# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Town/City Mapping >  WIP Yphirion

## - Max -

Some times ago I wrote a few materials about Yphyrion, a city set in a light steampunk ambience. I decided to give it a shot on a map, close to some late 19th century style (at least inspired of it though I may do some things different). Map is 3898x5433px. First step with a WIP (though almost done) of the whole city layout.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Very nice and organic forms, also all the different structures and sizes already talk to me. Great start!

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## AMXPariah

I like the street chaos that starts in the middle and then explodes radially into more ordered streets.

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## - Max -

Thanks guys! Added the background texture and made the border/cartouches.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Splendid Borders as always! And no Vectors, this time not even Vorro can complain about that  :Razz:

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## feanaaro

Impressive. What's the scale?

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## - Max -

Thank you guys. Scale is something like 1:15000

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## feanaaro

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. What is the scale in relation to pixels (1px=?)?

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## - Max -

Not sure to understand what you're asking for. Is it about map's size? It's 3898x5433 at 300 DPI so it's 13''x18'' (33x46cm)

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## feanaaro

Thus 1px is roughly 1,2m or three feet, right?

edit: sorry, 1,2m =~ four feet, not three.
re-edit: all x2, since the pics posted are half-size apparently. That makes much more sense.

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## - Max -

Approximately yes. Some progress on the map...



Edit : yes uploaded pics are half-size

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## - Max -

Testing streets labeling...

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## vorropohaiah

very similar to the new diskworld ankh morpork map, which i used as inspiration for some of my city maps

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## - Max -

Just checked it, nice map  :Smile:  Well my inspirations sources were rather some old maps from 18th-19th century  :Smile:

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## - Max -

Small progress : added surroundings forested areas, districts borders, railroad, underground lines/stations, plazas and a cemetery.

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## - Max -

Updated with local map of Yphyrion's surrounding area in the bottom left cartouche.

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## Lyandra

Great map. Love the style.  :Smile:

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## - Max -

Thank you Lyandra  :Smile:  Now the hard part is starting... Labeling the streets...

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## jtougas

Very nice. is street labeling absolutely necessary? I ask because this is a wonderful "representative" map something perhaps to show the overall layout of the city as opposed to all the details. Either way it is truly very good.  :Smile:

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## Wingshaw

Looking good Max. One thing I thought I'd mention: it might be a personal opinion, but I'm not too keen on the district borders going over the water. Where you have a couple of borders meeting over the river on the right-hand side, in particular, looks kinda wrong, I think.

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## arsheesh

Fantastic work on this, I love the layout.  How you manage to produce such lovely work at such a dizzying speed is beyond me.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## - Max -

Thanks much guys, comments much appreciated!  :Smile: 
@Arsheesh : SK uses to call me Max-imum mapmaker  :Wink: 
@THW : glad to see you around  :Smile:  Yea I get what you means but keeping the borders outside the rivers would means that rivers don't be part of the districts which don't make that much sense, don't you think?
@Jtougas : It's not necessarly but I like detailed maps and labeling the streets will help giving that old vintage maps touch on it  :Wink:  (and will probably gives me some headaches aswell!)

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## Viking

I like how this is coming Max! The regional map is a nice touch!

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## AMXPariah

> Fantastic work on this, I love the layout.  How you manage to produce such lovely work at such a dizzying speed is beyond me.


Agreed. Between work and family, it's hard to find the time. Or maybe I'm just bad at this, lol  :Smile:  Looks great Max.

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## vorropohaiah

i believe -Max- is a swedish cartogarpher design studio collective, composed of dozens of drones working under the guise of a mild-mannered cartographer. it has to be that...

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## - Max -

Thank you guys!

@ Vorro :  :Very Happy:   :Very Happy:   though the drone X-21.b ( the labeling work one) is being lazy and having misfunctions lately. Have to check that.

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## Korash

- Max -, I have to agree with THW .... How about if the Borough borders just end at the river, and you can still have the colored glow along the shore. Unless there is something like taxation rights at stake, having the borders past the center of the river really doesn't make sense for me. Just my 2 cents (cdn) worth of advice, and that really is the only thing I can pick on with this map. Great work as usual Max.

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## - Max -

Thanks Korash  :Smile:  No taxation rights  here ( at least not that important to explain the borders  :Very Happy:  ) but kind of a dangerous poisoned random fog, its influence vary on places and hours. Alchemists try to forecast the daily evolutions of that fog by studying its alchemical origin to prevent population from danger. The districts are used by the Alchemists to define quarters forecasts. Not sure if I'm clear but's kind of hard to explain that in english :/ So Yes I guess borders can be modified following your both advices. I'll try to keep only the glow to see how it goes....But after labels, which are at some point a hell of a job  :Very Happy:

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## - Max -

Alright, drone X-21.b finally worked again and finished streets labeling on the districts A, B and C.  (I have to re-program drone X-21.a - the layout work one - to let more room for X-21.b next time  :Very Happy:  ). Also I changed the borders, following THW and Korash advices, getting rid of the part overlapping the water (borders and glows).

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## jtougas

Now that I've seen the labeling I have changed my mind. It looks wonderful. Superb job !!  :Smile:

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## - Max -

:Wink:  Thank you much, glad you like it!

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## Carbus

Fantastic job....even your lower map is already better then my battle map xD

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## - Max -

:Very Happy:  Thank you Carbus  :Smile:

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## Wingshaw

Nice solution to the borders. I was going to suggest the same thing.

Incidentally, I always find your maps so frustrating - they are filled with so much detail, but I don't speak French. I'm tempted to learn the language just so I can appreciate your maps!

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## - Max -

Yea it's better like that, thanks for having pointed out that issue!  :Smile:  Sorry for the french but it would have been a nightmare to label this one in english  :Very Happy:  Though I tried to do a map in english ( Kingdoms of Kesh WIP - in my signature) if you haven't seen it yet (the labels are probably kind of poor since imagination goes better in your own language  :Very Happy:  )

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## Gallien

Great map!  :Smile: 
"...de l'Empirium" of somebody like Napoleon the 3rd?
Will there be Rue de la Barricade there?
P.S. yes, french names + 19 century-like setting makes me think of 1848 and 1871  :Razz: 
P.P.S. I think, that Maps of Paris in 1848 and 1871 are the only maps of 19th century cities that I have seen yet... Your map has woken my memories  :Very Happy:

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## - Max -

Thanks much Gallien! Well you kind of have some good references and I'm pretty glad that this map reminds you those things since it's  pretty much the style I wanted to have on it. But Yphyrion is a fictional city  :Wink:

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## Sapiento

A really impressive city map! Did you create the house blocks with the vector tools in PS? Or did you use a vector program and then import?

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## - Max -

Thank you Spiento  :Smile:  No I draw all the layout directly in PS without using any vector tools.

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## Melvin

Outstanding!

I really love the colours.

Regards,
Melvin

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## - Max -

Thank you Melvin. A small update, rather to keep the thread (and my motivation) alive. Nothing that much done but another district streets labeled.

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## Larb

Looking very nice!

At first I was wondering why there were those "trace italienne"? (is that the right term for it? I can't remember. The weird star fort style banks and bastions thing) style fortifications to the south but none to the north, but now I see there is a railway, am I right in assuming that they have fallen out of use and the ones to the north have been built over?

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## - Max -

Thanks Larb  :Smile:  I don't know what the proper term is, we have a lot of this kind of fortification here in France (most of them were built under the direction of Vauban and we call them Vauban-style). Yes you get it. The south fortification is the only part that is still here but out of use. Only the army use the southern fort as barracks and the fort on the island is used as a prison (jail?)

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## feanaaro

I think (with a little bit of ass-pulling perhaps) that the star-style fortification is typical of the gunpowder era, because they are better at withstanding artillery shots. So they should be found pretty much anywhere from the XVI to the early XIX century. Afterwards artillery became so powerful (and warfare changed anyway) that no wall would have made sense. We have plenty of those designs in Italy too, I think some countries may have less or none (eg, England) because they did not see many wars on their home territory in the given period.

E.g.:
http://www.arttrav.com/wp-content/up...lucca_wall.jpg
http://www.sciretti.it/uploaded_imag...ova-768175.jpg
http://www.francescocorni.com/disegn...ittadella1.jpg

And many more.

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## Larb

One of my favourite "surviving" examples (sort of) is of Palmanova. It's very visible on googlemaps.

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## vorropohaiah

my capital has some pretty decent examples too (might need to zoom in, though the whole peninsula is covered in them) https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Palma...Italy&t=k&z=16

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## Larb

Vorro: You appear to have pasted my link by mistake. =P

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## vorropohaiah

gah i honestly cant get the url on he page to change, even when i open google maps from scratch and search for the area (floriana, malta, for anyone whose interested) the original url stays on the page... ah well.

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## - Max -

A (very) few progress on labeling...

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## Schwarzkreuz

Did you count how many streets you have there?

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## - Max -

No. I just know I have a ton of labels layers, way more than streets (Most of the streets have several words layers since I decided to set all of them manually instead of using paths, which wasn't the better choice to fit the map style imo)

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## Schwarzkreuz

Oh well, I imagined Paths way better on this one. All handset is truely a lot of more work.

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## - Max -

I had the feel I had to set them by hand. Was more "into" the map doing it like this.

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## Diamond

This is beyond amazing, Max.  I'm truly speechless.

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## Schwarzkreuz

Did you had ever done a City map, D. ?

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## - Max -

Thanks much Diamond  :Smile:  I must admit that I'm pretty satisfied of how things went on this map. It worth the job and the time spent on it  :Smile:

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## Schwarzkreuz

Its always a joy to see a map taking shape with skill and patience, and therefore i realy am impressed by some of your latest maps.

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## Diamond

> Did you had ever done a City map, D. ?


I did this one a long time ago: Memfis by ~Chanimur on deviantART
But other than that, just a lot of false starts.

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## - Max -

The map of Yphyrion is done. Finished thread here. Thanks for all the support and comments guys!  :Smile:

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## eltomate

Thanks for posting your development process.  Its great to see it unfolding.

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## kpatrickwv

> Just checked it, nice map  Well my inspirations sources were rather some old maps from 18th-19th century


Also has a similar feel to the city maps in the Wheel of Time series.  Very cool!

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## - Max -

Do you think? I find them quite far from this style imho  :Razz:   :Wink:  But Thanks  :Very Happy:

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