[ftarquisa]

Wonderful !!! Thank you, guys !!! What is the size (covered area) of this new map ???

sorry, I didn't realized about your question. The map covers a little less than a quarter of the Iberian penninsuk

[psychobob]

This will be awesome!

[ftarquisa]

texture scheme ready

[canonuk]

Looks very promising. It'll be good to see the textured map

[ftarquisa]

not bad for a first draft.....I hope





Amposta

[mandrill7]

Interesting, attractive stuff! The rivers are a little angular to be really nice and can be redrawn. I drew all my Belarus rivers on a 1:200 map, then had to rework the entire river system when I went up to 1:50 for the map_c. It took ages, but the results were well worth the trouble.

Hard to see if there is any depth variation to the rivers from the screenies. If you draw the rivers in varying shades of gray and blur them, you will get depth variation and greater or lesser brown "shallows" as you go along.

The black spots will go away when "clicked" with any land texture.

Try reducing the brightness of the .tga's as an experiment. Also try blending the riverbank texture in with the general ground texture a little. Or else cutting out the riverbank texture entirely.

[JAMF]

Interesting, attractive stuff! The rivers are a little angular to be really nice and can be redrawn. I drew all my Belarus rivers on a 1:200 map, then had to rework the entire river system when I went up to 1:50 for the map_c. It took ages, but the results were well worth the trouble.

Would it have been quicker if you did all the drawing in the 1:50 scale map and afterwards shrink the map to 25% to get the 1:200 map?

[ftarquisa]

thanks for your remarks, they help me quite a bit.


Mandrill7, I have been trying to reshape the rivers, but it seems like an impossible task, could you tell what tchnique you use?

[mandrill7]

Interesting, attractive stuff! The rivers are a little angular to be really nice and can be redrawn. I drew all my Belarus rivers on a 1:200 map, then had to rework the entire river system when I went up to 1:50 for the map_c. It took ages, but the results were well worth the trouble.

Would it have been quicker if you did all the drawing in the 1:50 scale map and afterwards shrink the map to 25% to get the 1:200 map?

I superimposed the 1/4 scale map_c over the map_h to trace the rivers over the river valleys. I tried in 1:50, but my old, puny computer just crashed. So I had to go back to 1:200 and then rework when I scaled the map_c back up.

In any event, the lakes in the map_c dems were so distorted at 1:50 that they needed a complete rework anyway. The microdem stuff seems designed for about 1:200.

[mandrill7]

thanks for your remarks, the help me quite a bit.


Mandrill7, I have been trying to reshape the rivers, but it seems like an impossible task, could you tell what technique you use?

I use an old PSP7 program. As mentioned, I draw the rivers in by superimposing the map_c over the map_h and following the river valleys. You may not need to do this. I was doing Belarus/ Russia with many huge rivers and no coastline and I would have been hopelessly lost without something to trace from.

The initial draw is 1 pixel wide with a black paintbrush. I then scale up to 1:50. The scaled up river lines then look an uneven, jagged, weird mess. I then erase and redraw the rivers bit by bit. I leave a few shreds of the erased bit present as a tracing aid until the new lines are drawn in and then erase the old completely. I use a minimum 3 pixel black paintbrush as people say this is the minimum width that the game interprets as a consistent, continuous river. I am very careful not to have jagged strokes or hard angles as I draw. It takes a little practice.

I have two colours selected. Absolute black and absolute white. On PSP, that allows me to draw with left mouse and then erase with right mouse by overwriting in white.

Then I select the bit of river I have just drawn and hit it with 2 hits of "soften" blur. This creates some tonal variation in the river and further softens the contours of the river.

It takes a long time to do. 90% of my time so far on Belarus was doing this type of work!

[agracier]

You might also consider using psd files to work in. That way you can make as many layers as you want, delete them, superimpose them, merge, or change order in the layers .... this is very useful when tracing roads or rivers or using Google earth map info on maps you are working on.

And Paint Shop Pro, even the old PSP 7 version, is far more versatile and easy to use than GIMP.

When you have a psd file that is finished, then in GIMP you can easily convert to the right type of .tga.

For some reason Paint Shop Pro (PSD7) does not convert tga to the correct type for maps.

[ftarquisa]

thank you guys. your inputs are most instructive, cheers

[ftarquisa]

definitly it looks better, thank you folks

[ftarquisa]

new textures

[mandrill7]

looks a LOT better! Great work!

You probably already know that you can eliminate those black spots by clicking them with any land texture. They are just mismatches where the map_t and map_c do not fit exactly together and they just need to have a texture applied. Easy.

You need to blend your textures a little bit more, so you don't have "bands" of non-integrated texture.

Also, you may want to try toning down the brightness on the lighter texture.

It's one of the urban legends of Il-2 map-making that you need a different texture for the riverbank. You don't. If you look at "real life" landscapes, the landscape (fields, crops, etc.) often comes right down to within a few yards of the river.

Good luck!