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Thread: Merridia

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Schattenherz View Post
    Thanks for your comment
    Mh... maybe I could go back and make some of the buildings bigger... I really have to admit that I haven't paid much attention to some size issues.
    The scale of the close-up view is indeed 1px = 1m. You're absolutely right then, some of the buildings are very small, even smaller than 10*5m. I'm thinking about whether this is really not plausible. Even 5*5m are a not overly small room in which I could imagine a hearth, maybe a table and some places to sleep; if the building has more than one floor it would be as big as my flat So enough to live in for a family. Especially as buildings of that size are mainly in the poorer quarters of the city.
    The buildings which are smaller than that could be sheds, kitchens outside of the main building orbuilding extensions of some sort.
    Does that sound convincing? Nevertheless I'll check the sizes and may make some of the buildings in the northern part of Merridia bigger... that's no great deal.
    I'll also do some research on city walls

    Thank you, too, mearrin69
    I am not an expert in buildings of ancient ages, but it seems unlikely that a multi-story building could have a footprint of only 5*5. Remember also that those are the external dimensions, you should also consider the thickness of walls (so 5*5 would maybe be 4*4 in the interior). Moreover, even if in a medieval-early modern city the poor could be tightly crammed, it still appears unlikely to me that within a densely populated city they would live mainly in detached houses. And, it comes to my mind now, if they are so poor and short of real estate, why do they keep all that courtyards and gardens in between their houses?
    Of course this are just very minor things, the map is still fantastic.

  2. #32

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    Schatten may not be so far off (and may have made the sizes of the small houses too generous) 10m square is 3.1m on each side....I'm about to post this paper I found on slums in Bangladesh (present day - worth reading if you want to know how a large proportion of the world around us live), but bearing in mind they have no modern amenities, it's possible within the extents of fantasy to think that the house sizes would not have changed too much over the ages:

    Slum dwellers lived in very small, mostly single room homes (Table 3.16). The mean size of a house/room in the six cities was 102.8 sq. ft., the median being 100 sq. ft. (9.55 m2 and 9.29 m2 respectively). In many of slums (46%), the average room size varied between 76 and 100 sq. ft. Slum dwellers in Dhaka usually lived in smaller homes/rooms compared with other cities. In one fifth of Dhaka's slums (20%), room size was below 76 sq. ft. (7.06m2), while in three-fifths of clusters (61%) size varied between 76 and 100 sq. ft. Only 2.2% of slums in Dhaka had an average room size above 125 sq. ft., compared with 34 percent in Chittagong, 25.6 percent in Khulna, 33 percent in Rajshahi, 15 percent in Sylhet and 43.9 percent in Barisal.

  3. #33
    Guild Adept Yandor's Avatar
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    and this is why making city maps is a pain... When does the realistic approach hit into symbolic. I say that because with the city map I got, the docks are HUGE, in comparison to the actual city, so in that instance they become more of a 75% symbol and 25% realistic, and the rest of the city is the reverse of that... (just saying, not 100% true but still the concept...) I think in general this map has a great balance of realistic qualities and floats on a few symbolic things, where as many other city maps I've seen have a realistic idea or view but much of the elements are symbolic... hopefully something of that made sense

    But regardless amazing map, still wish I could pull off some of the effects you've got here. As for the walls being thick, its just the distortion of the brush when you run it on a diagonal, a 4px brush becomes a 6 or 7px brush... kind of annoying but that is the cause...
    Last edited by Yandor; 08-24-2011 at 08:36 PM.
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  5. #35
    Guild Apprentice Schattenherz's Avatar
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    @feanaaro: I just did a bit of research and found a house with a 26m˛ footprint and two stories. Of course that's the exception rather than the rule nowadays (it's the smallest, free standing tenanted half-timbered house in germany), but I believe there could have been more of them once, especially houses standing side to side with other buildings. Some of the buildings I saw in Bremen (older and even newer ones built in the 20th century) are only slightly broader, though most of them are narrow and strung-out.
    So my conclusion is to I'll fill in most of the gaps between the buildings in the poor areas of the city (but not the backyards) and will be careful to avoid anything below 3*3px. Thank you for commenting and making me think about that!
    Thank you, ravells, for sharing your sound background knowledge again!

    They keep the gardens because they can grow vegetables there, maybe a fruit tree or keep a pig or goat there. I think that was not unusual in medieval cities, though the backyards I drew may be already quite small for such purposes.

    @Yandor:
    Your evaluation is one I can happily live with Making a 99% realistic city map would be more of a fulltime job, I suppose... I spent very much time on this result already *g*
    Mh... it shouldn't be too complicated to make the walls equally thick everywhere, I'll give it a try.
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  6. #36
    Guild Expert jbgibson's Avatar
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    This is crazy-beautiful, Schattenherz. Ravells is right - "plausible" beats "exact" any ol' day of the week. That, you have achieved amazingly. I'll note that "beauty" would cover a multitude of sins as well - IF this had any sins ;-).

    You're probably right to wonder about the longevity of that long a bridge, across a shifty river. But if it's important to the City Fathers, they'll just maintain it no matter what, with floods occasionally wrecking it <shrug> it's providing jobs for the inhabitants, yes? A ferry is a sensible alternative or addition - I assume that's what the lesser crossing is?

    I've looked a several almost photographic city maps lately, and I've been struck by the tradeoff between map and photo. T'were it a real photo, at any one time there'd no doubt be some houses or whole blocks burned down, other places where renovation or repurposing was going on. A few fields would lie fallow, ships would be unloading turnips and lumber, and most of the buildings' chimneys would be smoking. It's medieval, so no photos are being taken from balloon or the back of Rocs, so this can be an idealized depiction. Yay for idealism! Again like Ravels said - exactly realistic might be boring. There'd no doubt be heaps more industry; more stables and slaughterhouses, waterworks and supply yards. What you have is beautiful though - if it suits you don't change a thing!

    I had to look really hard to find the least suggestion for improvement. The lack of a riverside shadow out into the river mid-city seems to say there's not much of a 'seawall' there - the waterfront pavement must be less than a meter or so above the water level. But the shadows of the bridges don't indicate they arch upward at all, making passage beneath difficult. Tweaking the bridge shadows might be easiest, but if you also or instead "raised" the banks with a bit of shadow, you could protect all those inhabitants from the odd flood or storm surge :-).

    Oh, and we non-German-speakers needn't be stopped by the language of those mentions of Merridia. Google Translate does a rough but useable job on both those links - enough to give a very good picture behind the scenes.

    I like the older maps too - the 2010 version is about as good as I would aspire to create :-). Only after much, much practice!

  7. #37
    Community Leader Facebook Connected tilt's Avatar
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    looks fantastic - makes me want to go back to Breakwater again - especially since I'm going for the same style with that, only I'm still on placing buildings *sigh* ... great work on this, concider yourself rep-slapped and enjoy your second pip
    regs tilt
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  8. #38
    Guild Apprentice Schattenherz's Avatar
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    Done, jbgibson The river/canal has a shadow within the city, and some of the fields lie fallow. I'm really too lazy for ships getting unloaded, damaged buildings and so on Though I have to admit that it would be great.
    Concerning the bridge: Yeah, there's a ferry a bit downstream. I have to admit that I never thought about floods destroying the bridge... but I think magic has to be involved anyways, as the it spans about 2km.
    As it's probably really an important status symbol (after all the king resides in Merridia), they'll take a quite high price for crossing the bridge, so there's enough money for maintaining it. That's why the ferry still exists...
    Thank you for your kind words, I feel very flattered :-)

    Placing the buildings was the least time-consuming thing in this map... that's why they look a bit weird in some places and all have the same color I'd like to have a look at your map, is there any WIP-thread at the guild?
    Thanks for the rep, I love that second pip. Makes me want more

    So... I'll upload my final version with labels and all in a minute. I had one before reading jbgibsons suggestions, but they seemed too important to ignore
    Fantastische Kartographie - illustrations & maps by Schattenherz | DeviantArt | Drachenblut - german RPG board & world

  9. #39
    Community Leader Facebook Connected tilt's Avatar
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    I handdrew the map first, then decided to prettify it... I am of course aware that there is a lot of work after placing the buildings - however, thats the fun part ... there is a link in my sig - but you'll get it here as well http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?9606
    regs tilt
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  10. #40
    Guild Apprentice Schattenherz's Avatar
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    Sorry, I didn't look close enough *g* I'll have a look at Breakwater!
    Fantastische Kartographie - illustrations & maps by Schattenherz | DeviantArt | Drachenblut - german RPG board & world

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