Ask for help - town mapping

[hegemonista]

Hello,
that is my first post on this forum so I would like to welcome. OK. Now I can to come straight to the point: I want ask to advice about my (village) city map. My object is small, polish village, which I have to place on the map. Only this village. But, it is elongated, thus the neighbouring villages "push in" my map. What can I do with it? I use GIMP.
And I sorry for my not-perfect English - I am poles, and English is not my native language.
Sketch of map in attachment (I've underlined my object on red)

[mearrin69]

Welcome to the Guild! Your English is very good for a non-native speaker (better than my Polish!) but I don't quite understand your question. The village you want to draw will fit within the red bordered region? And nearby villages come right up to the edges of it in the southwest and northeast?

If you're saying that you don't want to show those villages, only the one you're focusing on, you might try drawing everything and then "fuzzing" the areas beyond your village out...like a camera view that shows a flower clearly but the background is blurry. Photoshop has a tool called Gaussian Blur which would do this for you (using selections and perhaps the feather option) but there are other plug-ins you could use. I don't know about GIMP but I think it will have something similar.

If I've misunderstood your problem please try to clarify if you can. Hope that helped!
M

[jtougas]

GIMP does have this ability as well. Another thing you could do (and forgive me if this sounds too simplistic) is to just show the area in red. Scale the map in a way that only the village you wish to show is visible.

[Ascension]

If I understand this correctly, the top right and lower left have villages encroaching on the village in the middle. I would put building very close together in the top right and lower left and in the middle. Then around that put less densely clustered buildings. On the outskirts put fields. A city wall might also help to define the central part of the village.

[mearrin69]

Nicely illustrated. That's a pretty good looking map for a quick hack!
M

[hegemonista]

Alright, let's see:
1) I just want to hide other villages
2) @mearrin69: if I correct understand you, I should install Photoshop (of course trial version) and use tool Gaussian Blur. And that should help me, yea?
3) @jtougas: imo that is impossible. I can't scale only main village, without other.
4) @Ascension: Good job! but I also need show the most important buldings, like orthodox church, museum or Communal Center of Culture, so some bulding must to distinguish.

I thought to do the map in this style, but now I think so that is not good choose

Maybe some one of you have any better ideas?
and thanks for help!

[Aelyn]

I have a question which is completely off-topic: Is there a reason that most of your villages have insulting names?

[Ryan K]

I'm not certain that is his map.

[Ascension]

He just wants to do it in that style - I wish I could read German now because I'm itching to know what the words say. The style is possible but you need to draw it all out by hand (which will take some time) so you better get started. Instead of using the little buildings to represent the whole town make each building represent one building - you are going to need a lot more of varying shape. I understand your desire to represent other buildings, my little black squares are just to represent placement, not the final drawing. Draw about 10 different houses and then draw the important buildings that you want and then place them down and make copies of them and place them down - and so on.

[Aelyn]

He just wants to do it in that style - I wish I could read German now because I'm itching to know what the words say.

Since I have to practice for my upcoming translation exam, you're lucky. This is what it reads:

Über Debil Ortschaft - Over Moronic Village
Idioten Herzlich Willkommen - Idiots Most Welcome
Plunderberg - Junk Mountain
Frühkohlberg - Early Cabbage Mountain
Wasserkopfstaadt - Hydrocephalus City
Dummstaadt - Stupid City
Schnarchengaard - Snore Garden
Trottelgard - Dumbass Garden
Kartoffel Siedlung - Potatoe Settlement

and the two rivers:

Alberne Witze - Foolish Jokes
Ich bin ein Butterfertiger - no real sentence, the word butterfertiger doesn't exist

Maybe now you understand why looking at the map made me very puzzled.