State of the Vector Map

[Shyriath]

News and updates to the experimental vector map will be posted here.

As of this writing, the shapes of the Benacian and Apollonian continents and surrounding islands have been finished, which covers (and then some) all territories belonging to Shireroth, excepting only Mar Sara. I am currently in the process of adding in national borders for Shireroth itself, which will be followed by county borders. Depending on how all this goes, some aesthetic cleanup might be needed afterwards to make it as impressive as I hope to get it.

(edit: how does one go about tacking this up near the top of the board? I don't see the option in the mod control panel.)

[Erik Mortis]

It's when you post the topic. Done for you.

[Shyriath]

I had looked then, too... Ah well. Thanks for getting it.

[Shyriath]

We have an extremely basic vector map of Shireroth on the Benacian and Apollonian continents... artistically crude, as yet, but very big in its scale and capable of a more detailed coastline. (It can get more detailed even than that, with patient work.) Obviously, subdivisions will be a next stop. Also, I want to see if instead of solid colors I can get a more atlas-y shading look to things... going from color at the edges of political units, shading to white in the center, sort of thing.

edit: Note to self, though; even though the page size has to be that big for me to work with it, it probably doesn't have to be that big to display it. Next time, export to a smaller size for ease of viewing.

[Jonas]

If you're planning to add smaller rivers: I have an old map of Batavia (there's a newer version, but it doesn't really matter as the rivers haven't changed).

About Kildare: I see you have added Mons Clistiro. Thanks!
But in Lake Christopth there are also some little isles (you can see them on the Apollo Atlas, I would give you the link but I lost it).

[Shyriath]

It is my intent to add smaller geographical features, including rivers, although I'm not really sure how to handle situations like that one, where features run across borders.

But just at the moment, I'm going to be focusing on Shireroth; I'd be happy to add other countries in as well, but I'd prefer that it wait until some other things are set up. Besides which, if I go international with this I'm going to want to cooperate with the MCS, and that may involve some negotiation. I'll save a copy of that map for future reference, though.

Edit: No problem about Mons Clistiro. Also, let me know if you ever do find that link...

[Shyriath]

Another note to self: I can see that rivers are actually going to be an issue here. Having the original big rivers be shown as essentially extensions of the sea is more true to the MCS map, but it's going to make the border styles I'm working on a lot harder to implement; it means that the national borders of Shireroth on the Benacian continent, for example, will follow the Elwynn, which cuts metropolitan Shireroth in half. What you would get, therefore, is the appearance of Brookshire being a separate nation with the same colors.

What I WANT to do, in contrast, is have the border run all along the coast by the ocean, but sort of jump over rivers. I think that in order to do this I'm going to have to chop the rivers off from the ocean and lakes and hide them when I recreate the borders.

[Erik Mortis]

Make the rivers make sense again.... I should hand off the Tam Map.

[Shyriath]

Another update, with a map that's small enough to see more conveniently. The stuff on the west shows the direction I'm going in; the River Elwynn is now a separate shape (as are the Hyperborean ice rivers), and the border pattern crosses it without incident. I have yet to get to Apollonia.

Make the rivers make sense again.... I should hand off the Tam Map.

Make them make sense in any particular ways? (Besides the one I'm doing, anyway.) And... Tam Map?

[Malliki Tosha]

Perhaps he means that the rivers are a bit wide to be realistic. The Elwynn is what, 30 kilometers wide or something?

[Kaiser Ikol II]

This just gets better and better (although I wouldn't mind if those darned ice rivers were to mysterioius disappear without a trace one day)

[Shyriath]

Just call them glaciers, Your Niftiness.

Hm. Yeah, I had forgotten the scales involved there. What is it on the MCS map, 7 km to the pixel?

[Andreas the Wise]

We've had this discussion with the MCS before. Assume the rivers are big but not super big; and that they are the size they are so they show up nicely on the map.

[Shyriath]

Short of instructions to the contrary, I'll roll with that for now. For the time being, dealing with rivers will be hard enough without resizing them... Although we may want to keep it in mind for the future. After all, on the vector map we should BE able to see normal-sized rivers without problems...

[Erik Mortis]

I love how all the little fuck ups we made in the map are still there....

[Shyriath]

True. But it'll be easier to modify/get rid of later on.

[Shyriath]

To demonstrate how a more local map might look, I offer this preliminary example.

Edit: link should be fixed.

[Malliki Tosha]

That's it. I'm holding off on any mapping projects until this is done.

Pretty map.

[Shyriath]

*Bows, but feels the pressure* Keep in mind that I still can't predict when this will be done. Or, indeed, whether I can find a definition of "done" that I'm not dissatisfied with.

Incidentally, see also the next vector map update. I've fixed the rivers and lakes to my present satisfaction, and all the Shirerithian lands have been converted to the new border-and-fill scheme...

...except, as you may notice, Kildare.

For some reason, I don't know what, there's something about Kildare that prevents me from applying the contour tool to it. Googling the error message isn't much help, but the few tidbits I found suggest that it comes from an out-of-place node: that is, somewhere in all the points that define the boundaries of where Kildare should be, there's one that causes anything I try to fill those boundaries with to be shaped in such a way that it confuses CorelDRAW. About all I can say at this point is that it's not in the chunk that makes up Audentior, because if I try to fill JUST that, it's fine. I think my recourse here will be to chop Kildare up into bits and try to fill each one and see what happens, and then maybe I can localize it.

BUT, by happy chance, since my next step is going to be drawing county borders anyway, I may as well proceed to that and use the counties as the testing-bits of choice. Take comfort, Kildare, in knowing that you are my cartographic guinea pig.

[Shyriath]

Bonus points: on the big vector map, look specifically at the Isle of Benacia. Yes, friends, the fine coastal detailing is not just for that local map I made, but is in fact incorporated into the main map itself. (So are the towns and ruins listed on the local map, but that particular layer's hidden.)

[Shyriath]

Another edit. Sick of seeing white background, so I turned it the same shade of blue as the rivers and lakes and added in a partial icecap layer.

[Shyriath]

Okay, well... I was trying to get this phase completely done tonight, but it looks like that's not happening at this hour, so I'm announcing what I have done. I'm going on a long weekend to Ocean City; I'll be able to check the messageboard and post, but no mapping till Monday. So for now, behold the awesomeness!

But I'm starting to understand some of the limitations involved in the vector format, and the biggie here is file size; as you might notice from how long it takes to load the .svg, it's getting friggin' huge, and will only get bigger. The vector formats are excellent for creating intricate detail and multiple layers easily, but the ability (the requirement!) to hold so much information inflates the file considerably.

The .svg stands at over 8 megs as of this posting. In order to do everything I'd like to do with the vector map, it will almost certainly get many times bigger; I don't think too big to keep working with, but it will definitely be too big for people to download or view casually. And because it is a vector file, altering the dimensions doesn't do any good; the file size remains the same, because the same information is stored in it. Changing the size would mean abandoning all that lovely detail we wanted.

What I THINK is going to have to happen here is that although work will be done in vector format, the actual production maps will have to be .pngs or some other raster format, just to keep the file size under control. I've produced one that's about 3 megs; that's exporting at one-quarter dimensions and 250 dpi, and it seems reasonably detailed. If I use those same settings on a full world map, I should be able to hold file size to 10 megs or less and still have something pretty beautiful.

[Malliki Tosha]

Feckin' awesome. When we need to use the map, just zoom in whereever and make a png of it.

[Andreas the Wise]

Really really great Shyriath! This looks simple but beautiful!

[Shyriath]

Thank you, thank you...

Of course, I realized that I may have to re-do a bunch of it to fit cities in, but that's a whole different matter.

[Kaiser Ikol II]

How do you zoom in, anyway?
(oh, and yeah, beautiful)

[Malliki Tosha]

I don't think you can zoom in using the browser.

[Shyriath]

Regrettably, that seems to be the case. How exactly .svgs are handled seems to be browser-specific, but Chrome does not seem to natively allow zooming at all (of if it does, I can't figure out how to make it do it), and the version of Safari present on my iPad only lets you zoom in by a predetermined percentage and then out again.

I can export to a full-dimension svg next time if you like, and you'll be able to see the fine detail more easily. In fact, I may do that anyway; since it doesn't affect file size, the only inconvenience will be that you'll see less at a time in your browser. At the same time, I can also export a .png for easy viewing and practical display.

[Malliki Tosha]

Yes, please. Chrome can zoom in a bit. Click the button that looks like a file to the right of the URL field.

[Falkner van der Sluijs]

Usually holding ctrl and scrolling with a mouse wheel does the trick.