Ethran: Merelan City

[Mouse]

Version 15:

In this version (and its only the north west quarter because the detail has become too fine for me to show you all the map at the same time any more), quite apart from adding the first shanty towns by marking them with a rather restricted set of tents, I have also refined and improved the marsh itself, so that it now looks more like a marsh than before (I hope). The fun part was adding all the miles and miles of footpaths. Drove me crazy just imagining where all these tiny ant sized people might walk or take their regular short cuts between all the shanty towns, but I'm glad I did. It might look like a mess, but hey - this is basically a refugee camp I'm trying to depict right here on the marsh.

I aim to find or make a few new tent styles to mix and match with the existing ones, but this will do for the time being. If you have a suggestion for varying the detail to make this patch look a bit more interesting (bearing in mind that we are already enlarged to maximum scale output here), please feel free to make them.

I changed my mind about the copper roofs on the guard towers. These are only guards we're talking about, not royalty. The copper roofing will adorn the Temple of Rusaar, right at the centre of the island, along with its vast geodesic dome of glass

[Mouse]

Version 16

A tunnel under Jamne Head so that travellers can cross the Riffle (name of the straits still missing, sorry), and a draft road layout on the north of the island. Progress really slow. Dealing with 78 Sheets and approximately 150 sheet effects on this map owing to the cliffs.

[Mark Oliva]

As I mentioned on the PF forum, this is the best graphical quality overland map that I've ever seen done with CC3+. I'm glad you posted here, so that one can get better resolution than at the PF forum. The detail now is visible. However, that also gives me the opportunity to pick the smallest of nits: You appear to have the covered bridge on the wrong sheet. All of the other structures thrown CC3+ global sun shadows. The bridge appears to have no shadow. Nix für Ungut!

[Mouse]

Why, thank you, Mark - keine genommen, and welcome back to the very slow construction of Merelan City. I think we may have something of a labour problem down on the ground!

The covered bridge is indeed on the same sheet as the considerably more level stone bridge across the Riffle towards the new tunnel through Jamne Head. I took the shadow off because it was making the flat bridge stand on one end, and then forgot to move the covered bridge to a different sheet. The only shadow on the bridge sheet is the fake one I put under the flat bridge to lift it off the floor of the Riffle.

Thanks for spotting it

As for the quality - a lot of the credit for that must go to all the people who have contributed so many high quality textures and symbols in the form of the new Vintyri Collection with Bogie's Mapping Objects. I'd be really lost without them! The only thing I made sure I didn't do, was blow everything up too large to look nice... which is extremely tempting, given the quality of the aforesaid graphics. I have drawn very little by hand myself in this map - the outline of each fill, the ripples in the ocean, the weed on the shore... and all those myriad tiny footpaths in the north. The rest is down to object quality and placement, and of course the ever present sheet effects.

I am sometimes tempted to upload a rendering of the entire map with the sheet effects turned off, since I am certain that people would be totally shocked if they knew just how much the entire arrangement depended so heavily on CC3+ processing power LOL.

Thank you again, Mark

[- JO -]

I approve : let's make an album of all our CC3 map... without the effects !

That would be modern art

Amazing work on your map ! I totally agree with you : working on CC3 pushes you to put every little detail on the map, since the more you zoom in, the more (often) it look good ! That sais, I wonder how long you have to wait each time you check your map with the effects on ?
Regarding you computer power, it makes you learn patience to work on CC3... Sometimes, I take a book and just read half a page during rendering...

Anyway, I can't wait to see your next WIP !

[Mouse]

LOL! Thank you Jo

Jo, the map relies so heavily on effects that I really cannot see to work without them. And just to shock everyone, I have no qualms about showing the truth behind all the smoke and mirrors.

The only difference between this map and the one above (give or take a few small boats in the harbour) are the effects.

As for rendering? I usually find a good cup of tea does the trick, but then when I do a render I have to do it at 10,000 x 10,000, then reduce by 50% in CorelPaint (which gives me more control over the antialiasing) to preserve the detail in the map

Hmmmn... A CC3+ community album, eh? Now that's an interesting thought. Our maps do tend to have a unique style about them, as opposed to maps drawn in Photoshop or any of the other graphics packages, just because of the way they are made. I wonder if it would be worth looking into that possibility - a shared album...

[- JO -]

I second that !

And I recognize well the typical CC3 work table... Some color stains that comes from nowhere, some big texture... It's so far from the final result that it makes me smile each time !

Earlier, I was refering to the time each change takes (even when you move up or down, or zoom in or out) when your effects are "on"... Each time, my computer compute for almost 1 minute (regarding the map I'm working on...)
Is it the same for you ?

[Mouse]

I think that's because I work with CC3+, not CC3. I think some changes were made between the two pieces of software that hugely increased the processing speed, because I don't have a delay problem zooming or moving around - at least, not until I get nearly 80 sheets and 150 effects into the action (as with this map), but even then its certainly not as slow as you say CC3 is! It only takes about a second to respond when I zoom, which isn't much really, considering all those 'live' recalculations that have to be done with all 150 effects and 78 sheets fully switched on

Have you experimented with working with CC3+ yet? It's a heck of a lot faster than CC3!

[- JO -]

Yes, I installed CC3+ a while ago, but when I tried to open my CC3 maps in CC3+, all was wrong : a lot of symbols weren't found, layers were wrong... That really looked as modern art. So, I kept using CC3 (for Alycrau). And then I went on Photoshop to remake old maps that I made on CC3.

But I spent a few minutes clicking around CC3+... and I liked it very much : new fonctions I'm really looking forward to use (as the fonction which is like contour lines - I think you used it for the present map ?) And I'm looking forward to start new maps with CC3+. I have particulary one in mind : in the novel my wife wrote, some action takes place in an inn, along a road. So it's a very detailed map of just a group of buildings on the top of a hill... CC3+ might be a good help for this one.

[Mouse]

Before you start any new maps in CC3+, and just in case you haven't already done so, it might be as well to get the latest updates (I think we are up to 7 & 8 which were released just recently), and download and install the new Vintyri Collection with Bogie's mapping objects. Take care to install these in strict accordance with the instruction manuals that come with them.

The contouring effect is a combination of bevels used on a series of 7 sets of sheets - 7 levels. I was once going to have 10, but that turned out to be far too many. The layers are more of an accident than a deliberate attempt at creating a contour map. I was in fact attempting to create cliffs... but, well... sometimes accidents just end up becoming part of a map, and they have rather grown on me in the while that its been since they first appeared