WIP - The Eastern shores of Ehren

[Mouse]

Ah - I see. Bless them We happen to have an extremely good tiny tots adventure playground in the town where I live - full of things like twee little brightly coloured slides and for the fractionally older children, ball pits and so on. I used to send my other half (or my trusted friend) off down there with my stepson whenever I wanted to do the deep spring cleaning...

Back to the trees, however...

Have you considered making a set of just twenty or so, and then copy and pasting them in various combinations around the map? You would be surprised how few tree variants you actually need for people not to notice that you are using the same twenty in slightly different groups right across the drawing?

(I am assuming, of course, that this is possible given the software, as I use CC3+ where all I have to do is make a 'symbol' of the tree or groups of trees that I have just drawn, so that I can select them from a palette of tree symbols whenever I want to draw a similar tree on that or any other map I draw)

[Kellerica]

This is my first time trying to do trees on a map, so I just want to get them done at this point, so I can move on to the next thing before I get overwhelmed, and quit the whole thing...Which I’ve done before...I’ve started many maps, and never made it past the trees.

Preach, friend. Forests are by far my least favorite thing about making maps. I've yet to find a way to make them look even remotely decent, and on more than one occasion I've been *this* close to just leaving them out alltogether. Stupid trees... Bad trees... Y u no behave?!?!

That being said, I do like the way they are looking on your map now. Their size is pretty perfect now in my opinion, and although I do kinda see where Mouse is coming from with his balloon comment, I do think they fit the style of this map very well.

[kacey]

Ah - I see. Bless them We happen to have an extremely good tiny tots adventure playground in the town where I live - full of things like twee little brightly coloured slides and for the fractionally older children, ball pits and so on. I used to send my other half (or my trusted friend) off down there with my stepson whenever I wanted to do the deep spring cleaning...

Back to the trees, however...

Have you considered making a set of just twenty or so, and then copy and pasting them in various combinations around the map? You would be surprised how few tree variants you actually need for people not to notice that you are using the same twenty in slightly different groups right across the drawing?

(I am assuming, of course, that this is possible given the software, as I use CC3+ where all I have to do is make a 'symbol' of the tree or groups of trees that I have just drawn, so that I can select them from a palette of tree symbols whenever I want to draw a similar tree on that or any other map I draw)

Mouse – When I first decided I wanted to try mapping I played around with CC3 for a while, I liked how you could just put down trees, and mountains like that, but had a hell of a time figuring out the ins and outs of that programme, and found some aspects of it limiting.

I moved on to gimp from there, and now I’m using Photoshop which I prefer because it gives me the touch control I need for using it on my tablet. Photoshop is the only programme I find is keeping up with tablet PC users, it has many finger swipe gestures, and even hot key buttons I can use when I don’t have my keyboard attached.

Even tho gimp is a little clunky on my tablet, after reading you’re comment I thought about maybe making an animated brush in gimp with a few different tree variations. I thought I could maybe flatten my image, move it to gimp, and just bring the tree layer back over to my original document... It didn’t work out because gimp didn’t like my file size, and it kept crapping out.

Anyway... Before I bore you to tears...I decided to do a few more trees anyway, and made photoshop brushes, only a few, and set a slight size, and roundness jitter to the brushes to hopefully get at least a little more variation...I’ll see what happens, I’m still doubtful that I’ll be able to pull it off the lazy way.

[kacey]

Preach, friend. Forests are by far my least favorite thing about making maps. I've yet to find a way to make them look even remotely decent, and on more than one occasion I've been *this* close to just leaving them out alltogether. Stupid trees... Bad trees... Y u no behave?!?!

That being said, I do like the way they are looking on your map now. Their size is pretty perfect now in my opinion, and although I do kinda see where Mouse is coming from with his balloon comment, I do think they fit the style of this map very well.

Thanks Kelleri, I was glad for the suggestion to reduce the size. I think it’s much better this way, but my trees are behaving very badly right now, like you this is definitely my least favourite part so far... I wonder if I’ll feel the same once I start trying to come up with hundreds of unique place names to put on this map. But I’ve seen you’re maps, and you’re trees look good, I only wish I could do the same.

[Mouse]

Mouse – When I first decided I wanted to try mapping I played around with CC3 for a while, I liked how you could just put down trees, and mountains like that, but had a hell of a time figuring out the ins and outs of that programme, and found some aspects of it limiting.

I moved on to gimp from there, and now I’m using Photoshop which I prefer because it gives me the touch control I need for using it on my tablet. Photoshop is the only programme I find is keeping up with tablet PC users, it has many finger swipe gestures, and even hot key buttons I can use when I don’t have my keyboard attached.

Even tho gimp is a little clunky on my tablet, after reading you’re comment I thought about maybe making an animated brush in gimp with a few different tree variations. I thought I could maybe flatten my image, move it to gimp, and just bring the tree layer back over to my original document... It didn’t work out because gimp didn’t like my file size, and it kept crapping out.

Anyway... Before I bore you to tears...I decided to do a few more trees anyway, and made photoshop brushes, only a few, and set a slight size, and roundness jitter to the brushes to hopefully get at least a little more variation...I’ll see what happens, I’m still doubtful that I’ll be able to pull it off the lazy way.

Not boring Comparing stuff is interesting.

I started with CC3+, and I'm still using it. If I need a new symbol I draw it in CorelDraw then save it as a transparent png in my user symbols folder, then use it straight away. I am surprised that the same manoeuvre is proving to be so difficult in Photoshop/GIMP

Since it is, however - best to ignore my suggestion. There must be an easier way for you

[kacey]

Not boring Comparing stuff is interesting.

I started with CC3+, and I'm still using it. If I need a new symbol I draw it in CorelDraw then save it as a transparent png in my user symbols folder, then use it straight away. I am surprised that the same manoeuvre is proving to be so difficult in Photoshop/GIMP

Since it is, however - best to ignore my suggestion. There must be an easier way for you

I’m glad I didn’t bore you. Don’t get me wrong, making brushes in Photoshop, and Gimp is pretty simple, it’s drawing the tiny trees to make the brushes from is what I have trouble with. I’m finding the little buggers really difficult to draw, they’re just not turning out the way I want them to.

I’m curious, is Corel draw similar to Corel painter? I bought Corel painter 2016 a while back, and I’ve played around with it a little, there’s so many brush controls it will probably take me years to learn it properly. They’re natural media brushes are really good tho, I’d say better then Photoshop. Even just the pencil brush looks totally real, i really like it, and the water colour brushes in combination with using flow maps are really cool. I’d like to know how to use them better, but just playing around with the water colour brushes for a few minutes got me results that really did look like real water colour.

I won’t be ignoring you’re suggestions tho, because of you’re comments, I ended up making even more tree brushes. Tonight I decided to make some little palm trees, and started putting them on the map. It’s not allot of variation, but I think it makes a difference... So thanx for that, I really do appreciate all the help I’ve been getting here.

[Mouse]

In my humble opinion, if you are only just getting used to one piece of software, it would be confusing to try and learn another one at exactly the same time. I did that with Blender, Vue and Bryce, and now I can't steer any of them properly because I keep mixing up the commands and short cuts! LOL (not to mention the 3D manipulation is completely different between them!)

CorelDraw is the main piece of Corel software. Its a vector program, where you draw shapes and fill them, and can do all kinds of interesting stuff with 'objects' on different layers (a bit like Photoshop, but not Photoshop, if you know what I mean). I have a completely archaic version (9 I think), which doesn't do half the stuff that the current version can, but I know how to use it, and it does the trick for me The most useful tool by far is the one that allows me to select a load of vector polygons (for example a staircase of transparent shadows) and convert them into a single transparent png file that can be used in virtually any package like a pattern stamp on a textured background.

From what I understand CorelPaint used to be a stand alone package which Corel purchased and kind of melded to its own needs. Its a rather deluxe bitmap manipulation thing where you can paint stuff and manipulate bitmaps in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways. I think that must be the part you are talking about?

Besides these two main components there are another couple of really useful add-ons - things like Coreltrace, which converts bitmaps into vector images.

Back, however, to drawing trees...

No matter what you are using, or how it works, my advice would be to take a good hard and detailed look at all the trees in other people's maps, and formulate in your head the features that you think make a tree look good (as well as a list of things you don't want to do to your own trees!). Things like overall shape, and texture, as well as whether the trunk is straight or flared and kinked or curved etc. It should then be easier to do the actual drawing of the trees, because you will have developed a set of 'instructions to self' about how they should look when you draw them in your own map, that you may not have had before

Good luck with it - and happy mapping

[Eilathen]

Hey kacey,

I'm glad you appreciate my comments and my honesty. I always try to tell how i see it. But i really really hope i did not discourage you in any way! That was not my intention at all and let me just say - in case it needs to be said - your map is absolutely awesome! I really like the overall feel and atmosphere of your map and i think you are on a very good path. It's a very good effort...and considering that you are a pretty new member, i am even more impressed with what you have shown us.

I can only imagine how hard it must be doing tons of trees on such a big map ^^ I am a mapper who still draws his maps by hand...paper, pencil and stuff...and i can tell you that the most intimidating part of every map is also the forests! BUT, for me, it also is a very important part of every map. It just gives so much more depth to a map if you also depict forests and not only mountains and rivers.
So i really hope you will not give up and keep on "fighting". I am sure this map will be a real beauty when it's finished.
As someone who is also always his biggest critic, i am sure you will not be totally satisfied with everything in the end...but that's ok, more than ok. That means there is room (and motivation) for improvement

Looking forward to your progress on this map!

[Diamond]

Sorry for the long post, just one question, should I also make the border, and the rest of the lines dark brown as well? Or should I leave them as they are?

Stop apologizing, dammit! Just kidding!!!

In my opinion, you should leave the outer border/deco/art as-is for now and see how it turns out. You can always go back later and change it if you need to, but I feel like keeping those parts darker gives the whole thing a nice balance.

[kacey]

Hey kacey,

I'm glad you appreciate my comments and my honesty. I always try to tell how i see it. But i really really hope i did not discourage you in any way! That was not my intention at all and let me just say - in case it needs to be said - your map is absolutely awesome! I really like the overall feel and atmosphere of your map and i think you are on a very good path. It's a very good effort...and considering that you are a pretty new member, i am even more impressed with what you have shown us.

I can only imagine how hard it must be doing tons of trees on such a big map ^^ I am a mapper who still draws his maps by hand...paper, pencil and stuff...and i can tell you that the most intimidating part of every map is also the forests! BUT, for me, it also is a very important part of every map. It just gives so much more depth to a map if you also depict forests and not only mountains and rivers.
So i really hope you will not give up and keep on "fighting". I am sure this map will be a real beauty when it's finished.
As someone who is also always his biggest critic, i am sure you will not be totally satisfied with everything in the end...but that's ok, more than ok. That means there is room (and motivation) for improvement

Looking forward to your progress on this map!

Thanx Eilathen, and don’t worry, you definitely didn’t discourage me. I did, after all, join this forum to get critiques on my work. Compliments are nice, but it’s the critiques that bring improvement, and I really do want to learn, and get better.