Ethran: Merelan City

[mearrin69]

Actually, I really dig the rusty-looking grass. I haven't read your backstory but it might be perfectly fine in your world.

Texture repeats are under control and the first buildings are looking great.

The center-top bevel is very strong. Could be what you're looking for. I would tend to go a bit softer...but it'll look good no matter how strong you want to make it.
M

Edit: Went back and read your story. You're already bringing the pain for these people. Make their grain fields infested with some sort of insidious russet mold and you've got your rusty fields.

[Mouse]

Actually, I really dig the rusty-looking grass. I haven't read your backstory but it might be perfectly fine in your world.

Texture repeats are under control and the first buildings are looking great.

The center-top bevel is very strong. Could be what you're looking for. I would tend to go a bit softer...but it'll look good no matter how strong you want to make it.
M

Edit: Went back and read your story. You're already bringing the pain for these people. Make their grain fields infested with some sort of insidious russet mold and you've got your rusty fields.

Thanks Mearrin69. I like the rusty grass too, and I might just leave it that way without explaining it. I think these people have enough to deal with just trying to work out how to cross the void to the green and visibly flourishing twin planet, Errispa, bearing in mind that their civilisation is medieval - never mind a horrible plague or three LOL.

The bevel was driving me crazy all afternoon. There's a control on the sheet effect (layer) that I think is supposed to round off the top, but it doesn't seem to work on my machine. I will put a question to the CC3 techs tomorrow and see if there's anything that can be done about it. In the meantime I think the only thing I can do is cover all the flat tops with vegetation, buildings and roads so that you can't see the edge. The alternative is to just build the whole thing like a flat pack island (without any relief shading at all), and then add the shadow on the far side of everything with a single carefully drawn transparent screen. Not sure I'm good enough to do it right, but I'll see if I pick up any ideas from your videos as to how, or perhaps an alternative plan

[Mouse]

On second thoughts... I really appreciate your input to this project Mearrin69, but I've been doing some thinking over night and have decided that orange grass in this context would probably cause too much of a distraction, when what I really want to do is map a city.

So... I've been unbelievably busy today... sorting out 24 different shades of grass

These are for the ten cliff levels I will need to create the island properly. Although I really liked my orange grass I know where the inspiration came from, and its a completely different kind of map. With this city map I should be more interested in the city plan and not so distracted by all the pretty colours! LOL

The long lines of grass at the bottom of this screen shot are the standard healthy grasses (short and long) to be used near waterways. The rest are a series of gradations up to the driest peak of the island from right to left.

I have also decided to do away with the bevel altogether, and go with the classic Shessar style cliff (Shessar is the user name of an excellent cartographer on the Profantasy Forum, who has developed several unique styles, the most locally famous being her cliff and stream tutorial). I only hope I do you justice, Shessar

EDIT: I am also working on a massive drainage pattern for the salt marsh, and fully expect to be firmly ticked off about it by the river police when I do upload the next proper map, since I've only ever been average where rivers are concerned

[Mouse]

Version 8.

This is the top right hand corner reworked. (its a smaller area, not even 1/4 of the map)

I got rid of the mainland coastline because it wasn't working as a background for the very large salt marsh area, that makes up the Flats. Roads, trees and shanty towns will all have to be added back in, but this was what I was trying to create before.

Things sometimes change quite drastically in my maps. I work on the principle that nothing is sacred.

[Mouse]

Version 9

Slow going. Its all those wiggly bits in the salt marsh, but at least its done now.

Small point - something doesn't feel right. I don't know whether its a scale issue, or what, but I'm open to comment.

How big should a bridge be? I mean a plank bridge for example, in comparison with the size of the salt marsh gullies. Would you think that the three main river systems running through this marsh might be crossed on a simple plank bridge, or would a much more substantial stone bridge be required?

EDIT: I've had some response from another forum and now realise that my trees are too big, given the scale of the city It appears, therefore, that I have yet to finish the marsh, never mind the shanty towns that have recently sprung up on it.

[Mouse]

Version 10

An experiment with a different kind of bevel...

Not sure what I really think of it yet. This one uses false lighting, so I have to arrange the global sun so that it strikes the rest of the map in the right direction to agree with the false lighting of the bevel.

The cliff technique is based on Shessar's classic cliff technique, modified by the bevel.

[Mouse]

Version 11

Gravel ROCKS! Oh yeah...

I was having trouble with the land looking like it was floating over the sand, and I wasn't 100% happy with the bevel effect on the cliffs, so I didn't add any more to the map. I don't want to go too far down that road if its wrong in the end. I messed around with different textures for the cliffs and found what I think is a better one, since it doesn't show those sharp little flicks of greater contrast on the sharper bends of the bevel quite so much.

I think a little more work with the vegetation sandwiched between the layers of the cliff should ease the stepped appearance a bit, but I'm not really working at that level of detail just yet.

The gravel? well, it was Lorelei's idea, and it really rocks! its weighing the island down to the sand and attaching it quite nicely. A rather unexpected but pleasing side effect is the way it appears to sink beneath the waterline and lie on the floor of the bay.

Gravel most definitely rocks, Lorelei. Thank you!

[Mouse]

Version 12

Redesign.

The composition of the map as a whole was pretty satisfactory, but I realised the city was going to be only about half the area of the map, so I enlarged the island and shifted the whole image south west to place its centre at the centre of the map (or more or less) - a nerve-wracking experience, considering there were some 2729 objects all selected and being transformed at the same time, but Fastcad (the power behind CC3) is pretty neat the way it handles these things, so we were fine.

I also drafted in the grass on all the different layers to start the shaping of the main part of the island. Its very crude at the moment and resembles in many ways those cardboard layer-cake type models we used to make from contour maps back at school, but these are still very early days, and there is a lot of blending work to be done.

[Neyjour]

Wow... this looks fantastic so far!

Your water is absolutely gorgeous. Not just the caustics/texture, but the beautiful colour as well, and the illusion of clarity. It reminds me of home (the Bahamas) a lot.

My favourite parts at the moment are the sand/beaches, the smaller rock between the main land and the marsh (love the blending of water and gravel around it!), and the marsh itself. That marsh looks so cool, and it keeps drawing my eye. I don't know what it is exactly, but the squiggly, organic look is really fascinating.

Beautiful work! I can't wait to see what this is going to look like when it's finished.

[Mouse]

Hey Neyjour!

Nice of you to drop by... and I still haven't built that tavern, but welcome to the Merelan City construction site!

The water is just four layers with different extents of the same rather lovely Herwin Wielink sea texture on them, differentiated by HSL settings. They all have a hefty edge fade on them, which gives the coastal water that all-important transparency. That it worked so well is one of those mysterious accidents I seem to keep having... (like falling in the proverbial pool yesterday!)

I've been avoiding having to start on the island by polising all the details around it for some time. The marsh is one of my favourite places to dawdle, so its much more polished than anything else. LOL Its really just two layers - one of moss, and one of long grass with exactly the same objects, but with an edge fade to the middle of each object on the long grass layer. Not sure how that would translate to Photoshop speak, but what it does is it makes the long grass appear only around the edge of each shape, so that the water ways seem to be lined with long grass.

Anyway. Its taken me an inordinately long time to get this far, so I think you may have to wait quite a while to see the finished thing. I should probably get back to the map and get on with it! LOL

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. They are much appreciated