What do I need?

[golfortennis]

Hi all,

Very general question here.  Note that I am not looking for someone to give me a tutorial.  I am looking to see what kinds of things I would want to learn about using to do the what I will describe below.  When it comes to AD, I've read things like raster and rasterize and all kinds of terms...it's all pretty overwhelming.  Just hoping someone could point me in a good direction.

To wit, here is my current process.  I take a snip image of a google earth section;

 

 

I then, through the magic of AD(and now AD2), get myself to a point similar to this:

Now I can fill in the water with blue, and come up with some type of image to represent trees, and I think I am pretty good with text.

But what kind of things would I want to learn to do in order to go from the second image, to this:

 

Again, I'm not asking for the step by step, I know it's out there, I'm just not sure which areas I want to focus on.  I have some time but not enough to make myself an AD2 expert in a quick bit of time.

Thanks for any advice.

 

 

 

 

[firstdefence]

I would say most of the last image has been created using brushes and possibly ready made assets like the trees, that are scaled to simulate distance but Id also say using Google earth in 3D will help you gain a better idea on perspective of the tee you are trying to draw.

[Blende21]

Well, basically it is about vector graphics and pixel graphics.

Vector are the curves you draw on top of the Google earth picture (which itself is pixel graphic). A vector is described by a mathematical formula - which means you can enlarge, distort or twist it my way, without it getting broken up in many little pixels (dots). The „engine“ will work on the mathematical curve, always displaying it in top quality. 

If you tilt your drawing to give it an onlooking perspective (like from birds view), it will retain its quality when it is vector based.

All the fills and design elements overlaying the curves are now pixel objects. They can be applied by brushes (like painting in the lakes, greens and the rough), or places as objects, like the trees. Pixel objects have richer detail, but don’t tolerate distortion as easily. Working on Pixel objects, they may degrade in quality with every processing step.

You can mix vector and pixel objects by stacking layers, the top layers clouding the view on the layers below. Through blending modes you can define how the layers interact.

For details and examples, you will find a lot of stuff in YT.

[firstdefence]

Here is a 3D view of a tee from a course in Canada