30 - The Water Merchants [Redrobes]

[Redrobes]

I realized that the anvil is a whole whopping 4 pixels on the WIP sized image and half antialiased pixels at that. So its hardly worth putting on the map in the first place. I am doing most of it as textures and then adding icons on top so you can see the difference in resolution between the two. Everything is dynamic in the map so I could up the background texture resolution too and I am sure it has a way to go before it pixellates out. But I am targetting my map at 2K square so not much point. The mismatch in styles of bitmap is somewhat jarring. This is where I am running out of puff in the race and have to say its all I got ! My ability multiplied by spare time is way less than whats needed to do maps as good as the best of em here. Vegetation is quite important I agree. I really dont like my trees at the mo. They were designed with RPGs in mind where if your character is under them then you can still see through them. Doesnt work at all in this map tho. Must get a ncie top down tree in leaf. Some palms might be good too.

Once I have done the whole map I ought to top down texture it onto the 3D map and just for giggles see what it looks like !

[Mouse]

There are lots of trees in the CSUAC Collection if you're looking for symbols?

I don't know what software you are using, though, so it may not have been an appropriate suggestion. The CSUAC is designed for use with Dundjinni, Fractal Mapper 8, and CC3+

[Redrobes]

I could use CUSAC material. I think I have some aerial photos somewhere and I am sure there must be some nice trees in there too. Its more a case of haulin ass than not having the sources

[Mouse]

I find pasting trees into a map curiously soothing. I think it has something to do with thinking about all that drawing I'm not having to do!

[Mark Oliva]

The CSUAC symbols are nothing more or less than PNG graphics. The CC3+ version is in 3 and sometimes 4 resolutions. The Dundjinni and FM8 versions are in single resolutions. The CSUAC and several other large collections of PNG symbols - Bogie's Mapping Objects, the Dundjinni Archives and the Vintyri Cartographic Collection - all are free and legal to use with personal and commercial maps. For more information and download addresses, go to: http://www.vintyri.org. In all, there are more than 20,000 free PNG symbols (or objects in some vocabularies) available. The Vintyri Cartographic Collection also is available as brushes for Photoshop and The GIMP.

[Redrobes]

Thanks Mark, I might look into that. Normally I use all my own material but occasionally I dip into other peoples textures.

[Redrobes]

Just a bit of fun - I put the WIP as a top down texture to the 3D model. You can easily which bits are done in the 2D process from here. Also, I never bothered to model anything not visible top down so no arches and doorways etc.

[Falconius]

Nice. Yo that is cool.

[Mouse]

I just love the flattened horses and carts!

The stripes down the sides of the buildings actually look reasonably good considering they are an accident of the top down projection

[Redrobes]

Thanks Falconius.

Yes happy accident ! I cant work out why the towers have a lighter sides to them tho. I think that the walls are slightly recessed so its hitting the flat top bit which is better lit.

I have been blending in Section32 (THW) up to the gate and made the road fade out into loose cobbles since he said that it was pretty rough and poor. I faded down the border now that I know where it is and dropped the white sorround. I will have to add some black pen lines to match up with the section 32 cliffs.

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