February 2021 Challenge: Sinisteria

[Kisachik the Wanderer]

Hi DJ.

The map detail looks beautiful, and the textures are nice. My favourite part is the howling heads.

But I feel the background looks awkward. Probably because the grey circles don't follow the perspective of the map, so, even though the map looks like it's laying on top of a surface, it looks like it's floating in the air at the same time. Also the background takes over 50% of the entire image, kind of diminishing the map. I'm not sure why nobody at least suggested a crop.

I think a surface following the perspective would look much better as a background here. By the way, what made you choose this particular view? This perspective is very dramatic, making it look like it's either a photo shot from up close with wide angle lens or a huge object viewed from afar. What was the idea behind it?

[jshoer]

I'd also like to hear some more about why you chose this perspective. It's really interesting... Like I'm looking at the map laid out on a table across the room from me, but many of the objects on the map are popping up vertically. Especially the Citadel in the upper left; it's towers seem aligned vertical to the image instead of toward "up" on the map perspective. Is something in-world going on?

[Greason Wolfe]

Man, a blast from the past. So cool to see you posting again, and this is looking absolutely awesome.

[Redrobes]

I normally glaze over challenge entries until the voting time and then see what people have come up with and I totally failed to notice that you were back. So its good to see you again. And wow - you certainly have not lost any of your ability. That map is coming along great. I thought the original was pretty good tho...

The border is getting a little pixellated at the front. And I think that because its a simple shape, you can upres that without loss of quality. I did a post about that on my technical guide tut thing at the end if you're interested.

Anyway - wouldn't want to be the competition against this map !

[Djekspek]

Hi Redrobes and Greason Wolf! Good to see that you are still around! I'm glad to be back and hope to become more active again...

And jshoer and Kisachik, thanks for the feedback. This is really appreciated!
- The cropping I usually do as one of the last things as I usually have hidden layers stuff outside the crop I may still need.
- Thanks for noticing the gradient was showing! (I forgot to set the right blending so the gradient was showing which was bothersome as indeed it was not distorted to the correct perspective).
- As for adding a surface background, I'm not sure as I don't intend to put the map in a complete context and don't want to much distraction around it. That said, I agree that making it a 3d-ish view opens up a lot of empty space that may need some filling to balance the whole piece... I will think a bit about what to do with it.
- as for the border not looking good/pixelated: I totally agree... I'm still struggling with it as I had to increase shape-sizes beyond the real perspective in the north to make the 3d look ok. But for detailed patterns I cannot use the standard distortion tools to make them look good (it's distorted so much that the pattern size in the north becomes too small even if I improve resolution). I have yet to find a way yet to make it work ok... Probably with different pieces of border and resizing them all manually to fit the perspective... But i will have a look at your tut for sure Redrobes, thanks!

And as for why I chose this perspective. It's a bit of an experiment. I wanted the map to have a 3d-ish look and to be dynamic and immersive... so that even though it's a flat/2d map, to still give the viewer the idea that it's a 3d world that (s)he could just fly into it... Not sure if it works but it's a bit of an experiment...

Also the labels are a bit troublesome in this perspective... make them flat/aligned with the map or have them like now 'hovering a bit'... Maybe I do a mix of labels aligned with the map (for seas etc.) and leave the POI labels as-is. But here some experimentation is needed as well I guess... Ah well a few days left still till the end!

cheers,
DJ

[Greason Wolfe]

If you did the labels with a hint of 3d perspective then additional shadows on the "surface" of the map (think shadows from clouds maybe) that might bring things together in that department. Just a though though, not sure how difficult that would be to accomplish.

[Djekspek]

Thanks for the idea, Greason Wolfe! I'm fooled around a bit with different kind of labels. So I have a few styles mixed now to see what works best... Also changed the gradient and did the crop. I tried a bit of background texture (but not yet to my liking ... Oh and I softened the borders a bit with Redrobes tutorial (thanks!)

### Latest WIP ###
Sinisteria-02-8.png

[Greason Wolfe]

What you did with the sea and desert labels looks good and that slight 3d with shadow looks like it turned out good as well. Probably the way I would go, but that's my personal taste. Think the unaltered labels would work just fine as well, so really it is up to you which way you go. And I am trying to remember if the original version of this map came from a challenge. Parts of it seem very familiar for some reason.

[Kisachik the Wanderer]

The labels look good. Maybe the main one has too dramatic of a perspective. I'd try to match it with the label that says "Abandoned Sea". That one looks like it's laying nicely flat on the surface. The main one looks a bit odd, like it's not flat enough. Maybe the angular nature of the letter "A" is also adding to the effect of perspective distortion.

Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

[Djekspek]

Thanks Greason Wolfe and Kisachik, I think I got the right label-mix now. And indeed the main label/title looked too distorted (although it was 'mathematically' correct, indeed the eyes plays tricks on us with the A on the end in this projection).... I pushed it a bit back and flattened a bit more. Although not perfect, looks a bit better I think. So here's the final version (I guess

### Latest WIP ###
Sinisteria-02-9.png