Random Village

[limetom]

Hello all,

Was bored over spring break an through together a quick and dirty map, completely in Inkscape (except, of course, rendering it as a JPG in GIMP).

I wouldn't say it's "done," but I've got enough to at least show someone. I think I've managed to get the style sort of stuck between a cartoon-y map and a realistic map; not sure how happy I am with that, but whatever.

One of the only real problems I've been having is that the paths I've used for the roads don't like to continue on outside of the actual image. They seem to end before the edge of the image. The rivers and the farm fields do not behave like this. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

[Ascension]

Not sure of how that happens but my first thought is something I do from time to time...start the drawing with a "frame" around it. Use a pencil with a 50-pixel wide tip on it and draw straight lines around the edges to make a faux frame...this dead space can later be worked over to make a nice frame. Looks like you nailed a perfect CC3 map without using CC3...and that alone is kind of cool.

[limetom]

Not sure of how that happens but my first thought is something I do from time to time...start the drawing with a "frame" around it. Use a pencil with a 50-pixel wide tip on it and draw straight lines around the edges to make a faux frame...this dead space can later be worked over to make a nice frame.

Thanks.

Didn't do quite what you said, but I made it work. I kept the giant rectangle I was using for the grass the same size, but just expanded the page to the edges of all the stuff that hangs over (the trees, the river paths, the road paths, the fields) and then just rendered it in GIMP and cropped it back down to the size of the grass-rectangle. That fixed it.

Looks like you nailed a perfect CC3 map without using CC3...and that alone is kind of cool.

Heh. I wasn't really going for anything in particular, and all I've seen of CC3 is from what you all have put up here.


You can disregard the labels for now, started doing them and never finished.

EDIT: Switched out the image for one that wasn't a GIMP-rendered hackjob.

[Gandwarf]

Looks like you nailed a perfect CC3 map without using CC3...and that alone is kind of cool.

This was my first thought exactly. It looks like a City Designer 3 map. Very nice!

[Feralspirit]

At the cost of the "cartoony" appearance (as you put it), the advantage to the CC3 style is that the maps are very clean and clear (easy to read). You have displayed your art/creativity in the city's design/layout, which, IMO, is very nice. To quote the rep header, "I approve."

Regarding the problems with the path (though you aptly solved it in this case), as you cannot drag the end of the path off the edge of the image, I wonder if adjusting the "cap style" might have solved the problem as well. (It may not have, just a matter of curiousity for me.)

[limetom]

Regarding the problems with the path (though you aptly solved it in this case), as you cannot drag the end of the path off the edge of the image, I wonder if adjusting the "cap style" might have solved the problem as well. (It may not have, just a matter of curiousity for me.)

Adjusting the cap style also fixed it.

Another thing I found in tinkering around with it is that if you manually set the page size to something smaller than the whole image, it also fixes it. Essentially, you're cropping the image natively in Inkscape (as opposed to exporting it and then cropping it in GIMP).

I've included an un-cropped version of the map, in case anyone was curious as to what I am doing.

[Joshua_101]

The simple clarity of this map would be welcomed by any RPG player...

I really enjoy how the "background stuff" (ie. farmer's fields, roads, etc) is subtly faded out while the buildings, rivers, and trees remain in focus. That gives me something to consider when making my own maps. I've often wondered how to affect the readability of my maps versus the overall illustrative look.

Nice job! Have some rep.

[limetom]

The simple clarity of this map would be welcomed by any RPG player...

I really enjoy how the "background stuff" (ie. farmer's fields, roads, etc) is subtly faded out while the buildings, rivers, and trees remain in focus. That gives me something to consider when making my own maps. I've often wondered how to affect the readability of my maps versus the overall illustrative look.

Nice job! Have some rep.

Thanks.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can attach the SVG itself, but I can tell you a little of what I did. The roads all have a 3% blur applied to them. The main roads are 12 px wide, while the city roads are all 8 px. I didn't do too much tinkering with these, just until I found a setting that made their hard edges indistinct.

The fields all have a 2% blur applied to them. I messed with this one a bit before I found a number I liked. They are, of course, three different colors; honestly I need to go and mess with the lightest green because I think it's too similar to the background green.

The river is two layers, a darker blue on the bottom, and a lighter blue with a 0.5% blur on top. Getting this one to work right was a happy accident; if I remember correctly, I was originally playing with transparency and blur, and went to work on the lower river because one of the curves wasn't lined up, and when I switched which path was on top, viola.

And the trees... those were two pieces, the canopy and the trunk, which I grouped and then copied and pasted. Over. And over. And over. Each one of those trees is hand-placed. Honestly, I'd like to go back and mess with them now, but I would have to do it to each of them individually (messing with the overall stroke would mess with both the stroke around the canopy and the trunk). When I was placing them, every now and again, I'd move one to a level or two higher so it wasn't so monotonous.

[Steel General]

Its a nice map, beautiful in its overall simplicity.

The colors are a little over saturated for my personal taste - but that's just preference.

Keep up the good work.

[RobA]

Thanks for sharing an inkscape map. I find it gets underutilized here in the forums!

P.S. you can zip the svg and upload it if you are willing.

Also, have some rep.

-Rob A>