[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!