[WIP] Compass Rose attempt

[Nighthawk]

As I continue to repeat over and over, I am not an artist. Well that's what I tell myself anyway, despite surprising myself every now and then. I continue to say how I can't freehand draw for squat and make my maps solely by manipulating existing assets and clip art, but every now and then I do something that I can't help but stare at wondering "how the hell did I do this?"

Since today was a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment and make my own compass rose...

CompassRose.jpg

Basic concept was done using a tutorial from fantasy-maps.com (which I found through DeviantArt's CG group), with my own tweaks and such. It is done entirely in vector using Adobe Fireworks CS5.

I question whether it's too big, whether the proportions are out of whack, and what (if anything) to put in and around the center.

Opinions? Comments? Suggestions? Complaints?

[arakish]

Artist or not artist. Very well done. Fantastic.

Can we get it in PNG format with transparency?

rmfr

[Bogie]

Excellent start! The style is very precise, it makes me think of what a draftsman or architect would make, the work of someone skilled in mechanical drawing.

The circle in the center could use some embellishment or detailing, the pie wedges are ok if they are transparent and the background is going to show through.

You should enter this in the Lite Mapping Challenge!

[Nighthawk]

There's a "lite" challenge?

Oh... Well... DAMN! That's convenient!

The "lite" challenge ended yesterday. My timing's impeccable, isn't it?

[Jaxilon]

That is cool too. At least the one good thing about this place is there is always another challenge coming along right behind the one closing so we look forward to seeing you in more of them.

[Korash]

Well, if it is a vector drawing, I believe that the quest of size is mute...you can easily scale vectors without loosing detail (please correct me if I am wrong here )

I do like the crispness of it, and a transperant png would be nice

Have some rep

[Jaxilon]

As I understand it (which isn't a great understanding) vectors are scalable because they are math based, however, as with anything if you go smaller at some point details will be lost.

[Hai-Etlik]

As I understand it (which isn't a great understanding) vectors are scalable because they are math based, however, as with anything if you go smaller at some point details will be lost.

Raster images are as mathematical as vector images, or anything else stored on a computer.

It would be better to say that vector images don't suffer from data loss due to resampling when scaling. However much detail is in the file is how much will appear. It can't make new detail appear when scaling up, it just makes sure what is there looks right at any size.

[Jaxilon]

I guess if you want to say it's all 1's and 0's everything is the same but somehow that doesn't seem to be the case.

I thought basically (really basically) Raster = Pixels, Vector = curves.

[Hai-Etlik]

I thought basically (really basically) Raster = Pixels, Vector = curves.

Roughly speaking, yes.

Raster data consists of samples taken at regular points. In the case of raster images, the samples are some sort of quantification of colour.

Vector data consists of an abstract description of shapes and their properties. Again, in the case of the images, the primary property would be quantified colour.

"More abstract" would be a reasonable way to describe vector data, but I'm not even sure how it would be meaningful to compare "mathematicalness" as it were.