Jartor - Commission request

[ravells]

Cool - glad you haven't got bored and gone away! With this style of mapping we should be able to label individual buildings...for example a Tavern, an NPC's house or whatever. I've got an idea about how we go about mapping the districts but I'll need more input from you so it melds into your campaign. Let me crack the style first and then I'll get back to you.

I'm researching traditional tanning for the Tanner's district - it's quite fascinating!

cheers

Ravs

[ravells]

Tanner's quarters just about finished on the main bits. Here is a flow chart as to how the place works.

After the livestock is slaughtered, the meat goes to the market and the hides to the lyme pits where they go to the market after they are cured. The dispersed buildings to the west are smoke houses where jerky is made (yum!).

[Steel General]

Very interesting to watch this develop...

[Gandwarf]

Look very good Ravells. You are indeed putting a lot of thought in this.

[Alfar]

Hey Ravs, I thought maybe you'd find this thingie interesting

`Gimp Plugin: A better lazy man's city?

[ravells]

Thanks Alfar, I'll post on that thread in a second.

I am having a BALL with your context free script and combining it with vector and auto-trace and an eraser I can lay down loads of buildings very quickly and (IMO) the result is much better than the lazyman's style...well different anyway.

Here's the latest WIP of Jartor (all in vector so far although I may at the end take the background into raster to texture it, but I like the clean feel of it - it makes the map more legible given the small scale.

It struck me that I should really follow my own advice in my depicting cities booklet, so now I am.

Here's how it works:

The labels act as a flow chart as to how the city is generally structured (the circular labels are markets). The ones you can see are 'trade' labels which show the flow and nodes of main trade points (I havn't bothered to connect many of them but you get the general idea). The labels in turn spark ideas as to what other industries / trades should be present. (I'll get rid of the labels at the end and put in more relevant ones - I'll colour code the buildings instead, again easy enough in vector.

For example: Quarry -> smelting pits -> foundry -> Smithy -> Armourer.

There will be other lables like 'Armed forces' in a different colour (the yellow fortress label for example). These will have their own 'flows' Castles -> barracks -> watchtowers etc.

This in turn gives me a good idea about what should generally be where in the city and helps to build character in neighbourhoods. It's a great way to work because it makes the city a living, breathing entity with a cohrent structure and lots of functions which overlay each other in a limited space.

Working in vector (apart from the occasional crashes when I overload the machine but I think I've worked that one out now) just rocks when it comes to making small adjustments, tweaking a building here and there, adjusting a road etc.

It also occured to me that I needed to rough out the topography first, since this is pretty much a constant and informs the shape of the city.

I reckon I'll be able to complete the first pass of all buildings in the city in about 4 hours or so. Cleaning up the little bits of building left behind where I use the eraser to make roads - you can see plenty on the docks does take awhile though - I reckon 1 hour per district.

The second pass of the buildings, which is using bespoke buildings for character I think will take about another 4 hours or so.

Labelling, say another 3 hours. It's pretty fast!

Tutorial to come when I'm finished with this and comfortable with the work flow. I suspect we'll be seeing some pretty big cities and Inkscape will be having a rennaisance (although I'm using Serif Drawplus X3 for this city).

The second image is with the reference drawing overlaid on top.

[Gandwarf]

Ha, it does indeed look like you are having a blast. I like your system.

[ravells]

Thanks Gand!

Next iteration here....do you think the drop shadow works or is it too much?

[Gandwarf]

Oh, the drop shadows on the houses definitely work! They give the impression that the houses have several heights.

Not too sure if I like the vegetation at the moment. Location is great, but it looks huge compared to the houses. It might blend in better though, once you have finished putting textures in the map.

Love the houses so far!

[Alfar]

Nae bad, ravells!

I do think the buildings look rather wonky in places, but then I'm very much used to thinking of houses as being mostly rectangles. Probably a fault of mine.