June Entry: Darkovia

OK, I said I was out, but I've got a week to play with (client's out of town on business, so I'm temporarily free.)

Plan is to do a hand-drawn 3/4 view of a castle town. I've always been dismayed by city/town maps because you can't see the beauty of the structures, only a bunch of roofs. But a 3/4 view will let you see it.

I want to keep the town fairly small, so I don't have to draw too much in such a short period of time.

In order to get the perspective right, I created this in 3D using Nendo with the intention of tracing the outlines, then filling in the detail in pencil/pen. I'll probably do some subtle coloring in Xara to finish it.

Anyway, my 3D sketch to make my tracing from... 8)

The rear area of this castle town will have a pinnacle of rock with Castle Darkov at the top, accessed by a winding road leading from the street at the far right of this map view, rising to the castle over the center rear of the town...

Looking good, GP. I had not heard of Nendo before but it looks like a great little 3d programme. I'm in complete agreement with your frustration about town maps suffering because the roofs are usually pretty boring and it's hard (I think shadows are the only way to do it) to emphasise varying heights - hence the decision in Stormlit Cloister map to get rid of the roofs altogether.

I briefly flirted with the idea of an isometric view, but then got very scared when I saw how much work and artistic ability was involved!

Which CWBP map is Castle Darkrovia in?

Darkovia is in my first regional map, Qashya Mal. It is almost due north of Calishem, at the end of the steppe and the foothills of the Vahlvoska mountain range. Its the center of the Bloodstone Gem Market and the site of the Nosferatu Boyar-Prince, Casimir Darkov.

I'll plan to create a rich story with the Prince's rise and fall into his current state and state of affairs. 8)

GP

Nendo was originally developed by the Japanese Game company Squaresoft, under their flagship 3D app Nichimen Mirai (Mirai meaning - New Dawn.) Nendo was the subdivisional 3D modeler within the Mirai product. Nendo means "Clay". Its a very easy to use modeler, I use for almost all my 3D modeling needs, then export to .3ds or .obj format to use in my other 3D apps.

This view is a screen capture within Nendo.

Cities are a real pain getting the detail but not spending forever.


Can you compare Nendo to Sketchup?

I notice that in the free version it disables saves and exports...


Sigurd

Izware Nendo (who owns it now) offers the app for $49

Compared to Sketchup which free - no comparison. However as a subdivisional surface modeler, I think Nendo is great.

No other 3D modeling app gives me as much freedom to create organic models, animals, plants, monsters - the smooth capability after you model at a lower number of faces creates smooth and rounded shapes with great success.

Really I'd use Nendo to create my complex shapes and models then import to a more complete rendering application like Sketchup. 8)

GP

Thread jack on myself...

Here's a complex, organic 3D model I created a few months back. It was modeled in Nendo, then exported to old Raydream Studio where I textured and rendered it. I used it as a map object in an overhead view, but here it is in an isometric view.

The Aboleth... 8)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gamerprinter

Thread jack on myself...

Here's a complex, organic 3D model I created a few months back. It was modeled in Nendo, then exported to old Raydream Studio where I textured and rendered it. I used it as a map object in an overhead view, but here it is in an isometric view.

The Aboleth... 8)

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Very nice. Can you render it from over head and we can stick it onto Torstan's ship map in Maptool! That ought to scare some "ink" out of the players when they see that come up out of the water.

Joe

Just what I was thinking. No secret that my current game throws the players against an aboleth with a fiendish kraken minion - hence all the water maps. That would be an excellent token to add to the game. Pretty please?

When I first post my early hand-drawn map WIP for Darkovia, I will upload the overhead view map object of the Aboleth, for you Torstan. OK?

GP

Torstan - here's your top view aboleth (200 ppi, 800 pixel sq. approx.) since aboleth measure from 12 to 20+ feet in length.

I'll probably post this in the Map Elements thread, as well...

End of thread jack! :D

GP

[Dang, I forgot to make this transparent PNG, meh... I'll fix it tomorrow...]