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looking for city design tutorial
Does anyone have a city design tutorial, or at least some tips of some kind?
I would like to design a city for a game I am running, something like this:
http://www.chania.gr/files/1/3646/chania_map.jpg
Or this:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/fant ... 722579.jpg
Or this:
http://www.mcauslandstudios.com/recent- ... Aldenn.htm
A coast, some points of interest, streets and such. I would like some kind of guidance on how to start.
I would like to design a city for a game I am running, something like this:
http://www.chania.gr/files/1/3646/chania_map.jpg
Or this:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/fant ... 722579.jpg
Or this:
http://www.mcauslandstudios.com/recent- ... Aldenn.htm
A coast, some points of interest, streets and such. I would like some kind of guidance on how to start.
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_o ... lmonte.jpg
Raster maps, if done well, are quite scalable. I think there's a good bit about the posibilities of modern cartography programs (and particularly FM8) that you don't understand.
That notwithstanding, if you prefer vector maps, I'd certainly be the last person to argue against that preference.
Raster images do not scale. If the images are of sufficiently high resolution, you might not notice this fact. It is, nonetheless, a fact.
On the other hand, if the resolution is sufficiently high, the fact that raster images don't scale might not matter. As it happens, I found a tutorial on Cartographer's Guild on using Photoshop to create town/city maps. I spent much of today playing with that, and it may well suit my purposes just fine.
I had attached a VERY rough draft of my city in progress to this message, but I didn't use FM to create it, so I removed it.
Sorry, Brendan. The maps we have haven't been released yet, and won't be for awhile. We're a project group, not an individual effort, so I can't do advance releasing.
Technically, that's quite correct. For all practical purposes, good raster images will appear to scale just as well as vector images. But that's not the real question. There's a world of graphical difference between vector and raster maps. One needs to decide which result one wants.
Meanwhile, you do not have a tutorial to recommend, and you do not have an example of the style of map you prefer that you are willing to share.
I think that sums it up, although if anyone does run across a tutorial for drawing cities in FM, that would be great.
Almost exactly. Correct would be that I "do not have an example of the style of map you prefer that I am able to share" rather than "you do not have an example of the style of map you prefer that you are willing to share." The word "willing" misrepresents what I wrote.
I was wondering if some tutorials are available to apply good map making techniques, tricks using fractal mapper? Especially from the perspective of a layman approach rather than some multi media professional. Maybe a you tube video series or something would help? The tutorials could be a series...
I have seen something like this for CC3.
Tutorials that could help teach some one the full power of this robust software? I google a lot and haven't really found enough to go into the nitty gritty of this program ie layers ect..
Call up the NBOS home page at http://www.nbos.com
In the menu at the very top of the page, click the option Resources.
In the Items menu at the lower right, click Page 5.
Scroll down the list until you find this item:
Fractal Mapper 8 Tutorial PDF, 18.38 MB.
Download it and work your way through it. It is extremely easy to understand and put to into use. You can do it all in two days time. When you're done, you'll be an expert in FM8 on the vector level. I think you also will be amazed at just how much FM8 can do. Your next step is to learn raster mapping, which will produce modern quality maps something like those that are being made with Adobe Photshop, GIMP, Dundjinni, etc.. For many kinds of raster maps, FM8 will give you a lot of cartographic tools that aren't available in PS, GIMP or Dundjinni. That makes it much easier to make good raster maps without huge time investments and steep learning curves.
There may be a good raster mapping tutorial available somewhere, but if so, I'm unaware of it. However, our project group is in the middle of creating a large raster mapping tutorial that will pick up where the FM8 tutorial that I recommended above leaves off. We expect to release it before year's end. It will be a free, open gaming PDF that you can download.