King Zenith 641 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I decided to redo the Dragon Quest IX World Map to take advantage of recent improvements to my process. I rescanned the whole map as viewed from the Starflight Express. Some of the key improvements: - Higher resolution, giving more detail at 100% zoom scale - Proper aspect ratio maintained (the previous version was squished in the north-south direction, making it seem like the world was much wider than it was tall - Colors are brighter In any case, here is the new finished map (click on it and view as image to see full resolution): Just for fun, here are some comparison images to show the change in detail (and aspect ratio) from the old version to the new version: Alltrades Abbey Region: New Version: Old Version: Magmaroo Region: New Version: Old Version: Angel Falls Region: New Version: Old Version: 4 Link to post Share on other sites
YangustheLegendaryBandit 3,629 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Good work KZ! Looks great! Link to post Share on other sites
Liamland 764 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Sweet. How did you get the Starflight Express out of the images? Cropping or air-brushing? Link to post Share on other sites
Woodus 1,687 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Wow great work, amazing how you keep improving this process Link to post Share on other sites
King Zenith 641 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Thanks guys! Sweet. How did you get the Starflight Express out of the images? Cropping or air-brushing? Cropping. This map is composed from thousands of screenshots (or more accurately, frames from a video file), and I only use the bottom 3 lines from each screenshot so that perspective is maintained while composing a vertical strip. Since each screenshot is essentially cropped to those bottom three lines, the Starflight Express never comes into the picture. The shadow comes close though. Wish I could turn off the cloud layer. There's a couple of pretty heavy cloud belts in this map. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Cesar Hernandez-Meraz 490 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Good job! Seeing the map like that, and with those colors, it reminds me of Super Mario maps. Also, it is sad to see how small it is, compared to other DQ maps... Link to post Share on other sites
King Zenith 641 Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Thanks! Yeah it really is tiny compared to a huge world like DQ8, DQ7 or the two main worlds of DQ6. I wonder if they were influenced at all by the grotto system in their decision to keep the world small. A larger world might have made it more frustrating for people to find grottoes. Link to post Share on other sites
Shoryia 9 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 That is amazing sir! Well done!! How long did it take you to do this? Link to post Share on other sites
King Zenith 641 Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Thanks. It took about 4 hours. With all the tools in place, I just had to kick things off and just babysit them to make sure they kept running. Hardest part was lining up the strips and removing the seamlines. Fortunately, the starflight covers a pretty wide ground swath, so it only took 15 strips to cover the whole map. By comparison, in DQ8 it took 15 strips to just cover the island with the dark ruins on it... 2 Link to post Share on other sites
solo 58 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 You are awsome when it comes to redo maps KZ great work Link to post Share on other sites
Cesar Hernandez-Meraz 490 Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Thanks! Yeah it really is tiny compared to a huge world like DQ8, DQ7 or the two main worlds of DQ6. I wonder if they were influenced at all by the grotto system in their decision to keep the world small. A larger world might have made it more frustrating for people to find grottoes. That is a possibility. It could also be memory constraints. Link to post Share on other sites
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