(WIP) Arch City of Nessa'Mor

[Mouse]

I don't think opacity will really work, but you have to try these things.

how about using a bit more colour, like tile colour. The rest of the map is nice and colourful, so as long as you don't go full-on pure red or anything it should compliment the greens and blues quite nicely.

EDIT: you could move the colour layer above all the houses layers and only have to do one?

EDIT 2: try varying the roof colour between buildings as well - just very tiny variations

[XCali]

Hello everyone,

Today I started with the buildings, trying to make them fit better with a colourful map.

Made a layer above the buildings layer, (alpha to selction to have JUST the buildings selected) 19.6 opacity Multiply with the grass texture as brown. Then duplicated the builings layer with 52 opacity and played with Brightness and contrass to give them a bit of pop.
(Edit: I went back to try it again, to get the brown stand out again on new buildings. A bit tricky I have to admit.
~Alpha to selection BUILDINGS~ NB!
Multiply layer TOP - 19,6 opacity -For this I used a brown version of my Grass texture up top. Just dragged and dropped it.
Duplicate of Drawn Buildings layer - 52 opacity - On one of the Duplicate layers I played around with colourize to get the brown to pop a bit more.
Duplicate of Drawn Buildings layer - 52 opacity - LOW Brightness, HIGHER contrast. NB!
Drawn buildings layer - Bottom ) (This will get you close to what I have going on the map with the drawn buildings having more colour, but being able to stand out more at the same time. Take this as one way of doing it. I experimented and it came out nice.)

So tell me if the buildings work.
I'll add reference too.

Attempt


REFERENCE


EDIT: (to Mouse, after playing with the buildings this way, I feel they can stay. For now at the very least. Also I was thinking about what you said about not going too dark. So is it okay like this? )

[XCali]

Hi,

This is the second one for today,
I tried out my legend and the number icons. I'm feeling around in the dark with this. I have almost NO idea what works and not with this. Though it is an attempt. So be sure to tell me if I'm getting it horribly wrong with this.

And thus I have a lot of questions regarding my feeling around in the dark:
Are the lines the right color or the icons too big. Is where I'm taking the lines alright. Is the font I'm using for the legend working or not?

Have a nice day,

[Mouse]

Hey XCali

Its all looking really good.

I like the way you've done the rooftops and left the detail of the buildings nice and clean so we can still see all the details you have drawn on them.

With the labelling its always a matter of taste and personal style, so in a sense we are all experimenting all the time. The thing to do if you don't feel entirely comfortable with the way something has turned out, then try a few different variations (remembering to save each one under a different filename).

With my personal taste I would probably leave the circles around the numbers on the map white or cream, so that they stand out as being separated from the map. They blend rather a lot with it right now, but they are still legible. Its up to you to decide how much you want them to stand out.

With the legend I only have two suggestions. The first is to make number 1 'Entrance to the inner city', rather than just 'to the inner city'. The second is to use a space either side of the hyphen, so that all the lines of the legend have the same format. At the moment you have irregular spacing on those lines with the hyphen sometimes being spaced, and sometimes not.

I hope that helps

[XCali]

Hey XCali

Its all looking really good.

I like the way you've done the rooftops and left the detail of the buildings nice and clean so we can still see all the details you have drawn on them.

With the labelling its always a matter of taste and personal style, so in a sense we are all experimenting all the time. The thing to do if you don't feel entirely comfortable with the way something has turned out, then try a few different variations (remembering to save each one under a different filename).

With my personal taste I would probably leave the circles around the numbers on the map white or cream, so that they stand out as being separated from the map. They blend rather a lot with it right now, but they are still legible. Its up to you to decide how much you want them to stand out.

With the legend I only have two suggestions. The first is to make number 1 'Entrance to the inner city', rather than just 'to the inner city'. The second is to use a space either side of the hyphen, so that all the lines of the legend have the same format. At the moment you have irregular spacing on those lines with the hyphen sometimes being spaced, and sometimes not.

I hope that helps

Thanks!
I have to say, I'm liking the buildings the way they are now too. (Though admittingly, I'm unsure how I got the redbrown effect like that. Hehe, I wrote down the basics of it, but when I tried recreating it today, I got close but not entirely the same. But it is just a little snag. )

This really got me thinking, so thank you.

I'm still not sure what would work best... There are some really beloved fantasy maps out there that have the labels close by. And then there are maps with circle icons with numbers that works quite nicely.

I'll try as many as necessary versions before I settle with one. This ATTEMPT has TWO parts.
1. The labels close by. (How's the legibility? -even though it is the lower res 2k version.)
2. The legend on the Nessa'Mor bar. (Though I'm pondering if I should leave the bar out altogether and just have the names on the map.)

***
Maybe I'd have two versions of the map. The label-light one and the DM/GM label-heavy version. What do you guys think?



*I have an additional question. I'm starting to think about the border, but let's say, as a start, I create a bottom layer with a nice paper texture maybe, how do you center the map image perfectly to that layer? (Hope the question makes sense.)

Have a lovely day,

[XCali]

Hi everyone,

Aside from the questions in the previous post. This is just trying the other route of not having a legend on the Nessa'Mor bar. So let me know what works best so far.

Also! I added a lighthouse. It came out quite nice. So now I have to decide on a name. An EPIC name.

Here are the contenders for the poll so far:
1. Dawnflare Tower
2. Stormlight Guidepost (Stormlight Beacon?) (Stormlight Signal?)
3. Firestorm Signal (Firestorm Beacon?)
4. Sunbeam Tower
5. Grand Beacon

Any ideas what to call the forest up top?



EDIT: The left front buildings bugged me a bit, so I tried something different. If the colour does not work on them, I'll change it.

[XCali]

Hi everyone,

Today is just an update, I'm still pondering the questions from the previous two posts.

But for this post, I tackled the shoreline to make it more natural. Secondly, I just touched the roads. Though this lower res jpeg doesn't show the changes to the road as much.




Have a wonderful day,
Omri

[Mouse]

Oops! Sorry XCali - missed a couple of posts there.

Naming things was never my strong point. I think whichever sounds best will suddenly hit you, and that will be its name

Labelling the city itself is certainly working for you, though you might want to be consistent with the alignment of your labels where you use more than one line. Some are centre aligned, while others are left aligned.

That's a really nice looking lighthouse, and the various roof shades work well. I wouldn't try to make them all the same. That just wouldn't look half as pretty

[XCali]

Oops! Sorry XCali - missed a couple of posts there.

Naming things was never my strong point. I think whichever sounds best will suddenly hit you, and that will be its name

Labelling the city itself is certainly working for you, though you might want to be consistent with the alignment of your labels where you use more than one line. Some are centre aligned, while others are left aligned.

That's a really nice looking lighthouse, and the various roof shades work well. I wouldn't try to make them all the same. That just wouldn't look half as pretty

Thanks! I appreciate it.
And the feedback on the buildings is definitely good to hear.

Fort
Silvermane I guess that was the one with the alignment problem. Though... the left aligned of that one bugs me a bit. But, I'm hearing you. I'll try it out.

Also... I've been wondering if creating a nice gold colour for the font with a black lining if that would work better for legibility? (I'll try to throw a sample on my next update after this.)

***
This is just me starting to think about the border. Totally uncharted waters, but I'll try.

[Mouse]

You could turn them all centrally aligned?

A quick note about the border here - You really need the same gap all the way around to do a decent looking border - unless you have one of the four sides vastly bigger than the other three for text or something like that.

On the label front - labels are more visible if there is a reasonably high contrast with the lining, so if you go gold, go very pale gold