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Three Kingdoms of China - v10.1 [2015-02-01] p15 [Quenched]

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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p2

Postby Seamus76 on Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:54 am

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-01-03:
- Moved the City icon from Liang North to Liang.

What else? Let's keep this one moving.

Postby koontz1973 on Thu Jan 03, 2013 1:30 am
Seamus, Last thing from me before I pass you over to the game play boys, that bonsai tree, make it look like a tree. Brown trunk, green leaves.

As for the bonsai tree, it's supposed to be a faded red silhouette, red being the Chinese color for good luck. I also did try using an actual looking tree, but it didn't look right with the rest of the look and feel of the map. Surely this shouldn't hold up the progress of the map, right. O:)

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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:47 pm

To quote my favorite band of all time, Pink Floyd...Is there anybody out there?
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby generalhead on Thu Jan 03, 2013 9:58 pm

How is the color blindness going to work with the colors being so close?
Can you just have inspired by Gimil, do you have to have inspired by and special thanks?
Can you try a black outline with a lowered opacity on the bonus names because they are pretty hard to read. ex. Kingdom of Shu
The mountain pass at tian shui might need opened up a little bit.
For the capitals do you think an auto deploy would be better?
Awesome map buddy.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby RjBeals on Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:09 pm

I think the original mountians were better. These are cheap.

Everything looks very washed out to me. A little contrast may help the "pop" of the map.

I've never liked the broad curved borders - they look rushed, like it took about 2 minutes to draw some curves and stroke them. You may like them, it's personal preference, I just think a map looks better with some more jagged areas.

good colors overall - maybe add a bit more texture / grunge to the background

(edit) I understand this is in draft room still - I prefer to comment on gfx rather than gameplay.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Thu Jan 03, 2013 10:48 pm

Sorry for this long ass quote/reply.
generalhead wrote:How is the color blindness going to work with the colors being so close?

I'd like to hear more from some CB players to find out how they are seeing it. To me they are different shades, plus there are mini-maps which show the differences more clearly. At the moment the colors are what they are.

generalhead wrote:Can you just have inspired by Gimil, do you have to have inspired by and special thanks?

I suppose. There was some space I needed to use up, and I wanted to make sure to give him some extra props.

generalhead wrote:Can you try a black outline with a lowered opacity on the bonus names because they are pretty hard to read.

Do you mean the names on the mini-maps?

generalhead wrote:The mountain pass at tian shui might need opened up a little bit.

You think it's too small or something? I'm not sure players will have a problem quickly recognizing it's a one way.

generalhead wrote:For the capitals do you think an auto deploy would be better?

With the added City bonus I think that might be a good idea to have them a little different. Anyone else have a thought on that, and if it should be a straight +1 or maybe a +2 auto-deploy?

generalhead wrote:Awesome map buddy.

Thanks very much, now get back to working on your map gh! :lol:

RjBeals wrote:Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:09 pm
I think the original mountians were better. These are cheap.

I'm not sure how many other people liked the first mountains, but I do think these fit a little better with the look and feel. I'm really not that good with graphics and they were my first attempt at hand drawn mountains, or should I say stroked with hand drawn paths and then colored by hand. The first were part of a brush pack I edited and colored. What do you think I can do with the current ones to help make them look a little better? Or how would one make hand drawn mountains better?

RjBeals wrote:Everything looks very washed out to me. A little contrast may help the "pop" of the map.

I actually toned down the opacity quite a bit to give it that old washed out faded look. If you were to add some pop to it, what would your thoughts be?

RjBeals wrote:I've never liked the broad curved borders - they look rushed, like it took about 2 minutes to draw some curves and stroke them. You may like them, it's personal preference, I just think a map looks better with some more jagged areas.

Yeah, I like that look and feel too, not sure I'll go back on this one and redo the lines though. They may look rushed, but from your experience you know they are not, there are over 200 path points that had to be adjusted for the entire Kingdom of Wei border alone to get them to be so smooth.

RjBeals wrote:good colors overall - maybe add a bit more texture / grunge to the background

Thanks. Your maps are certainly great examples of awesome backgrounds and map texture. Any pro-tips? ;)

RjBeals wrote:(edit) I understand this is in draft room still - I prefer to comment on gfx rather than gameplay.

Rj, thank you so much for taking the time to comment. Whether it's gfx or gameplay your opinion is extremely valuable, and I appreciate it.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby RjBeals on Fri Jan 04, 2013 3:12 pm

Here's a quick comparison. Bolder colors. I just threw this together, maybe it will help.

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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:20 pm

RjBeals wrote:Here's a quick comparison. Bolder colors. I just threw this together, maybe it will help.

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Just threw it together huh? :lol: I wish I could throw it together like that. But seriously, very nice, especially the background and tert border texture, and the mountains. Are those part of a brush pack? How did you do their shading and coloring? I know you are asking for "bolder colors", but I'd love to know your techniques and apply them to my colors to see how it looks. The other reason I'm hesitant to change is the Red I'm using is Vermillion, which is the traditional red pigment for Chinese art. Every other red on the map is built off of this one color so I would like to exhaust some other options first.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby koontz1973 on Sat Jan 05, 2013 2:04 am

RJBeals does not use brush packs. Now if you can copy what RJ did for the rest of the map, it would look stunning. A little dark for the complete map but that would be an easy thing.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby RjBeals on Sat Jan 05, 2013 11:35 am

I'll send you the psd (assuming you are using photoshop) when I log into the laptop later. Drew a mountain with 1px round black brush. Then duplicated the layer few times and created the range. Then erased the parts of the mountains in the background. Then colored in with tan. I used a 10% opacity black brush to trace over the borders to give the shadow look. Nothing neat just a few strokes, and some overlapping to give a deeper shadow. I did use a subtle pattern to overlay the entire piece for texture. I used a very very subtle 1px dropshadow set to 90 degrees, no blur, and changed color to white to give the borders a little extra pop.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Sat Jan 05, 2013 4:32 pm

RjBeals wrote:I'll send you the psd (assuming you are using photoshop) when I log into the laptop later. Drew a mountain with 1px round black brush. Then duplicated the layer few times and created the range. Then erased the parts of the mountains in the background. Then colored in with tan. I used a 10% opacity black brush to trace over the borders to give the shadow look. Nothing neat just a few strokes, and some overlapping to give a deeper shadow. I did use a subtle pattern to overlay the entire piece for texture. I used a very very subtle 1px dropshadow set to 90 degrees, no blur, and changed color to white to give the borders a little extra pop.


Certainly send along, that would be great. I'll give it a try myself as well.
I used a 10% opacity black brush to trace over the borders to give the shadow look. Nothing neat just a few strokes, and some overlapping to give a deeper shadow.
It looks like you also traced all of the borders themselves with black, correct?

I used a very very subtle 1px dropshadow set to 90 degrees, no blur, and changed color to white to give the borders a little extra pop.

What did you use the dropshadow on? The bottom black tert name? And you say you did white? I see the tert name in white which does pop nicely.

Sorry to be a pain. Teach a man to fish...right. O:)
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:39 pm

It seems most of what needs to be done on the map is graphics related, can we get a Draft Stamp, and possible Gameplay Stamp? O:)
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby RjBeals on Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:49 am

I also didn't mean to step in and suggest re-doing this map. The best way I can give feedback is through a sample. You've got a solid start, and I was just offering some tips on ways to improve graphics. If the colors you're after a based on some traditional Chinese colors or samples - then that's great.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.1 [2013-01-03] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:12 am

RjBeals wrote:I also didn't mean to step in and suggest re-doing this map. The best way I can give feedback is through a sample. You've got a solid start, and I was just offering some tips on ways to improve graphics. If the colors you're after a based on some traditional Chinese colors or samples - then that's great.

Oh please Rj, don't think that at all, and know I really appreciate your time and help. This would be like turning down music lessons from the Beatles, I just hope to bring the map up to a level that I know other more talented artists can do, which might be hard.

As for the mountains, I'm trying the hand drawn route, but they look extremely cartoonish. More so than the current version posted. I'm going to keep working on them, and will come up with something, but in the mean time I think all of the gameplay issues are worked out, no?
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.2 [2013-01-08] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:45 pm

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-01-08:
- Updated the mountains. Not sure I can do much better than these. If these are acceptable I'll work on the coloring at the base of the mountains to blend them in a bit better.
- Lightened the map a bit.
- Added a little more texture to the entire map.
- Added a dark shadow around the tert lines.

What else? Let's get some stamps on this bad boy.

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v2.2 - Large (840x800)
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.2 [2013-01-08] p3

Postby cairnswk on Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:45 pm

Seamus, from Tian Shui to Yong through those mountains...is that a one-way arrow? If so, it needs to be better defined? If not the border squareness needs changing os it doesn't look like a one-way arrow. :)
On the mountains...maybe a little shadow base left side...nice work btw...nothing wrong with those imo...but then i don't exactly do the best mountains all the time.
the bridges...are they meant to be floorless?
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.2 [2013-01-08] p3

Postby benga on Tue Jan 08, 2013 1:56 pm

Jiao-Jing can it have a bit more contrast, bonus structure seems good.

Also this might come after when game play will be discussed, but seems to me that bottom cities are closer together then upper.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.2 [2013-01-08] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:34 pm

cairnswk wrote:Seamus, from Tian Shui to Yong through those mountains...is that a one-way arrow? If so, it needs to be better defined? If not the border squareness needs changing os it doesn't look like a one-way arrow. :)
On the mountains...maybe a little shadow base left side...nice work btw...nothing wrong with those imo...but then i don't exactly do the best mountains all the time.
the bridges...are they meant to be floorless?

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, it's a one-way arrow, I was looking at it after posting the update and realized it needs some work as well. Thanks on the mountains. I'll add the shadow, good idea. And I was looking at the bridges as well. There meant to be kind of walking bridges, but I'll fill in some of the empty spots with other boards to make it look more structurally sound, etc.

by benga on Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:56 pm
Jiao-Jing can it have a bit more contrast, bonus structure seems good.

Also this might come after when game play will be discussed, but seems to me that bottom cities are closer together then upper.

I can try tweaking it a little, but I have pretty much tried to keep them all as it, which does have enough contrast to tell them apart, etc. Thanks for the feedback benga.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.2 [2013-01-08] p3

Postby Seamus76 on Tue Jan 08, 2013 11:45 pm

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-01-09:
- Added some more color to the bridges to fill them in, but they are meant to be oriental style walking bridges, so I didn't want to completely fill them in.
- Re-did the one-way arrow from Tian Shui to Yong. Should be pretty clear now, but if not let me know.

- Need to add a little shadow to the mountains, as per cairns' suggestion.

Let's get some stamps on this bad boy. O:)

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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby generalhead on Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:20 pm

Mountains look good.
I agree with benga about the Jiao and jing contrats. It is a little too close. did you try the contrast, brightness color option?
That is all I see for now, great map.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby Seamus76 on Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:37 pm

generalhead wrote:Mountains look good.
I agree with benga about the Jiao and jing contrats. It is a little too close. did you try the contrast, brightness color option?
That is all I see for now, great map.

Ok, I think I see what you're talking about and will make Jiao a little lighter.

You would say the mini-map has good contrast though, correct? I believe it does.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby koontz1973 on Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:44 am

Seamus, a few things for you.

kingdom of Shu mini map is out of scale to the others. Out of all the mini maps Wei is the best. Copy that over to the other two and you have a winner.
One way arrow from Tian Shui to Yong, whilst clear, it will need a simple text put on the map to explain it to all the players that do not get it. Is their a historical reason for this one way attack or is it something Gimil made up? Try to give the text some flavour like the Army from Tain Shui holds the mountain pass stopping all attacks from Yong.
Why the change in font for the bonus regions in the mini map? The title font for each mini map works, give the regions the same effect so they do not jump of the page.
Lastly, try to distress your map a tad. It is looking :D , make it look :mrgreen: .
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby Seamus76 on Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:55 pm

koontz1973 wrote:Seamus, a few things for you.

kingdom of Shu mini map is out of scale to the others. Out of all the mini maps Wei is the best. Copy that over to the other two and you have a winner.
One way arrow from Tian Shui to Yong, whilst clear, it will need a simple text put on the map to explain it to all the players that do not get it. Is their a historical reason for this one way attack or is it something Gimil made up? Try to give the text some flavour like the Army from Tain Shui holds the mountain pass stopping all attacks from Yong.
Why the change in font for the bonus regions in the mini map? The title font for each mini map works, give the regions the same effect so they do not jump of the page.
Lastly, try to distress your map a tad. It is looking :D , make it look :mrgreen: .

The mini-map scale should not be a problem. Also for the next update I have adjusted the contrast of the Jiao bonus color which should put that issue to bed once and for all.

I'll add some text to the left of Yin Ping about the one way arrow. Something along your lines, "Tain Shui holds the only mountain pass." Should work, yes? Also, from what I've read, and translated to the map by gimil, "the reason for the one way is to represent the historical failed attempts of the south invading the north". It also adds more gameplay strategy to holding Central Wei.

I like the change in font, would making the font smaller help?

What distress suggestions were you thinking? It has a nice texture now, which I'm not sure "more" will equal more.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby koontz1973 on Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:10 pm

Not sure if making the font smaller will help, it is just that is jumps of the map now. Make it smaller, lower the opacity or my best bet would be to make each bit of text the same colour as region it goes to. Getting the names of the mini map itself will allow you to do this. Have a play around and see what looks good to you.

As for distressing it, and this is my point, it looks too bloody nice. A few things for you to try out would be to put a roll effect on it (as if it had been unrolled), a crease in it (either one or two as if it had been folded up, 2 would be best). Last idea for now would be to put a subtle paper effect on it. Spent some time looking and Chinese paper (old ones) seem to have a very rough texture to it.
This one is good to use.
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You see what I mean. The paper has all of these rough bits to it and this alone will give you that :mrgreen: look.
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby Seamus76 on Thu Jan 10, 2013 2:11 pm

koontz1973 wrote:Not sure if making the font smaller will help, it is just that is jumps of the map now. Make it smaller, lower the opacity or my best bet would be to make each bit of text the same colour as region it goes to. Getting the names of the mini map itself will allow you to do this. Have a play around and see what looks good to you.

As for distressing it, and this is my point, it looks too bloody nice. A few things for you to try out would be to put a roll effect on it (as if it had been unrolled), a crease in it (either one or two as if it had been folded up, 2 would be best). Last idea for now would be to put a subtle paper effect on it. Spent some time looking and Chinese paper (old ones) seem to have a very rough texture to it.
This one is good to use.
show

You see what I mean. The paper has all of these rough bits to it and this alone will give you that :mrgreen: look.

Ok, I'll see what I can do, but I don't want to do too much as I'm a big fan of the current look and feel, and in case there are other changes as the map moves up. I mean it's still in the drafting room, and as far as I can see the gameplay is solid, and the only comments for weeks have been graphics related. Thoughts on a move or two up? :) O:)
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Re: Three Kingdoms of China - v2.3 [2013-01-09] p4

Postby cairnswk on Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:02 pm

Seamus, i don't doubt your commitment to making this map, and yes, i too think it is time is was rolled out of Drafts into the foundry.
i wonder what reasons it is being held up for? Wouldn't hurt to know!
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