Update 115 - (Ouisconsin County) How to Make a Map, Part 2
Ouisconsin County - How to Make a Map, Part 2 <DoW Update 115:03.10.15>
Today, we will continue making a map by actually doing some mapping! First, fire up SC4, load up your city tiles and take a screenshot of a traffic data-view.
Outside of the game, open up the screenshot in Paint and make a rectangular selection around the map data-view map...it doesn't have to be perfect.
Now copy that selection and open a new paint file with a size of 512 x 512 pixels. Paste the selection and immediately resize the selection by 200 percent.
Move the selection so that only the map appears in the 512 x 512 area.
Select all and copy.
Paste the selection in Illustrator onto an artboard the size corresponding to the city tile...in this case a medium sized city is 512 x 512 pixels. Make sure the selection's left top corner is X: 0 px, Y: 0 px and the size is 512 x 512 px.
Since we are mapping out the rivers, and we want the map tiles to match up, you'll want to paste in adjacent map tiles.
Now use the ink pen tool to trace a each side of the river. Don't connect the paths, leave them open ended in the adjacent tiles.
In this example, the river required three separate paths. Duplicate these paths and put them in a sublayer for safe keeping and click the little eye to make them invisible.
Once you have map the river out over the edges into the neighboring tiles you can save the file under those adjacent tile names for future use when making those map tiles since you will want to use the same paths that cross the tile borders.
Take the visible paths, select all of them, go to the Object Menu, Path, and JOIN. Now you will have ONE path for the river.
If you want to get the old map effect that I am using for my rivers, duplicate this path four times...otherwise, you can just stop here switch the color from the path to the fill and select your preferred water color.
To get the "wave" lines, I duplicate the path and place 10 px black stroke.
Then I duplicate again and place an 8 px same color as the main water stroke.
Finally, one more duplicate and a 1 px black stroke.
Your river is complete. Delete any unnecessary layers (SC4 data map). You can add in section lines, label the river, and of course later on streets and more!
Save your work as an .ai (Adobe Illustrator) file so you can come back and edit in the future, then save as an .svg (scalable vector graphic).
Now your map should show up where you coded it in the HTML
The next step is to open up the .ai file of the adjecent tile and continue using the same river paths to get a seemless river on your map. Since you saved this file while working on the previous tile, the previous tile map will be centered on the artboard. Remove this and any other unneeded SC4 map tiles. Selected the map tile AND the water paths and move both together so that the top left corner is at X: 0 px, Y: 0 px. You can then hold down on the pen button to select the delete anchor points tool and remove much of the water paths that are hanging off your main tile.
Now just repeat the process with this tile. Your river should match up to the previously finished tile since you are using the same paths across the edge.
In the next part, we'll add streets and other layers like parks and text.
Let me know if this was clear enough. I'm not always so good at giving instructions...especially in written form (maybe I should make a video, but I don't know how to go about doing something like that! I'd need a tutorial!)
Replies:
Ln X: Ye old! Loving it.
Thanks. I'm trying to be SimCoug...but falling short.
Kim Sunwoo: I'm enjoying this CJ a lot :-)
Thanks. I hope I can enjoy making it.
Mymyjp: Beautiful...love the layout and the fact that you named everything. Love the spacing between homes. Nicely done!
Of course, EVERYTHING must be named....well to a point. Once the city becomes massive, I can't be Google Maps and tell you specifics about EVERYTHING, but at this point, why not?
slickbg56: Fantastic! The filtering adds another cool eye catching level. Great job, lots of great details.
Yeah, subtle and judicious use of filtering breaks up monotony.
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