Coloring a map

[Nebur]

Hello,

 

I'm new, so if this question would be posted in the wrong forum or subforum, feel free to remove it.

 

I'm making a world map, of which you can see a smal part below. You can see I'm using different colors (depending on the continent). I'd like those colors to be lighter and become darker towards the edge (the border). Anyone who knows how I can do this?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Edited December 26, 2015 by Nebur

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Are the shapes of the continents important? I ask because Planetoid can be used to create flat maps.

Turn off the two cloud layers (maps seldom have clouds ) and render the map as a rectangle by selecting the 2D option on the 3D & Lighting tab.

If you want to keep using your map, try selecting the continents individually & outlining them with a darker color using BoltBait's Outline Selection. Find the plugin in this pack BoltBait's Plugin Pack

[Eli]

Hello Nebur,

 

TR's QuickOutliner can help you.

 

1. Add a layer above your image.

2. Use the selection tool and select one or several colors from your original map.

3. Go to layer 2 and use Tr's QuickOutliner using black for your line, white for the fill collor, adjust line thickness and softness as you need, and finally check the Fill Shape box.

4. Change the layers' mode to multiply

5. Use gaussian blur to soften the llines. 

 

Edited December 26, 2015 by Eli

[Nebur]

Eli, I tried yours and it's great. Thanks!

What line size did you use and what number did you use for the gaussian blur?

Edited December 26, 2015 by Nebur

[Eli]

I am sorry Nebur, I did it very quickly and did not pay attention to the settings. But it was not very thick... The same for the gaussian blur... I just used a value that looked good.

[MJW]

Another suggestion is to use Bevel Object from BoltBait's plugin pack.

 

Use the Magic Wand to select the region.

Copy the selection and paste it into a new layer.

Deselect. (Necessary if you want the darkness to extend all the way to the edge.)

Run Effects>Object>Bevel Object with the Highlight and Shadow colors both set to black.

Flatten the image.

 

EDIT: If you use this approach, and one region's color is a darkened version of an adjacent region's color, start with darker region. Otherwise, you may have difficulty selecting the dark region once the light region's edge is darkened. That may sound confusing, but if you try it in the opposite order, the problem will be apparent.

 

EDIT 2: Because it could be done without the cut, paste, and flatten, using Effects>Selection> Bevel Selection would be easier. Unfortunately, the result is not as good. The darkening doesn't extend fully to the edge. That's the same problem I mentioned in the deselection step.

Edited December 27, 2015 by MJW

[Nebur]

Thanks, but I used Eli's technique and it was exactly what I needed. Just in case anyone is interested, my Risk game map is now finished (its real size is actually four times bigger, but that would be a bit too big to put it here):