Central America [Quenched]

[natty dread]

Well, I think it's clear enough. There are plenty of good maps where people will get pwned if they don't bother reading the legend.

I see the similar colours a much bigger issue here.

Btw, if you like, you're welcome to offer some suggestions on my map as well (click sig)

[AndyDufresne]

You will probably want to change "attack" to "assault" to match CC official lingo. But otherwise, things look pretty good. I could maybe endorse changing the sea route dot colors...

As for similar colors being a problem, I'm not sure they are, but you can always run the standard color blind test.


--Andy

[lgoasklucyl]

You will probably want to change "attack" to "assault" to match CC official lingo. But otherwise, things look pretty good. I could maybe endorse changing the sea route dot colors...

As for similar colors being a problem, I'm not sure they are, but you can always run the standard color blind test.


--Andy

The orange'ish wheel could definitely run close to a 'red' so I can see why it might be easy to confuse (color-blind wise). I'll come up with different colors, not a problem.

Attack->Assault, not a problem!

Thanks

[MrBenn]

As far as I can see, there are no problems with the gameplay here - I think we were just waiting on the resurrection to stamp it (but I shall leave that honour with Incandenza).

Graphically things are generally pretty good. I was surprised to see the shipping routes as they are - I could have sworn that they were marked with dotted/dashed paths - part of me thinks that this would enable you to not have to worry about the ship wheel icons, and would help people not get confused by them...

As I've said over PM, I'm keen to get his map done and dusted - the gameplay hold-up shouldn't have evolved into the problem it became for you... we'll have to chalk that down to experience for the next competition

Anyway, let's get this boat on the road... keep up the good work

[lgoasklucyl]

Graphically things are generally pretty good. I was surprised to see the shipping routes as they are - I could have sworn that they were marked with dotted/dashed paths - part of me thinks that this would enable you to not have to worry about the ship wheel icons, and would help people not get confused by them...

As I've said over PM, I'm keen to get his map done and dusted - the gameplay hold-up shouldn't have evolved into the problem it became for you... we'll have to chalk that down to experience for the next competition

Yeah, the gameplay holdup was utterly frustrating, especially with Oak/others having already worked it out prior to the competition. I can't even imagine how he felt with it all turning into a cluster after all the hard work to assure it wouldn't need to be discussed

The problem with the shipping lanes being lines is that it looks ugly as all holy hell. I'll grab a previous version to show you what I mean...

Click image to enlarge.

It just gets waaaayyyyy too busy. Unless someone has a suggestion for pulling it off and it being not so busy, I don't see it working all too well.

edit: Perhaps it just looks busier because the boats detract from the overall theme? Also, smaller dots may help.

Let's see what people have to say.

[RjBeals]

LG asked if I would try and help with the mini-map. Here's something I threw together this morning...



I start with a 1-pixel black round hard brush. Have the satellite map graphic on it’s own bottom layer. Zoom in a good bit and start tracing the borders. The “curviness” of the coastline is your call.

I’ve lowered the opacity of the base maps layer to about 35% - enough so I can see the image, but my new borders will stand out more.

I use a standard mouse. Try to move it your arm/wrist smoothly when tracing.

Also in Photoshop, you can move the canvas by holding the spacebar and moving your mouse. It helps when you’re zoomed in real close.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Next I’ll start a new layer for each of the bonus regions colors. You can either use a paint brush to color the regions, or the magic wand selection tool. I used the magic wand for this example. You can use the eye-dropper tool to match the big maps colors, or if you have a color pallet made, use that.

Click image to enlarge.

Now I have all my regions colored and on separate layers. I’m now going to ctrl-shift select all those layers so I end up with all the lands selected (First image below, before expanding by 1-pixel). Then I will go to Select > Modify > Expand by 1 pixel. It may be under a different drop-down menu, but you should find "expand" somewhere under the select menu. I will make a new layer and call it ALL LAND. I will fill this with a dark green. This layer is underneath the other color layers. I also add a very slight outer glow to this layer. This will give a well defined coast line and help the map stand out from the oceans.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

That gives you your land. Next just play around with the font until you’re happy. I normally like crisp black text. I found it hard to position the text horizontally, so I tilted it all and liked how it looked.

Click image to enlarge.

[Tisha]

have you considered taking a tiny bit of the green out of the water?

[lgoasklucyl]

Rj, you're the man

I assume you intend on copying that over to tips and tricks? Pretty solid tutorial and it looks like you put a good amount of time into it- should spread the wealth!

Tish- I could try adjusted the green in the ocean a little, seeing what I come up with!

[RjBeals]

Rj, you're the man

I assume you intend on copying that over to tips and tricks? Pretty solid tutorial and it looks like you put a good amount of time into it- should spread the wealth!

ehh... if the mods feel like it, they can. Hope it helps ya. I notice your map doesn't have any land borders at all - you may want to experiment wit this.

[lgoasklucyl]

Rj, you're the man

I assume you intend on copying that over to tips and tricks? Pretty solid tutorial and it looks like you put a good amount of time into it- should spread the wealth!

ehh... if the mods feel like it, they can. Hope it helps ya. I notice your map doesn't have any land borders at all - you may want to experiment wit this.

(Around the majority of the continent- you mean?)
I have a layer of them, I just turned it off. I had them in their originally and wasn't a big fan.

[lgoasklucyl]

Anyone have ideas for a better/different ocean texture?

The current one isn't really much of a texture... just a filter applied to a solid fill layer. For some reason the more I stare at it the less I like it.

[natty dread]

Well, check out the ocean in my Northern Europe map. Want to do something like that?

[Incandenza]

All right, let's get this sucker stamped so we can all move on with our lives...



Congrats lgo!

[the.killing.44]

Anyone have ideas for a better/different ocean texture?

The current one isn't really much of a texture... just a filter applied to a solid fill layer. For some reason the more I stare at it the less I like it.

From

Click image to enlarge.

to

Click image to enlarge.

It's a bitch to do but it looks nice. IIRC, I took my ocean color and the grunge layers that were over it, and merged them. Then I took the smudge tool at 50% strength and spent about a minute going around in circles around the entire ocean. It takes about 5 minutes for PS to register the whole thing via one of those little bars in the middle of your screen, but I think it looks nice.

Oh, and long time coming on the gameplay stamp

[lgoasklucyl]

All right, let's get this sucker stamped so we can all move on with our lives...



Congrats lgo!

Yay!!!! Thanks!!!!!!!

Hmm.. Thanks for both your ideas killing and natty.

Natty- That background looks a little too much for the map. I was looking for a simpler concept.

killing- I think you may be on to something. Using grunge layers instead of trying to tweak pshop filters definitely sounds like a better bet.

[natty dread]

Well, I made this anyway. I like drawing oceans

Use it if you like it, if you don't, no big deal. You can also use it as a starting point and modify it to something that you like.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Here's another one, with less texture, more tropical hue:

Click image to enlarge.

[MrBenn]

Anyone have ideas for a better/different ocean texture?

The current one isn't really much of a texture... just a filter applied to a solid fill layer. For some reason the more I stare at it the less I like it.

You can create a layer of noise (that looks like clouds), by using the "Render Clouds" filter - but make sure you have two different blues picked first.(You could then use the "Difference Clouds" filter to make things more wild)
For the sea in Europa, I played around with adding different textures to this (I think "Plastic Wrap" or "Chrome" or something was the one I used). Here are two versions from Europa - this one from v5 with no added gradients etc, and this one with some adjustment layers on top
It's best to play around a bit to find some settings that you like

The ocean for England was done completely differently... I used solid brushes of different blue shades to draw around a sea depth map. I then applied a "Find Edges" filter to smooth the edges a bit, and to make the edges more defined. The texture of the ocean has then been added on by overlaying a layer of grunge. In some respects the final look was achieved through more luck than judgement; as the layers I piled on top of each other shifted the colour balance of everything underneath. Here's a link to a trimmed down version of the psd so you can have a look at it.

[Industrial Helix]

Shouldn't Darien Gap be in Spanish?

And why is RAAN in all caps?

And I can't see the most recent version, so I'm basing it on the most previous one.

[AndyDufresne]

Whatever you do for the ocean, stay away from loud/intense textured oceans...like natty_dreads. I don't think they have a place on this map (actually I dislike those textures on most any map!)


--Andy

[Tisha]

those are to much for me too..
I really like what RjBeals did with the ocean on the mini map, something like that would be nice..

[lgoasklucyl]

Shouldn't Darien Gap be in Spanish?

And why is RAAN in all caps?

And I can't see the most recent version, so I'm basing it on the most previous one.

Hrm. Imageshack has been shafting me lately for some reason... I'm not sure what its problem is. I'll host a new image ASAP

RAAN is capped because it's an abbreviation, like RAAS. In the newest version I suggested two different ways of avoiding the abbreviations... because I hate them.

Darien Gap probably should be in Spanish, I'll look it up now. As far as I can find... it seems the Spanish would be "Darién Gap". Anyone else have any ideas? Gap de Darién seems a little bit more properly ordered, though I haven't taken a Spanish language course in some time.

Whatever you do for the ocean, stay away from loud/intense textured oceans...like natty_dreads. I don't think they have a place on this map (actually I dislike those textures on most any map!)


--Andy

those are to much for me too..
I really like what RjBeals did with the ocean on the mini map, something like that would be nice..

I agree with both of you. I may try a combination of MrBenn's approach with layers of hand-drawn blue with some of RJs usual awesome grunginess.

I have ~30 pages of work due this week, so it will probably be done next week (week off!!!!!). Though, with the amount I procrastinate, we may end up with 3-4 versions by the end of the week

[lgoasklucyl]

Version Ten:

The poll refuses to work for me. It keeps inserting a shit ton of random options and is infuriating me. Express your opinions in the thread, please!

Changelog:
-DRASTICALLY changed the ocean. Fill layer with a couple different grunge layers. I like the direction it's moving, though feel it now presents a couple issues:

• *It seems a bit too darkish in comparison to the land, though loses its texture when made lighter (different texture, maybe make it darker?)
  *The gray of the outside area (Mexico, South America) doesn't fit too well. Honestly, this is probably the same problem that I have with the mainland color.

-Added a WHOLE NEW mini-map land thing, and it looks a TON better (much, much thanks go out to RJ for the tutorial on this one ).

I just made these two bigger changes for now, because I REALLY want people to discuss the oceans. If anyone can think of how to make them work in this direction it would be great. I may dodge out a lighter ouline around the land (like with the previous ocean) but don't want to until we have some opinions on directions to move/can decide on something.

Thanks! Glad to see we're moving along again!!!!

1. Grunge

Click image to enlarge.

2. Pattern

Click image to enlarge.

[lgoasklucyl]

Okay, I'll kick things off.

I like the second one (pattern overlay) better. It's smoother, fits better, and doesn't break theme.

[natty dread]

Second one seems better to me as well.