Ethran: Merelan City

[ladiestorm]

Hey, Sue... I see what you mean... the contrast coloring is different, but I can't quite put my finger on the difference. A little crisper? cleaner? less melded? Maybe the colors themselves aren't as muted as they were before, especially in the water areas? I'm not sure... but my strange stigmatistic eyes are seeing a difference... as in a little ghost imaging that wasn't there before. I just can't begin to tell you what's causing it.

[Mouse]

Everything is cleaner because I replaced the B/W relief bitmap with a set of hand traced vector shapes (traced from the bitmap). The entire map is sharper - 4 x sharper, because there was a limit on the resolution of the relief bitmap. In effect every one of its pixels was blurring or blending 4 of the underlying pixels together.

I had already adjusted the underlying colours to cope with the greyness of the bitmap, but now its gone everything is glaring - shouting back at me - yelling: "Hey! Thought you could get away with THIS mistake did you... or THIS one?"

I couldn't help but laugh - thinking "beware - this map bites back!"

Apart from the glaring colours, I think the repetition in the grass texture has reappeared, but only in areas of the map where there's nothing much happening right now.

Not sure what you mean by ghosting?

I changed the position of the global sun. It was very low level for some reason, and generating an undesirable degree of contrast on some of the roof tops that were supposed to be in the shadow of the cliff.

EDIT: I've just had a fresh look at the last image I uploaded. That sea is RIDICULOUSLY turquoise... which is odd really, since the relief map only covered the island. Hmmmmn

[Mouse]

Version 33 A

Tamed the garishly psychedelic grass, and now offer an alternative design for the buildings in the Sayer compound. This is just a sketch, so please excuse the fact that I haven't added in the rows and rows of tiny individual boxes that will house the junior and apprentice Sayers. These are represented by the white lines on the lower terraces to the south of the temple.

The pentagon may look really awkward and out of place, but its just a basic shape I whipped up in CorelDraw to mark the spot. There will be all kinds of additional details to go on it yet to make it look more like a building than a space ship!

Please let me know if you prefer this one, or the first layout earlier today. Thanks

[Falconius]

Hah! A Pentagon? It's hard to tell without it textured, but I think I prefer the other one with separate buildings, but that is based on nothing more than personal aesthetics. To find which suits your setting better, or more correctly, I think you should consider the history of development for that site. Many army bases just build what they need when they need it, and so, even with an overall plan sort of end up as a hodge podge of stuff (ie more like your first one), even on significant sites. However if they started a with a very clear plan as to what their numbers would be and the areas they needed they might plan a big encompassing building like that. Did they plan on that before the city was built? Very unlikely, and its even more unlikely that if they did have a such a far reaching plan that it would have actually suited the needs they ended up with years later. A more likely scenario is that they would have had the hodge podge on the site already and if they had good reason to build something like that (from your description of the dome thing it seems like they do) they would have torn down their previous facilities to build that. This way of course requires lots more money, which it sounds like they have.

[Mouse]

Hey Falconius

Shock and horror at what I had done to the map was rained down on me back on Profantasy's Forum, which prompted the alternative design...

I don't see that there's any great harm in sharing rather a lot more story than I was originally intending... it explains a couple of things

King Codari was the last of the Blucran kings. It was his crusade to find the Pool of Life that led to the Blucran invasion of the island 500 years ago. Previous to their arrival, the island was inhabited by the Merlish king - a man called Marin Blakevic, who ruled over a simple but enlightened race who were warriors of the sea and mind - fishermen, poets, farmers, philosophers, craftsmen and artists... but never the kind of warrior that would wield a sword or an axe!

Victory was achieved in a matter of hours. Codari enslaved the Merles, slighted Blakevic's existing palace, and when he discovered the most holy of holy's - the sacred Pool of Life at its core, was about to start building his own great palace right on top of the ruins... when the Blucran invaders started to fall to the Merlish plague.

Codari lost all 6 of his wives, and all his 32 children. Never was there a more sorry king!

Seeing his chance, Blakevic (who was being hidden and protected by his own people deep in the caverns of the island) offered himself up in exchange for the freedom of those who had been captured and enslaved, and was accepted on the grounds that the Blucrans now needed their help - Merlish medicine...

Blakevic suffered long and hard - many humiliations were inflicted on him by the wounded Blucran king, but Codari's grief made him weak and suggestible, so by continually forgiving him and lavishing compliments and praise on his more kindly works, Blakevic crept into the heart of his vain Blucran master, and managed to convince Codari that the way to ensure the arrival of his family in the Dream Place on Errispa (and indeed his own ascendance) was to build a temple over the pool, rather than a palace or a castle, and to immortalise his holy wish to join them in a splendid mosaic of the most perfect gems, embedded in the floor of the temple cupola, directly above the pool.

And so the temple was built, and the "Ascendance of Man" mosaic was created - Blakevic himself designing, cutting and laying many of the stones alongside his workmen. And so, also, were the riches of the mighty Blucran king entombed where they could never be used to raise another army, or enslave another people

Instead of the fortified palace that Codari had planned, we now have a temple, and when Codari died without issue his generals and priests formed an alliance of power that evolved to become the Sayer Council.

The later buildings around the temple were designed in no particular hurry, since most of the men were already billeted around the rest of the island. The pentagon shaped building (pentagonal because it fits the most in a very small space and allows the temple sufficient room to exist) is the command post. It houses all the senior Sayers, and all the core knowledge of the Blucran force - learning, history, a museum of artefacts... while the rows and rows of tiny boxes that will eventually be arrayed on the gentle slopes outside the pentagon will be the humble homes and shelters of all the lesser Sayers and apprentices.

...

Thank you Falconius By encouraging me to explain the story that lead to things being the way that they are, I have just realised that I need to add a significant tracery of ruins to the map - Blakevic's slighted palace!

Mind you - I'm still open to comments either way, and I still haven't decided on the final layout

[Falconius]

Interesting history. I take it that the temple isn't open to the lay people? Because if it is you should consider their access to it.

It did occur to me that many places build retaining walls and level out plateaus in sites such as this (fortifications or holy sites).

[Mouse]

Good point about public access. Hmmn.

I think it should only be by Sayer permission, since this is both a spiritual and military site, but there is a central arch at ground and first floor levels beneath each long section of the pentagon ( a five storey building).

I would dearly love to level this site and make everything a bit easier for myself, and I think I may still do it, although that would do away with all those lovely ruins I've only just realised I would need to impose on the ground beneath the present day buildings.

I was rather looking forward to that.

I'll see how I feel once I've done all the twiddly bits on the pentagon

[Mouse]

Version 34

Having been tutored in the use of aligned fills and shaded polygons by the more knowledgeable members of the Profantasy community, I have managed to draw the temple directly into the map in CC3+, rather than working with it in CorelDraw and importing it. (I learn new things about this software every day). I still have to work out the roof ridge tiles, however, which is why it looks slightly odd at the moment, and I think I may have gotten the scale of the texture a little on the small side.

The dome over the mosaic and the Pool of Life is temporarily a "cracked crystal ball" symbol, but will become a proper geodesic dome by the time I have finished the map.

The Garden of Reflection still needs a lot of work (and quite a few more trees), while the barracks that will be hidden behind the bulk of the temple from the main public entrance have yet to be started.

[waldronate]

Is there an archway over the entrance to the domed area with "We Fear Bees" on it?

[snodsy]

This has come together so beautifully, all the details, the paths are very well done, maybe slightly blur the waves whitecaps? They look a little to linear, the red rocks seem a little harsh in contrast, but not too bad, I'll be rapping this, maybe for a second time, great job!!