1982 [Quenched]

[koontz1973]

All good suggestion Qoh & pamoa. Will try to work them in the next draft.
isaiah40 has given permission for the extra space, but unless my current draft is not clear, then will not need it for the large.

Click image to enlarge.

natty, had a go with the freehand, but my hand is not steady enough for it. Will continue to practice and when I get it right, it can go on.

[koontz1973]

Click image to enlarge.

Lots of little things done or moved around.

Couple of little touch ups need to be done then I am going to go onto the small map.

[natty dread]

Couple of little touch ups need to be done then I am going to go onto the small map.

Slow down, man... the small map can wait for now. It's better to do all the editing on the large until people are mostly satisfied with the image, then start on the small.

I have to say I like the direction this is going. I think you should lower the opacity of the radar graphics a little, though. They're a little distracting being on top of all the gameplay elements.

Then, your land/sea contrast needs work. With a monochrome map like this, it's even more important. You need a way to differentiate the two, currently you have some land areas that are darker than the sea and some that are lighter... you should make the sea either darker than all the land or lighter than all the land. Or if that can't be done, you'll need another way to increase the contrast between them. Maybe a texture of some kind.

Also, I have to bring up again... the forests and mountains. The forests look pretty ok now, although their texture could maybe be a tad smoother. The mountains however are hard to even see on the map now. You should make them more noticeable, or maybe try another style, the bevel doesn't quite fit anymore... maybe think how a mountain would actually look on a radar screen and go from there? Or something.

Well, that's all for now, keep up the good work.

[koontz1973]

As I said, a few little touch ups.

[Flapcake]

Idea for the legend, now when your goin for the "radar" look, how about doin the legend like some control table, monitors with the text in, buttons and lamps what else is on a control table.
then with a little 80 style on it

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Click image to enlarge.

Had an idea for the mountains. Half way there now but should look good when finished. how is the land sea now?
FlapCake, looked at your image, and I think it would not work as such as it is complicated and should make the text/images hard to see. Added the brown tones to it though and removed the greys/blacks.

Remember, that a real radar image would look very very different from this and would be unworkable as a map. The radar image itself is already reduced to the bare minimum. Any lower and it becomes too transparent and therefore not needed.

[natty dread]

Sea is better except for the 3MI area, which is too similar to it. If you make that area darker than the sea then it'll work.

[koontz1973]

This is the idea taken from what a radar image of a mountain would look like. Both seem pretty nice but the second one is less distracting and should work better. Might be a radical way to go though.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Will sort out the MI territs.

[natty dread]

Seems a bit too abstract... I didn't mean it so literally. I only meant you should take some inspiration from that style...

It could work if you had the entire map in the same style, but as it is now, meh...

[koontz1973]

Click image to enlarge.

hows that?

[natty dread]

Looks better. Maybe you could do the forests in a similar style.

[pamoa]

in general you are doing great
but the cyan colours for the rules of engagement is ugly
try some dark brown on a beige background


maybe some DYMO labelling effect

even the font exist

[natty dread]

even the font exist

That font can't be used for CC maps. The site says those fonts are for personal use only.

[pamoa]

well it's easy to make a lookalike with some bevel and glow

[natty dread]

True.

[koontz1973]

That text would not work. Why would anyone put plastic bits all over a monitor? If the whole board was a different style and we had unlimited space for these things, it might of been worth doing, not not for this. Saying that, I removed the brown from the legend and went back to black. It does look better in black. The forests are now the same style as the mountains but just reversed the colours so the green is not on top of the white.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

That text would not work. Why would anyone put plastic bits all over a monitor?

Not on territory labels, but on the legend. You could make the legend look like a control panel of some sort. And there's plenty of reason why a military control panel could possibly have dymo labels stuck on it.

Anyway, you should figure out something for the legend. The current design is too simple and bland. You need something more theme-appropriate, a control panel could be it.

[koontz1973]

That text would not work. Why would anyone put plastic bits all over a monitor?

Not on territory labels, but on the legend. You could make the legend look like a control panel of some sort. And there's plenty of reason why a military control panel could possibly have dymo labels stuck on it.

Anyway, you should figure out something for the legend. The current design is too simple and bland. You need something more theme-appropriate, a control panel could be it.

I meant the text would not work for the legend. I like the simplistic style of the legend as I have lots of info there that needs to be read and easily understood. By bunging in lots of graphics and a style behind it, some of it may get lost to players and therefore add a layer of confusion.

The current style is like the monitors that would be around the radar screen show the information to the officer looking directly at it. All the info would be displayed on different monitors. The problem that this causes me is the different sections of the legend - land, sea, air all being different sizes. There is nothing that can be done about that.

If you look in the image below you can see the two types of screens for the boat. The larger blue screens with the black screens in the background

To try an incorporate any of the controls from a boat to the legend would be unworkable.


Now natty, if you want to see a different way of doing it, let me know what you want to see. I am not going to go around guessing what you want.

[natty dread]

I meant the text would not work for the legend. I like the simplistic style of the legend as I have lots of info there that needs to be read and easily understood. By bunging in lots of graphics and a style behind it, some of it may get lost to players and therefore add a layer of confusion.

Now don't take this the wrong way, but that just kinda sounds like an excuse to not work on the legend.

There's plenty of example of maps where legends etc. have been done with nice, realistic, theme-appropriate graphics while not being confusing to the players in any way.

Now natty, if you want to see a different way of doing it, let me know what you want to see. I am not going to go around guessing what you want.

What I want to see is you realizing your potential as a graphics designer. I want to see you challenge yourself and exceed your abilities. I want to see something that really makes me go "wow" when I look at your map.

Look at the legend on arms race. Particularly, the backdrop, where the screws are. The screws, the paneling, the small monitors there... they're all small things, and relatively simple, but amount to something that really works for the map. I'm not saying you have to do the exact same thing, but do what you do as well, as fitting to the style & theme of the map as it.

[koontz1973]

You cannot compare the amount of info for arms race to this. And it is not an excuse. When the legend has been brought up by Flapcake or RedBaron, it has changed. And I am not saying I will not work on it, I am just saying I have no better ideas. If you have one, great, let me know.

[Flapcake]

About building the legend into a controlpanel, I thinik i dident make me 100% clear (maby my poor english) I try to do it better now Natty have a hold in something here to, what also was the idea I had, make 3-4 monitor/computerscreens, set them in a row, insert the legen text in to them, the monitor frames dont have to be huge or thick, you can settle with only doing one side and then copy and rotate, fit them to a box, ( they even dont have to be same size) then some clocks and buttoms below each one.

I think it will give a super tuch, match the radar and give some 80` style

[Flapcake]

About building the legend into a controlpanel, I thinik i dident make me 100% clear (maby my poor english) I try to do it better now Natty have a hold in something here to, what also was the idea I had, make 3-4 monitor/computerscreens, set them in a row, insert the legen text in to them, the monitor frames dont have to be huge or thick, you can settle with only doing one side and then copy and rotate, fit them to a box, ( they even dont have to be same size) then some clocks and buttoms below each one.

I think it will give a super tuch, match the radar and give some 80` style

[koontz1973]

Flapcake, the only way to do that is to increase the size of the map to 900 or more in height. To have the 4 parts of the legend (instructions, air, sea and land) to look nicely laid out would be to have them either spaced out of squashed. I have the 12 aircraft boxes at the top so to have 4 different parts would be 3 boxes across. This would be the only way to make it look nice as different sized boxes in width would look the same as now and then you have to ask, why change.

The Rules of engagement would then have to be squeezed into a slimmer space.
The land forces could go on top of each other but the lines would be closer together, forcing all other parts of the legend to be the same.
The air forces part can go but the impact of holding each aircraft would have to go underneath each aircraft. This would not look as nice IMO.
The sea forces part as you can see is with the biggest part of the text. This would then look stupid as you have the bonus part followed by a lot of text which no one will then read. Not sure if they will now.

To add the extra space so a couple of images of dials can be added seems pointless considering they would not add to the GP in any way. What would happen is the legend would become less functional, look squashed and have a feel of an after thought about it.

I will bring the border up to the top and bottom around the navey and between the 2 land parts. This will get rid of that funny looking area and make nice neat boxes. Because of the different parts of the sea and land being split up, I will change the text colour for the 3 area so it can be seen at a glance.

[Flapcake]

yes ofc, i know it will be a mission imposible puzzle but me think you need to bring some 80´style in to the map, and the old school controlbord could have a tuch of that.
If I understod you rigth, will you move the aircraft legen to the top of the map ? if so i think ist a greate idea, that would make the impresion of looking at a radar monitor better

Edit: That was not what you ment, but could it work ?

[koontz1973]

yes ofc, i know it will be a mission imposible puzzle but me think you need to bring some 80´style in to the map, and the old school controlbord could have a tuch of that.
If I understod you rigth, will you move the aircraft legen to the top of the map ? if so i think ist a greate idea, that would make the impresion of looking at a radar monitor better

Edit: That was not what you ment, but could it work ?

Moving the aircraft to the top .
natty mentioned Arms race. I understand what he wants but both maps are different in lots of things. This legend has far more info in it. It also needs to be split between the different parts which are all different sizes. In an ideal world, I would of though of a GP that would of been easier to do (I said I would after RD, but I love maps that are easy but have that sense of overall feel to them)
Not sure I like the new colours for the text or even second blue box. More and more of this map is moving away.

Click image to enlarge.