New to the Guild: Pathfinder Campaign Setting

[Kats]

8vTMXiO[1].png

Hello all of you fantastic map-makers!

I'm Kate/Kats and am kinda glad I managed to stumble on these forums. I've always had a fascination with maps and especially world building for D&D and Pathfinder campaigns. This is a work-in-progress project of the continent of Sunaria for a campaign starting next year. I'm really excited about it! Also working on more maps of each individual region for a more detailed view of each area, and I'll post those as I finish them.

Really excited to learn from the vets on here and take my cartography to a whole new level!

[Chick]

Hello Kate, welcome to the Guild!

That's a fine map, really well done with good colors and very nice mountains. There's a shortage of rivers but I assume that is deliberate.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Have some rep for a really nice map as your first post!

[Kats]

Thanks! It was deliberate. I didn't really feel comfortable doing the rivers on the main map, but the regional ones will definitely feature them!

[J.Edward]

Nice work Kate and a nice first post too.
Welcome to the Guild.

[snodsy]

Thats a really nice map Kats, nice colors, maybe a little less outer glow on the larger text. The landmasses seem to float a little above the water, maybe try a dark outerglow on the land or some wave lines around it or a darker outline to ground it, overall very nice.

[arsheesh]

Welcome to the Guild Kats. That's an attractive map you have there. I hope it serves you and your players well. Look forward to seeing more of your work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Kats]

I agree on the outer glow for the text, but if I didn't have it that way, the text becomes a bit harder to read, simply because the font is so thin in some places. I wanted it to be noticeable and quickly readable from a glance. Thanks for the advice though! I'll try toning down the outer glow on the landmass' and see if that doesn't cause it to mesh with the water layer a bit better.

[Wired]

Hey Kats, nice first map! With regards to the text, how about using a 2px white stroke on it instead of the glow?

[snodsy]

Hey Kats, nice first map! With regards to the text, how about using a 2px white stroke on it instead of the glow?

I've even used a 1px white stroke then a smaller outer glow which worked well.

[Chick]

I'm not a fan of highlight color strokes on text. I would try three things ...

1. I'd stroke the text with the SAME color as the text color, to make it thicker, more like bold. That alone might be enough.

2. Play more with the outer glow settings, including Blend Mode, Opacity, Spread, Size, and Range. Make lots of combinations and settings and see what each one does, and then see if you can't get a nicer outer glow that hides the underlying layer just enough to let the text stand out clearly without the glow being very visible.

3. Try making the outer glow the same color as the underlying terrain color. That hides it as a glow while still concealing enough to let the text stand out.

In this example, I deliberately made the text color very close to the middle green of the background, to make it hard to see. The top line of xxxxx is just the text. The bottom line of xxxxx has the Outer Glow settings shown. You can see how much it makes the text stand out, but yet you hardly see the glow color unless you really look.

Sample Outer Glow Settings.jpg