Ouch! Even with a UPS, I still like to save into a new file every day. I had about 25 of them for last month's challenge entry. It takes a lot of disk space, of course, but it's well worth it.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
Thats bad We have had some storms here too and some power outages. I also power off and plugs out over storms in case of mains spikes. We might benefit from a thread about backup strategies - always easier to say after the fact I know but I implement a rigorous set of procedures and since losing several HDs over the years I haven't lost my data since. One quick policy tho is that all my WIPs are numbered and increment up. I have a map in progress with 28 file saves so thats a lot of corruption to destroy them all. You could try to look at some of the temp directories as some programs save copies of the file in case of an outage like that. The file might be saves as a different name but it might still exist.
Oh man, I'm sorry. I've been there, under different circumstances... Lost tons of writing I had been working on first when I dropped an external hard drive then again a couples years later when my laptop was stolen... Hopefully you can recover and start again.
I've been working on hell for a while now, hell 1 is what my priests say it should look like with all the fire n brimstone, hell 2 is what Dante says it looks like-a giant target, hell 3 and 4 were combos that ended up looking like big oatmeal cookies. So after 4 less than stellar attempts at mapping hell I've decided to go back to my lil baby. Here's fjord 2 point oh.
Looks like you've got your brightness issue sorted out now; I can see this image just fine. And I'm so glad, 'cause it's very impressive!
I think you need to dial back the distance on the buildings' drop shadows. They're giving the impression that the houses are flying. Or at least much taller than the walls and towers.
I'm really feeling the frustration of wondering what's just off the edge of the map. I want to see the whole, murderous approach to the castle. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but at least you've engaged my imagination.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
The boats are trading cogs, longboats will come later once I have something I like. The shadows are there just as a place-keeper for now, I'll remove 'em and redo 'em once all of the buildings are done. The darkness thing gave me the most problems and took the longest to fix, I might set my monitor even darker so that things come out brighter for everyone else...not sure yet. As for the edges, heh heh, I plan on doing additional maps on top, left and right. The top map will show the fields n stuff, the right and left maps will show the mountains and dungeons n such...hope I can replicate my methods (first time I didn't write a tutorial as I went along). Or maybe someone else can jump in and do whatever their imaginations come up with.
You just made my night! This map is just so delicious that I'm eager to see the rest.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
That is a great looking map. I love the town and the fortifications. I can't find anything that I don't like in this!