Haven of the Bitter Glass Map Attempt

[ScenesFromAMemory]

Hello all,
Just wanted to post my first attempts at creating encounter maps. These are recreations of the maps which appear in the Dungeon magazine adventure "Haven of the Bitter Glass". If you would like to have a model of comparison, the WotC version of these maps can be found on there website from Dungeon Issue 164. I would link the map gallery for the issue, but it requires a D&D Insider subscription. The fortress is a large Githzerai fortress built into recessed cavern in a cliff face. The second map is of a rock trap on the cliff overhead. The encounter takes place as the sun sets, and I tried to simulate that with the lighting effects. These maps aren't perfect, but I feel comfortable with them as my first real attempt. They were created using Photoshop and images from the CSUAC and other resources found on the MapTools RPTools Tutorials site. Please C&C.

Githzerai Fortress final with lighting.jpg

These are for use in my regular campaign and were created with MapTool in mind. They are at 100 ppi. The images are quite large unfortunately.

Thank you all so much.

[ScenesFromAMemory]

Hmmm, it appears one of my attachments is doing something strange and displaying at full size, but I am not sure how to fix it. Any suggestions?

[ravells]

Hmmm just tried re-uploading it...not sure what is wrong with the file.

[ScenesFromAMemory]

Thank you ravells! I too am a bit stumped. That's strange behavior for an attachment.

[Steel General]

We have been having problems with attachments lately - I believe it is related to a glitch in the latest version of the board software.

[Ascension]

Scenes, resave it then reupload it. That's what I do.

[tilt]

looking really good very nice textures... they could use some more depth though I'd like to see some shadows and it looks to me that the ship is huge in comparision with the fortress.

[ScenesFromAMemory]

Going by the original map, the ship is supposed to be even bigger, but I scaled it down some. Its the Githyanki warship Tyranny. They rammed it into the building, attempting to breach the walls.

I too would like to add depth, but I think it needs somethin more than just a Layer Style of drop shadow. Are there any particular techniques you could recommend or resources you may point me towards? Shadowing and depth is something I am not well versed in, but I definitely want to learn more!

Also, to ask some more pointed questions of the Guild community, if you look at the ramp on the fortress, I had trouble getting it to blend naturally with the stone textures of the temple base. Any recommendations on how to build a good ramp? I probably went about it the hard way: I a deleted a 2X2 square section from the temple base for the ramp, then copied a 2X2 section of another part of the temple. Dragging it to the ramp area, I applied the same layer style (and tweaked to taste) and then used Transform tool (skew maybe?) to get the tapered look. But the section where the ramp met the base looked ridiculous, so I swiped a 1X2 section of the temple and placed a cap on top and used the smudge tool to blend the edges. It looks alright, but I think the results could have been better.

I was following Ascension advice- experiment!

[tilt]

ok.. the scale of the ship just doesn't say HUGE warship to me...
So is this sort of what you're looking for?
scenesfrom-bitterhaven.jpg
if you want it I can mail you the PSD file where I tested, but I'll tell you what I did. First off - I removed the bevel on the ramp by painting over with the stamp tool. Then I removed the bevel on the fortress wall - A wall that size won't have a bevel and the fact that it had ruined your ramps look of height. Then I added shadows for the buildings in seperate layers, with special care to the shadow on the ramp to show the difference in height
Hope you can use it
Lastly - have some rep for your nice uploads

EDIT: the shadow on the higher building just stops.. thats because its just a test so I didn't finish the job

[RobA]

Thumbs rebuilt should be ok now...

-Rob A>