January 2011 Entry: Discovery & Exploration of Eiskanderlund

[Aivehn]

Better late than never, right?

I had considered two possible ideas for this competition. This was my first idea, and after spending a little time on the second idea, came back to this one. I decided to have a map depicting the travels of Gunnar Mapmakr, and he and his viking-ish crew first discovered and then briefly explored the land than named Eiskanderlund. Being new here, I have to say this map has gotten a few wonderful changes as I've been reading tutorials and looking at all the other entries in this months contest. So, the map is coming along, but much like the early parts of Gunnar's epic journey, at this point I'm still not sure where I'm going, but I know I'll get there.

More specifically, I've been trying layer masks based on the excellent tutorial I found here. Other than that, I am mostly using my tried and true techniques for now. I do tend to like large map sizes and high resolutions, so forgive me if you are on dial-up connections. The full map is a 300 dpi map, at 2750x2750 pixels, weighing in at a bit over 11 MB. If that's a problem, I can trim it down. Otherwise I just have this thumbnail here, and the full size that's linked to it.



I look forward to your feedback.
Aivehn

[Jaxilon]

Hey welcome to the guild and welcome to the Challenges. If you get the bug it'll be hard to stay clear of these

As far as your map size that sounds about right although you can't put more than about 4.5 mb up on the site so you may have to scale it down. The loader will tell ya.

Look forward to seeing how this progresses and hooray for another Gimper

[Immolate]

The map size is fine. I usually go a bit bigger. What isn't fine is your choice of formats. Max bitmap size is 4.77 MB, and the board software can't be argued out of that limitation. The answer is to simply save as a JPG and adjust the lossiness (lossy-ness) down until your map fits. Yes you lose some fidelity from the original, but it takes a fine eye to see it, even if you've adjusted down from a max of 12 to a 7, which makes the map much smaller. It's completely lost on me, but I'm probably not typical. Regardless, that's what people do because that's what we have to do. I love PNG, but not for maps.

Forgot to mention that the 12 scale is from Photoshop. Not sure if it's used anywhere else. Also, your map is off to a good start, but your blue water is so saturated that even my colorblind eyes can see it. That may work... who knows where the next great idea will come from... but generally you need to tone down the saturation a bit on satellite maps. You can always consult with the master of the genre, Ascension, if you need some pointers. He most certainly is not colorblind.

[Aivehn]

Jax, thanks for the welcome. The bug is quite likely to bite, as I've always enjoyed just "jamming" and creating maps on short notice and seeing where they take me. Time will tell.

Immolate, thank you for the feedback. I am able to host my pics, and thus did things this way, this time. I think you are probably right about me being able to either switch to jpeg's or see if I can squeeze a bit more out of my PNG's. Either way, I should be able to get them down to the guilds spec's, and use the system here.

I am also quite likely to contact Ascension about satellite maps, as that is my current interest and direction. I enjoy other genre of maps, but the satellite maps are both a new challenge and a business need at this time. Thanks again.

Now, to get back into the GIMP and actually do some of this.

[Aivehn]

Mea culpa, mea culpa...

I posted an unfinished entry, and then medical mayhem happened. Thus, sadly, it seems I must withdraw from this competition. However, the great news is that I did learn quite a bit, and will be better prepared for the next competition I choose to enter.

[jtougas]

Then the idea of the challenge was a success for you It's all about the learning I hope everything works out for you.

[Gidde]

What JT said! Hope your medical mayhem is taken care of and that you're nice and healthy for the next one

[RobA]

Hi Aivehn-

Nice to see a newcomer entering a challenge right off!

I just wanted to point out that your entry will NOT get picked up by the challenge thumbnail scraper as it is an off site link, not an attachment... Also the rules state "Entries must be submitted as an image attachment", so you may risk getting disqualified by hosting an image off site. (plus it seems real slow to load - I waited 4 minutes for the progressive PNG to finish).

I'd encourage you to attach it using the required "latest WIP" tag as per the rules. Try a jpeg - for a photorealistic map you should have no issues keeping it under the limits yet getting it attached and still looking great.

-Rob A>