Aeterna: Home of the Slumbering gods...(WIP)

[Josiah VE]

I think I noticed that, but didn't get to posting I guess. Looks better now.

[ladiestorm]

I agree. I've been working on this map for almost three weeks, now. I did take a break while I was working on the uncharted island, and the lite mapping challenge, but it's about time I finish this one. I still have the remake of my Larysia map to do, plus my regional maps, my city maps, and my town and village maps to finish.

Then I have to finish my world history write up, do character sketches for my minor NPCs, character sheets for my major NPCs, and finish the notes for the start of this campaign... And organize it all so I'm ready for my players.

I've never worked so hard on a campaign before... Man, this is going to be epic!!!

[Josiah VE]

Whoops, did I say "get to posting I guess", I meant to say "I never got to posting I guess." Haha...

Well, still, get to posting. I want to see more of this, it's looking great. Naw, go at whatever pace you have time for.

[ladiestorm]

Well, I decided to take my time with this map. I've spent more time on this one map, then I did with all of my original Larysia maps...and I think it shows. It's strange... But if I were to some up the things I've learned...actually learned, it doesn't seem like much: river placement, directional shadows, scaling, color schemes, and height and depth development, oh and shore lines... It doesn't seem like much.

But then I look at the over all progress in the few maps I've completed...and the difference between my first maps and my latest ones seem astronomical to me.

[ladiestorm]

I'm now starting to add the little details to this map, and I'm running into a snag that I need some help with from the cc3+ users, pretty please. Now that I've redrawn the left side of my map, and started adding some of the little islands, I'm, once again, running into that annoying blue coastline. What I originally did to get rid of it, was to change properties to the ocean bitmap fill, and that seemed to work perfectly... until I zoomed in while working on my terrains, and noticed little 'bit's of landmass off of some of my coasts. It took me a while to realize what those little bits of land were. You see, I fractalized and smoothed my coastlines to get rid of the jagged block feel to my landmasses. Apparently, when you use Mike Schley's style and try to fractalize or smooth your coasts... the land mass changes, the blue coastline does not. What you get, in the end, is the blue coastline cutting through the fractalization. Well, when I changed the blue coast to the ocean bitmap, it caused those little bits of land where the coastline cuts through the fractalizing.

What I REALLY want, is to change the blue coastline to the default landmass bitmap fill, but the bitmap fill selections don't include it. I thought about erasing the blue coast all together, using the node edit, but I can't right click on the erase button like I can with most of the other drawing tools. Plus I'm afraid I will end up with the same problem as before... those little bits of landmass due to the fractalization.

I'm hoping and praying that someone has an idea, answer, solution to this snag, because I'm at a loss.

Aeterna06lrg.PNG

[waldronate]

That little bit of visible ocean right below the manor? If you don't want to keep it, try using DELNODE on your landmass to get rid of the nodes that are going the wrong way. I should probably look into fixing FRX so that it doesn't mess with segments on borders, though (getting a useful tolerance will be an issue, of course).

[waldronate]

Ah yes, reading comprehension. My weak point. What you are asking about is how to change the fill style on the coast, not how to reshape the coastline. If you use the LIST command on your landmass, you will see that it's composed of two entities: a 2D polygon on the LAND sheet and another on the COASTLINES sheet. The one on the LAND sheet has a fill style of 390 (Land_MS) and the one on COASTLINES has a fill style of 1 (Solid). What you need to do is CHANGE the Fill Style of both of those entities to the bitmap fill style "Land_MS". Sorry about the misunderstanding.

[ladiestorm]

Thanks Waldronate. I got the same advice on the profantasy site (I post to both), so I did manage to get rid of the blue coastline and changed it to the land mass fill. So I fixed that, and now have another issue.

My shore line is now flat and blah looking. If I was working with the standard cc3+ template, I would just set up glow effects to give the shoreline some depth. But that doesn't seem to work with Schley's style. I was thinking of beveling the shoreline, with an inner glow, but I can't seem to make it work.

Any ideas or suggestions as to how I can give my shoreline a little umpf?

[waldronate]

Try adding effects to the LAND sheet. Turn off the two Glow values that come in with the style and go to town. Edge Striping with a random image can be pretty spectacular, if a little bizarre. Blur, Alpha with Scale 50%, 10% of view width, and Blur color data turned off can also be interesting. Add a lighted bevel in there and it gets even sillier.

Just the Bevel, Lighted and Blur, Alpha effects on the LAND sheet:
aa.jpg

I'm not sure how to get more umphy than that. Subtlety is a bit harder...

[ladiestorm]

that looks rather intriguing, not sure how it would work with my map. Here is my latest update... perhaps you can help me figure out what to do with it.

Aeterna07lrg.PNG