's Pass WIP

    Hi everyone, I have finally gotten around to starting my mapping project!

    This is my first attempt at mapping a region using the tutorial in Campaign Cartographer 3+. After only a couple of days of messing around here is the current state of play.

    If anyone could give me any pointers on placements (especially rivers, I know you guys love them here) I would be grateful. Also the map looks a bit bare at the minute, any ideas what I'm missing? Been staring at it for hours and drawn a blank.

    P.S. I've saved it to .png from CC3+ and it's come out tiny, any ideas?!
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  2. #2
    Guild Expert Wingshaw's Avatar
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    Some quick starter comments:

    - the mountains look a bit lumpy. You could try spreading them into ranges to fill up the map more, and give a more realistic look

    - same applies for hills. How about putting little patches of hills in many different places throughout the landscape: large groups of hills, small groups of hills, lonely isolated hills, forested hills

    - if you have a wider distribution of mountains and hills, the rivers become much easier to plan. You can then add rivers that wind their way between the higher ground, giving a natural look and 'filling in' the map

    - the river you have currently is much too straight. Make it wind a little bit. A very simple rule of thumb for rivers: when they're in mountainous landscape, they tend to be somewhat straight (carving channels between the ridges); in flat landscapes, they wind all over the place. In medium hilly landscape, their curvy-ness is a bit in the middle.

    - your roads also seem a bit straight, but that's not as much of a problem. If you take the suggestion of spreading hills around, and then adjust your roads to wind around them a bit, they'll get better. Unlike rivers, roads *can* go over hills, but people usually take the easiest route, which tends to be to avoid going uphill. Try asking yourself these questions:
    ---- if I'm in Stonebrooke, why would I want to go to [Argad/Dalanor/Aldena/Kalongard, etc...]?
    ---- if I'm in Stonebrooke, what route would I take to get to [Argad/Dalanor/Aldena/Kalongard, etc...]?
    the point of those questions is to reveal A. which routes are going to be most travelled, and B. how those routes might look (I'm thinking, for example, the road to Kalongard Mine looks like it was made by people arriving from Aldena, and not people coming from Stonebrooke or Dalanor; does this make sense within the lore of your world?)

    - Also, one minor detail: why is there only one road into this landscape? What lies to the north? The east? The south?

    - I love it when forests have broken edges. Your forests are all very round, which looks unnatural. You could make the borders of the forests a bit more jagged, and at the same time add broken off little copses of trees. You have some of these already, but I'd suggest putting them in higher concentrations around the edges of the forests.

    - farmland: I would imagine there'd be a bit of farmland around all of the towns and villages, and that the amount of farmland would approximately reflect the size/importance of that town. Variation exists here, too, of course: a town that gets its food mostly from fishing or importing might have less need for extensive farmland.

    - another thing that can really boost a map's appeal (in my opinion): adding many small villages. In Australia, the distribution of villages is similar to what you've got there; in Europe, however, the density is much much higher. It could add a lot of visual interest and potential storytelling if you add more villages.

    - I am not very familiar with CC, but I do find that method for land and sea textures to be a bit bland. There's not very much variation in colour, and the edges always seem very hard (especially that light blue/dark blue boundary in the sea). If you take the above suggestions, I think the consistency of the land texture may be largely overcome, but the water might need something else. And, honestly, I'm not sure what to suggest. Islands, maybe?

    - lastly, as a general rule of thumb, for any natural feature (hills, mountains, forests, deserts, landforms etc.) avoid anything that is too circular, straight-lined or 'neat'. Give them more character by breaking up their edges, giving them odd shapes, having a combination of blob-like and linear-like forms (the latter especially for mountains/hills, but I've mentioned that already)

    That's quite a lot of suggestions for you to mull over. Getting things 'right' on a first try is difficult, and I'd say you've made a very good start. Hope those comments are helpful.

    Wingshaw


    Formerly TheHoarseWhisperer

  3. #3
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    Thanks so much for your comments, plenty for me to be getting on with.

    For V2 I've modified the flow of the river to be more curved when out of the mountain range, added a road and bridge coming from Dalanor straight to Kalongard mine (since city blacksmiths will be wanting coal & ore quickly to keep the forges burning), added The Kneeling King Inn to the major junction in the middle of the map (this seems to make sense to me since this is a meeting point for a couple of major routes). Also I've added a couple of minor roads to the coastline, since this is a sea with plentiful fish I would imagine there would be other minor fishing villages outside of this map. I've expanded Stonebrooke to both sides of the river, ships would dock on the appropriate side of the harbour depending on where the good needed to be sent for quicker transportation. The smaller towns and villages all have various sizes of farmland near them. Lastly, I've added a couple of extra routes off the map to the south and east since I'd somehow overlooked this and felt a bit silly.


    Still to do:

    1. Re draw mountains (anyone with any tips on how to do this would be greatly appreciated)
    2. Add hills/mountains outside of the main range to give the map more depth
    3. Sort out the forests to seem more natural
    4. Need to modify the text, doesn't quite look right yet
    5. Experiment with some blend/blur effects to see if I can make the sea look any better


    Any further comments/suggestions would all be most welcome!
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  4. #4
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    Ok, so a further update since I have some time on my hands this weekend.

    - Added a road north from Dalanor - if you want to travel north from a major city you're just going to go north, this is the only gap between the mountains and the dense forest
    - Added Glashad, a small fishing village, primarily food would come from fishing in the sea and from the forest (hunting, fruit etc)
    - Added Stonebrooke logging camp, as a decent sized port there would be a lot of usage for wood to build/maintain ships and bringing it up from Aldena would take too long a time since there's a forest half the distance away
    - Added fish symbols to Ereonin and Glashad
    - Increased farmland around Aldena since they would probably be providing a lot of food for garrisoned troops at the castle
    - Increased the width of the road from Stonebrooke to Dalanor and up into the mountain pass, this would be a major trading route from Stonebrooke, into Dalanor and beyond

    Still to do:

    Pretty much everything else I said I was going to do before
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  5. #5
    Guild Expert Wingshaw's Avatar
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    This is really starting to come together now. Your latest update, in particular, is making the world feel more lived in. Keep going; it's getting better and better

    It is a bit hard to see what's going on with the map because of the low resolution; perhaps one of the CC users can help you figure that out.

    Wingshaw


    Formerly TheHoarseWhisperer

  6. #6
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    Thanks very much Wingshaw, here's V4 (possibly final version)

    - I've tried breaking up the edges of the forests as best I can, with the brushes on CC3+ it's difficult getting them to look none uniform, but they do look a bit better
    - Added a second mine at Kalongard and re routed the roads slightly
    - Added some wooded foothills and brought them further down into the middle of the map to create a "choke point" for traffic, further justifying the Inn's placement
    - Added further wooded hills between the river and Merchant's Path to make the geography of the road and river look more realistic
    - Labelled the main road as Merchant's Path
    - Moved the logging camps further into the forests, just looks slightly more realistic in my eyes
    - Aldena has yet more farmland to support the castle garrison and a logging camp
    - Re routed the road between Aldena and Ereonin slightly to make it more direct
    - Changed the colour and effect of the river slightly
    - Modified and added effects for the sheets


    I'm currently still debating about what I want to do with the mountains in the north west. Also, I thought I'd found a fix for the small map sizes - they come out brilliant as PDF's, although I can't upload them here, and they're 9MB in size!
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    Last edited by Sandman01086; 07-20-2019 at 10:12 AM.

  7. #7
    Guild Expert Greason Wolfe's Avatar
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    One thing you might consider in terms of making the forests look a little less uniform is to let rivers run through them and reducing the density of trees in sections of the interior. Not sure how easy that is to do with what you already have at this point, but can keep it in mind for future projects perhaps.

    And to echo Wingshaw, this is looking better with each update.
    GW

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    Current Non-challenge WIP : Beyond Sosnasib
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  8. #8
    Guild Expert Wingshaw's Avatar
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    I think those forest edges look ace now Wolfe's suggestion of having some rivers running through the forests is a good one, and having patches of thin forest in the interior, but I think your forests look much better now.

    Regarding the river, you could also make it look more natural by adding some tributaries of different sizes that flow into it.

    Wingshaw


    Formerly TheHoarseWhisperer

  9. #9
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    Thanks guys, I've got an idea for a couple more bits I can do for this so I'll experiment with the forests/river a little bit and see if I can come up with anything for clearings and tributaries.

  10. #10
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    Here is version 5 after making a couple of small changes... about to start on version 6 since things keep popping into my head.

    - Added another fishing village, Dumira, along the coastal road and moved Ereonin southwards slightly
    - Added direct route from Dumira to Aldena
    - Added a small stream as a tributary to the main river and created a lake in the woods (something about this doesn't sit quite right yet)
    - Added the order of the most holy just north of Argad with a tower just visible in the mountains, this will be a key plot point


    All in all I think I'm starting to get the busy feel that I wanted for this region, since it is a key trade area I want it to feel like a bustling successful part of the world.

    As always comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated!
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