03 - Atlas Ward [Mouse]

[ChickPea]

Hehe, if one is going to be a ninja.... one must be able to be ninja at all hours....

_-_-_-______________>>>>>> Attachment 91422

Lol, nice tache!!

[Greg]

Mouse - do what you need to do with your cliffs, don't wait.
Others will join or start when they start, and then they will just have to fall in line with the cliffs you've done.
Don't let it stop you or slow you in any way.

^^Exactly this Mouse! I've got sketches and what not but I'm pretty easy when it comes to my borders so whoever's ahead of me gets their say and I'll just follow suit.

Unleash all your Mouse creativity and the rest of us will just try to keep up!

[Mouse]

Thanks GLS

I will try to keep the general shape and form of the cliffs to the shading on John's master map, with a drop of about 30-50 metres? And as for the rest keeping up - I really don't think you need to worry too much about that. Its not a race or a competition. All maps are beautiful in my eye, and where time is concerned - we start when we start... and we end when we end

[Mouse]

Following an appropriate shove in the right direction from John and general encouragement from my neighbour, GLS, I've attacked the cliffs and the bright blue water. Hopefully this is an improvement

### Latest WIP ###

[Falconius]

Nice, it makes a big difference. Really added a lot of depth whatever you did. I've been looking at your shadows, have you considered decreasing the angle of the sun (I know it's supposed to be 11:00 but aesthetics can trump that I think). The reason I ask is because I'm considering doing so for my own map and the shadows being cast by things on yours are barely there, except for the towers which I assume are pretty tall.

[Mouse]

Thanks Falconius

I used two sheets (layers) with different types of bevel on them for the cliff effect, and added a couple of boats with drop shadows to emphasise the water surface, which isn't likely to be reflecting very much from top down.

I've been fiddling around with the shadows all over the place! LOL!

Everything is on a different sheet though - short buildings, tall buildings, towers... even the bay windows are on a separate sheet of their own. I'm having a bit of difficulty with the additive effect, in that shadows cast by bay window roofs add to the shadow cast by the main building, so I get a lot of dark spots. I might have to take the shadows off altogether and do them all at the same time - hand drawn.

I think I might increase the length of them just a tiny bit if I can get away with it - not having any that fall outside my district

[Greg]

Thanks Falconius

I used two sheets (layers) with different types of bevel on them for the cliff effect, and added a couple of boats with drop shadows to emphasise the water surface, which isn't likely to be reflecting very much from top down.

I've been fiddling around with the shadows all over the place! LOL!

Everything is on a different sheet though - short buildings, tall buildings, towers... even the bay windows are on a separate sheet of their own. I'm having a bit of difficulty with the additive effect, in that shadows cast by bay window roofs add to the shadow cast by the main building, so I get a lot of dark spots. I might have to take the shadows off altogether and do them all at the same time - hand drawn.

I think I might increase the length of them just a tiny bit if I can get away with it - not having any that fall outside my district

Looking good neighbour Mouse!

With your shadows, cannot you not just (duplicate and then) merge all the relevant layers together to apply a drop shadow to them all at once? That way they shouldn't interfere with one another. And if for whatever reason the merged lot gets in the way, you could always reduce the Fill (that's what it's called on Photoshop) so that only the effect is visible.

Please just ignore that if I'm talking a load of rubbish.

EDIT: Also if something doesn't make sense in there just squeak, and I'll explain away my bad initial explanation.

[ChickPea]

It's looking great, Mouse. Nice to see your super-detailed trees included. All that time you spent working on them in the past is repaying itself now!

I like your building shapes too. You've got a great variety in there.

[Mouse]

Looking good neighbour Mouse!

With your shadows, cannot you not just (duplicate and then) merge all the relevant layers together to apply a drop shadow to them all at once? That way they shouldn't interfere with one another. And if for whatever reason the merged lot gets in the way, you could always reduce the Fill (that's what it's called on Photoshop) so that only the effect is visible.

Please just ignore that if I'm talking a load of rubbish.

EDIT: Also if something doesn't make sense in there just squeak, and I'll explain away my bad initial explanation.

LOL! I only think I understand what you said, and I can see how it would apply to a paint programme, but CC3 Sheets can't be merged down that way. They either are, or they are not. Moving everything that casts shadows onto one sheet isn't really an option either, since many of the shadow casting objects cast shadows on each other, and shadows can only be cast on underlying sheets - not on buildings that are on the same sheet. For example, if I had a house with a ground floor extension, I'd put the house on a sheet above the extension to make sure the house cast a shadow over the extension.

I think the only thing I can do is draw a shadow casting polygon on a sheet beneath all of them, and have an additional shadow sheet right over the whole lot to draw any that should exist on the roof of the extension cast by the house.

Its either that, or I leave the shadows off the buildings and just do them in GIMP as part of the 'post processing'

Thanks for the compliment, GLS

[Mouse]

It's looking great, Mouse. Nice to see your super-detailed trees included. All that time you spent working on them in the past is repaying itself now!

I like your building shapes too. You've got a great variety in there.

Aw thanks ChickPea

I can use the trees as much as I like, as long as I don't sell the map, or give any of the isolated trees away to others. I will one day draw my own set from scratch, but having already done these that job is quite low on my list of priorities

The thatched and classical style buildings are all part of inbuilt CC3 symbol sets. The Compass Rose is one I built 'on set' from what we call 'shaded polygons', as are the museum and the houses around it. The rest are part of my new building blocks set - the new symbol set I've spent the last 3-4 days trying to get right. I'm still having quite a few teething problems with it, but hopefully in the end it will look ok