Trees and scaling

[swiss]

OK think a large regional map, say the real life size of western Europe. Some elements are easy enough to figure out the scaling for. 1 mountain cluster = 1 mountain range. 1 town icon = 1 town. But 1 tree? I've been going back and forth between clearly delineating between forests and 'not forests' vs. bunching trees together but also having one-off trees in the open spaces because I thought it looked good. 50 trees together symbolizes a forest well enough. But what does 1 tree symbolize? Do you think one-off trees messes with the scaling for a map of that size? Any good rules of thumb for forests and one-off trees?

[Azélor]

I think that breaking up the forest can be used as a transition between different zones. It's a lot more trouble but it usually looks better in my opinion.
The other reason to do this would be to show a sparser vegetation climate like a savanna. There are trees in the savanna but no forest.

[DrWho42]

yeah, sporadic trees might indicate the border between different biomes.

[Gamerprinter]

Don't know, I've never used one tree to deliniate anything. My forests vary in style, and even when I use individual tree symbols, I create a forest of those trees, never just one tree. When I use single symbols to represent things in a map, I might do so constructed objects like towns, villages, cities, bridges. My natural terrain (ie: mountains and forests) tend to be more realistic - if a mountain range, I place an entire range, or as in the example forests entire forests. It's never represented by just one symbol. The first map below (a former clallenge map) shows individual trees, but used as elements of a forest. Then the next one shows how I usually depict forests and mountains. As stated never just one symbol representing those terrain features.

GP

[JoshStolarz]

When it's at that scale I tend to draw clusters of forests rather than individual trees. While it can work, I think you're distorting the true scale so much that it's confusing to say an individual tree actually represents 50 trees. But, that may just be me.

- Josh

[KMAlexander]

I personally like clustered signs to indicate forests and using single signs to indicate more open but occasionally treed spaces. As Azélor mentioned, there's plenty of open plains that still get the occasional copse of trees so spreading a few out in that location is a nice signifier. As for scale I don't think you need to get super exact, but it really depends on the style you're going wanting to create.

I also like how cartographer's like Henry Popple incorporated trees into his A Map of the British Empire in America:


Also, J. B. L. Aubers did something similar on Carte d'une partie de l'Amerique Septentrionale that adds a bit of "wildness" without being super-specific.

[KMAlexander]

Historically "trees of importance" were drawn and labeled. Likewise, forests were generally marked because, for a long time, they were controlled by the nobility, and it was nice to know where the king's wood was so you wouldn't get caught poaching. Everything else was more hand-wavy.

On the scale you're talking about, I think forests would be shown (and possibly labeled) more to inform armies where troop movement would become more difficult.

[Tiana]

For me at that scale, one tree means "there are a few trees here but not really so many that you could hide in the trees, but like it's not barren, there's a few trees here and there and it's nice, y'know, peaceful, not dark and scary, there's still sunlight dancing in the grass, birds singing..." Especially in flatlands it's good to have little treebreaks, even if it's mostly farming.

Yes, I often have single trees on their own. Yes, I have thought about it very very hard. I like having trees visible as trees, so I use them as symbolic representations of the essence of that land. Full blown clumps are forest proper. Exact scale isn't too important to me, I'd rather capture the spirit of a place.

[swiss]

When it's at that scale I tend to draw clusters of forests rather than individual trees. While it can work, I think you're distorting the true scale so much that it's confusing to say an individual tree actually represents 50 trees. But, that may just be me.

- Josh

Yeah and just to be clear, I was saying 50 trees could represent a forest (of many more trees), leaving a single tree as representing....who knows? Not necessarily 50 trees. Not 1 tree. Not a forest. So when you have your 50-tree forest, I think that makes sense visually and people think 'got it...it's a forest, could be 500 trees, could be 50,000, but whatever, it's clearly a forest'. But when you do that and then have a single tree somewhere, then it's not as clear what this tree means. In fact in that case I think it starts being less 'representative' and more....either artistic or realistic, depending on the other elements. But certainly more confusing if someone is trying to interpret it. And then you're back to 'well, what is the purpose of the map?'.

[swiss]

I personally like clustered signs to indicate forests and using single signs to indicate more open but occasionally treed spaces. As Azélor mentioned, there's plenty of open plains that still get the occasional copse of trees so spreading a few out in that location is a nice signifier. As for scale I don't think you need to get super exact, but it really depends on the style you're going wanting to create.

I also like how cartographer's like Henry Popple incorporated trees into his A Map of the British Empire in America:


Also, J. B. L. Aubers did something similar on Carte d'une partie de l'Amerique Septentrionale that adds a bit of "wildness" without being super-specific.

Ah so that's where you got the names for your brushes. So are your brushes actual copies of the elements those people used? Or did you just try to recreate other elements in their style? And while I'm asking, how do you go about creating PS brushes in the first place? Is it hard?