WIP - Aronbor... or Perdon

[Gandwarf]

Maybe you have been influenced a bit by those kind of maps. I know I have

[Ramah]

I almost certainly have. And definitely by Middle Earth maps. I remember as a kid when I was first reading Lord of the Rings just following the included maps for hours, wondering about all the places on it that weren't even in the text.

[Ramah]

I thought I'd post a quick image of my WIP on the northern section of the map, The Ruhks. I've been dragging my heels over doing this as it's such a large expanse of forest and I had zero fun doing the other deciduous forests (for some reason the coniferous ones were a lot easier, probably because I am happier with my brushes on those. )...

Anyway, as the area is so large, I decided to use the method I described in the mini-tut I posted here quite a while ago to hopefully save some time and also so I can rattle off forests quick as a flash on other maps should I ever need them.

So in the spirit of this being a WIP I thought I'd show a beginning and after shot so it can hopefully be seen how effective this can be.

Aronbor forest section.jpg

In this first shot you can see my initial rough placement of the multi-tree brushes (a little too rough as I've noticed the brush at the far top-right is placed slightly over the one next to it - ah well, I'll fix it tomorrow :S) . I've also gone over two of the labels as I intend to move these to suit, my aim is to have them left clear of forest for maximum legibility like in the label "Colden Wood" which can be seen on the last few images posted.

You can see that I have mostly left the outside "lugs" of the brush free of the shadowing pattern I am using between the trees. This is for three reasons...
1): I don't have to be quite as precise in placing the brush (but more precise than I have been top-right. ).
2): because I've placed some small trees over the inner corners of their "lugs" to aid variance the shadow occasionally crosses over them. It is slight and barely noticeable unless you are specifically looking for it but it was bugging me.
3) As my shadows are going to the left and bottom, not all the trees, specifically those on the right and top, would need shadowing around them. This isn't a problem on this large brush and in the middle of a forest but it would need taking in to account when doing the edge of a forest where some part of the brush would remain unhidden by the masking passes done with the single tree brushes.

This lack of shadows on the outside of the brush makes it obvious where the jigsaw fits together but a quick pass of my pattern stamp et voila!

Aronbor forest section 2.jpg

Much more difficult to spot the join. The edges of the brush are varied enough so there aren't too many spots of trees all in a line. Of course, with no shadow included this wouldn't even be a problem at all.
It's still obvious where the brushes are due to the shape and size of the brush I used but the next thing I will do is make another two brushes, one roughly half the size of my current one and then another one that is even smaller. After that I will need to go along any edges left with single tree brushes and mask the remaining straight edges.

I'll post more images of the process once I've done the rest and I'm thinking that if I can get the brushes in a fit state then I'll upload those too in case anyone can use them.

[Tiana]

I almost certainly have. And definitely by Middle Earth maps. I remember as a kid when I was first reading Lord of the Rings just following the included maps for hours, wondering about all the places on it that weren't even in the text.

I thought maybe there was a Lord of the Rings influence there--I know I was heavily influenced by the Middle Earth maps and I spent ages wondering about Rhun and the northern and southern areas, like Harad...

You mean you did your forests without a big tree stamp before? One by one? o_o

[Ramah]

Up to now I've done them all one by one, yes. Hehe.

Ok... another few images from this section.

In the first image I've added two more brushes, each pretty similar and about a quarter of the size of the original.

Aronbor forest section 3.jpg

The next one shows the placings of another even smaller brush I used, so that's four brushes in total. I've also plugged up the gaps mostly on the right hand side with single tree brushes. And now I also notice that I've mistakenly placed a few areas of shadow on this layer on the left hand side. D'oh! :S

Aronbor forest section 4.jpg

And this last image shows the two sections combined and with my manual placing of the shadow pattern between the brushes to hide the joins. It should now be pretty hard to tell I used a brush at all now on the right hand side, apart from where I need to do some more masking around the text.

Aronbor forest section 5.jpg

I'll finish the forest and post the final image tomorrow when I have more time to work on it.

[Ramah]

Ok, here is the image with the Ruhks in an (almost) complete state. (I say almost complete state as I think I will take some trees over the bottom left corner of the Ruhks label.)

Aronbor12.jpg

I took the trees around the edge of the large text labels in there and as I was doing it I was becoming increasingly aware that it just wasn't working from an aesthetic point of view. With such large letters and the gap around it was starting to look a little bit too comic'y. Erasing a fair amount of the forest around the lettering made it look a lot better but still not exactly what I was hoping for.
So in the end I kind of scrapped the idea and went with a kind of background to it which I think looks ok. The only problem with it now is it kind of looks like it is the title of the map. :s I may try fixing this by treating the other country labels in a similar manner.

Still, my personal problem with the labeling in the forest doesn't take away from what I think is a pretty good method of doing the actual groundwork for the trees. Other than the fact I've not subjected the freehand shadows to quite the same blurring routine as the trees (and consequently, the shadows that were placed in with the multi-brush), I doubt anyone could tell it was done with some large tree stamps.

I've also spent some time today working on a few effects for the general background of the map. I've added a slight texturing to it and especially in the sea to give it a vague impression of waves. I think it works quite well but I'd be interested to see other's views on it.

EDIT: Actually, because of the loss of quality in the jpeg compression the new texturing effect is a lot less noticable in general.

[Steel General]

I like the 'space' around the label.

[Tear]

I am a big fan of your style, but to be honest, I don't like the boxed label at all.

In my opinion labeling, above everything else, is about consistency.
If you keep it uniform and use the same style for country labels throughout your map, everyone will immediately see where your countries are. If you make exceptions, people will have problems recognizing them for what they stand for.

I'd rather change my country labeling style for all countries, so they work in all parts, than making exceptions.

That's just my opinion, of course, but maybe it's some food for thought.

[Gandwarf]

I agree with Tear that labels should be consistent.
The forest turned out great and it's turning into a lovely map. It radiates atmosphere...

[Ramah]

Yeah, thanks for the opinions. I mentioned in the write-up that I was thinking of treating the other country labels in a similar manner and I will definitely experiment along those lines.