CC3 Continental Map: The Northlands

[ravells]

Ah...I've been banging onto profantasy for years about anti-aliasing. It wasn't there in CC2, guess it didn't arrive in CC3 either. That was one my biggest turn-offs for CC2, the only way around it (which I could find anyway) was to export the map at a huge resolution and then scale it down in a paint program. I would definitely re-label in a paint program.

For your horseherders were you thinking of a style similar to these? it would be really cool for it to be a label but an actually land feature as well. The style doesn't look too complicated and you could just trace over a picture from the web?

[RPMiller]

Definite improvement with the rivers. Still looking overly jagged though... I don't understand why it would be doing that since it is vector to begin with. I must be their png algorithm they are using. I could have sworn we pointed them to a better one about a year ago.

[Midgardsormr]

Ravs: An interesting idea. I've filed it away for the future. In this instance, I'm looking more for an artistic flourish on the map, not something in the terrain. I've attached a reference image (my apologies to Kevin Long and Palladium Games). That's roughly the outline I'm working on. I'll be discarding much of the detail and shading, of course, and the armour will be entirely different.

RPM: I neglected to smooth the fractals, so they were composed of a series of line segments. The aliasing is still troublesome, but at least a little bit of the jagginess has gone away now. I'll try bumping up the resolution a bit to see if that helps, too.

Failing everything else, I'll give that Orton Effect referenced in another thread a try. I'll upload a new map later. Possibly tomorrow--I want to work on the drawing before I fire up CC3 again.

[Midgardsormr]

This version of the map has 20% more resolution, the river and lake fractals have been smoothed, and I modified the corners of the neatline.

http://www.bryanray.name/queen/img/newermap.png

It's getting rather unwieldy with the increased resolution, but it looks like that white line across the forest finally went away!

[jaerdaph]

Wow - this map sure has grown and steadily improved since I last saw it a month ago. Great work.

[Midgardsormr]

Thanks; it's good to have you back.

I tried the Orton Effect and a couple of resampling techniques to reduce aliasing using Corel PhotoPaint, but I haven't much liked the results--all it's done so far is make things blurry. Since it's most noticeable in the text and compass rose, I have exported the map without those elements and am working on putting them back in with the paint program. Unfortunately, PhotoPaint 8 doesn't have the capability of producing curved text, so I may have to do some prestidigitation there.

The horseman icon is coming along, also. The guy actually looks a little bit human this time around.

Jaer, do you see anything that needs improvement?

[jaerdaph]

Unfortunately, CC3 doesn't seem to have much in the way of anti-aliasing controls, though it's entirely possible that I've missed something. It might be worth my time to remove the labels and redo them in a paint program.

Yeah, font handling in CC has always driven me nuts. One thing I've learned over the years is to never size and place text with the snap button on - always "eyeball it" until it looks right and don't be afraid to Undo if it doesn't. Once I get something I like, I use the eyedropper (for the Like command) on it so the font format and size are set automatically to that the next time I need to place text of the same format and size. You can always use Like again if you have different fonts/formating/sizes in the map that you need to duplicate.

I think the ability in CC3 to use sheet effects on text is a definite improvement though. I just wish CC3 had a text "drawing" tool that would automatically set the sheet and layer to the appropriate TEXT ones. I always forget to change the sheet and layer when I place text and end up losing it.

With CC3's ability to import PNG files, though, using programs like Fireworks to create text with effects is definitely another option to consider.

[Midgardsormr]

The labels have been redone in PhotoPaint. The large curved label was exported from CC3 and composited with PhotoPaint, so it's still got aliasing problems. I used the Orton Effect to try to soften the jaggies a bit.

The only thing that remains now is the horseman, and I think I will call this map finished. I have no idea how long it will take me to come up with a drawing that I like well enough to risk diluting the rest of the image.

http://www.bryanray.name/queen/img/evennewermap.png

[ravells]

Looking great!

[RPMiller]

So what is the story/geography behind River Almalen's switchback?