I have traced the effect that is having the biggest impact on the time Illustrator is taking to render my map shapes. I have an Outer Glow effect (fx) on the land form shapes. When I toggles it off for all of the shapes it took under 15 seconds to redraw, when I toggled it back on it took about 50 seconds. It makes a substantial effect on the map though so I don't know if I should find another way to get the look or just put up with it.
In the image below the left is with the glow on and the right it's off. For those who don't know Illustrator I have selected all of the land shapes which you can see because the points of the lines are highlighted. The appearance panel is open showing the fill and 3 strokes applied to all of the shapes, along with the fx and Opacities of each stroke and fill.
OuterGlowCompare.png
The biggest difference is obviously the fill color almost disappears. There next is the scroll pen stroke also almost disappears. I have some ideas to fix it but it will take some trial and error.
Pardon my ignorance, as I have no idea what you are talking about, but for what it's worth.....in my opinion the image on the right is far more pleasing to the eye than the one of the left. It would be really great to have the color of the land masses combine. What I mean is the left side seems too dark, whereas the right side seems to blend in too much. Can you combine those two shades/hues/colors/whatever?
~ whisper
Wip 7
I think you are correct, the greens are too dark and flat. I have attempted to correct that with this latest WIP.Originally Posted by whisper_my_name
### Latest WIP ###
Elboe_Jan2018MapChallengeWIP7.png
And your "ignorance" as you say is understandable if you haven't worked in Illustrator. Many people, me included, try Illustrator but can't figure out how the expert users get anything done. I've done some training just so I can see what's possible and how to accomplish anything, it is not intuitive. I keep going back to the training videos to figure stuff out. This thread to me is less about the map challenge and more about the Illustrator challenge. That's why I'm posting the details, in case anyone else is thinking about trying a map in Illustrator but don't know where to start.
Oh that is much better!! I do have one thing to point out, but it is a rather small detail....South of the Vharamet Mts. there is one mountain that really stands out, the shadow of the mountain looks solid black. There is one more that stands out as well very close to the G in Gadrashi Mts.
A very small detail, but I would assume it would be easy to fix. Either way it's looking great!!
~ whisper
I agree - the new coloration for the landmasses looks to go along with the ocean/background much more nicely; they have a matching 'softness' now while still remaining colorful. One tiny observation I had was that the alluvial fan where the northern river feeds into the Great Silt Sea seems to end a little bit starkly; it looks like there's still some sharp corners there. As for Illustrator - I've no experience to offer advice from either, I'm afraid, although your progress seems pretty impressive given the wild adventure switching from doing raster work to vectors must be.
Wip 8
On the advice given, I have made a few slight tweaks. I think this will likely be the last version posted. I am very satisfied with how it turned out. Thanks everyone for the helpful and encouraging comments.
### Latest WIP ###
Elboe_Jan2018MapChallengeWIP8.png
Yay!!!! you fixed the super dark mountains. It really was such a small detail, but then again I'm all about the details.
This looks so beautiful. You did such a great job. Kudos.
~ whisper
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