The ocean is so rich and saturated. I do kinda like it. Have you experimented with blending ocean colors based on latitude? Maybe not the overall open-ocean color, but definitely the colors surrounding continents and islands. Such that the equatorial/tropical islands have that electric blue-turquoise softening and the look gets colder or deeper blue as you move to more northern and southern latitudes? Not sure exactly how to describe what I am thinking.
The capital theme looks great! Really fits the style of the board. I am interested to see the other ones. You don’t think the transparency will be lost in printing do you? Or would you think it depends more on the quality of the print job?
Have you tried making the land borders similar thickness or style to the sea zone borders? I am thinking it may make the transition between sea to land more seamless and the land border more visible. I have no idea if that would actually make it better or not.
The ocean is so rich and saturated. I do kinda like it. Have you experimented with blending ocean colors based on latitude? Maybe not the overall open-ocean color, but definitely the colors surrounding continents and islands. Such that the equatorial/tropical islands have that electric blue-turquoise softening and the look gets colder or deeper blue as you move to more northern and southern latitudes? Not sure exactly how to describe what I am thinking.
The capital theme looks great! Really fits the style of the board. I am interested to see the other ones. You don’t think the transparency will be lost in printing do you? Or would you think it depends more on the quality of the print job?
Have you tried making the land borders similar thickness or style to the sea zone borders? I am thinking it may make the transition between sea to land more seamless and the land border more visible. I have no idea if that would actually make it better or not.
Once all the countries are done, ill be going over the water, blending the color variants, at that time, ill do more with warm/cold color transitions. Ya, the terrain borders are not done, im not sure the burn is going to work or not with other colors, gotta wait and see, but I agree, the thickness should be the same as the SZ.
Ive never printed a map, so if transparency is an issue, I hope someone will let us know.
I like the ocean graphics, I like the land graphics I don’t like the huge roundel for the capitals. It’s too big for my liking. YG 1940 map at later versions had the capitals stand out by increasing the size of the rounder just by a bit like double.
I love the shallow illuminated shores surrounding land masses, however, I’m not sure how I feel about the double lined SZ borders, and I think the large capital or VC icons are unnecessary given the very small role VCs have in the game. The colors look fantastic.
I have to say, that I really like the capital roundels… :-D
The land colors are also really nice. So much better than the OOB map. I’m looking forward to see what you’ve made out of the other parts of the world.
The water colors are hard to judge from the small patch but look really promising.
@Young:
let’s not let this get buried.
Well that’s a problem with the Customizations Forum… there are so many pinned subjects on the first page that there’s only 5 spots for ‘new’ posts on the first page at all. I don’t think any other forum has so many pinned subjects… maybe there should be a “best of Customizations” forum to put all those pinned ones so a new post doesn’t get “buried” after only 4 or 5 new posts elsewhere?
Thanks for the feedback, ill have more options on the next pics for borders and such. Ill have more options for the Capitals as well, what I need to do is make a separate image to show how they will all look with one look or another, what may look great on one thing, not so much on another at times.
Maybe just the star? After the islands are done, probably Friday, ill move onto US. Im actually looking forward to painting Africa for some reason.
This weekend though ill post some pics of options, and a few progress pics as well.
This is incredible. I love the new approach to making capital territories stand out more.
Have you given any thought to adding new territories? I really do like the thought to add the Azores and Canaries, but I’d love to see other additions as well. Perhaps dividing Indochina into Cochinchina and Tonkin? Also dividing Thailand into Isan and Isthmus of Kra?
This is incredible. I love the new approach to making capital territories stand out more.
Have you given any thought to adding new territories? I really do like the thought to add the Azores and Canaries, but I’d love to see other additions as well. Perhaps dividing Indochina into Cochinchina and Tonkin? Also dividing Thailand into Isan and Isthmus of Kra?
Thanks for the comment!
In this version, im sticking to OOB. I am interested however in a modded version for those interested. I don’t want one for myself, but with my file, it will be easy to edit. Once this is done, ill start a new thread, for a modded version. In addition, to this version, I have plans for 3 paint schemes.
As for the map progress, the islands are done, sorry for the lack of pics. Ive been trying to get the card deck done, which is finally is, and will be available tomorrow. Also, been working on getting the facilities tooled…which is underway. (the cad is underway, not the tooling yet)
Very nice so far - I’m keeping a close eye on this project!
Thanks DK!
Sorry the updates have been scarce, im having issues with the file being so big. Every so often, photoshop will freeze up, and the file being so large, it needs save as a large doc in photoshop (not the standard .psd) which takes like 10 min…. so saving often takes forever, and not saving is risky.
I have broken down the project into separate mini projects, but then I have other issues lol. Needless to say, project is not as easy as it should be.
Sired, you’re using Photoshop, I take it?
Is there any mapping tutorial you found useful, or was it all just trial and error?
Sired, you’re using Photoshop, I take it?
Is there any mapping tutorial you found useful, or was it all just trial and error?
Ya, photoshop…. I have 20 years with photoshop, 8 years of 3d game design, ive painted many 3d game terrains. It is different painting in a 3d program vs photoshop, but I was able to kinda set up painting in photoshop to mimic a 3d application. I have many plugins that are for 3d model texturing, which are helping out in this project as well.
That’s awesome! I really look forward to seeing the result!
going to do a test print, then do a quick setup, a side by side difference of Europe. Europe is still unpainted, but I want to make sure no more edits are needed before. Also, ill be able to see borders better, make sure I didn’t miss or goof up anything.
Save it in such a way that you can make custom maps from the base map.
Finally got around to taping it together. Obviously I still need to paint terrain, but needed to make sure the new size worked well, which I think it does. I setup the units the same on both sides, same as in the same location in a country as well. There was no need for a full setup to see its way better in proportion.
I printed a few in color, just for fun.
Also with a full print, I can now sit with the game board and really look for errors in borders and such, will be way easier the looking on a screen, also I can just draw all over this where needed for notes.
Also, it looks like 2 images, but the paper map is actually over the OOB map, side by side. So to compare is “real time” I guess you can say.
Nice!
Looking good - I’ve found it’s a trick to enlarge Europe and the Med without ending up with a badly deformed Africa - you have to really walk a line there…it really helps the immersion to have fairly accurate continent shapes…
Can you take more time tracing the continental outlines so they match better? Its important that the land areas perfectly match as well as the sea zones. I notice a tendency to “round out” the forms in that picture. All the jagged data of the coastline needs to be transposed accurately, you may even consider drawing the continents from actual maps and fitting them together after enlarging them.
