Thanks for the explanation.I'll be trying it out on my next map.
Thanks for the explanation.I'll be trying it out on my next map.
Last edited by Avengeil; 09-09-2010 at 09:42 AM. Reason: grammatical incorrectness
This is the first post from "The Hall of Ancestors" map. I find out that it's coming out quite faster than my other map and I'm happy with that.
I did the general layout of the room, chose what kind of colors I wanted my map to have and did some of the shadows.
In the southernmost part of the room should be some stairs which are supposed to be coming from the surface.I'm still playing about how to make them look good.I'm thinking of applying a gradient to make them go from dark to light but I have no idea on how to do that. I think I saw a tut the other day on gradients, I'll try to find it.And after the gradient to put some burn on the edges of the stairs to form shadows to show that they are stairs and not just one slope(pretty much, like I did in the earlier map but not so standing out).
Also those anybody have any idea where I can find a statue of a dwarf warrior in top-down view because I don't think that I'm going to be able to make one that looks nice.
Edit: For some reason the grid does not look correctly in the post. Just ignore that and go to full-size where it looks right.
Edit: I have to make a door at the top part of the map too.
Last edited by Avengeil; 09-09-2010 at 10:01 AM.
Very perspectivie. My suggestion would be play with the layers of your grid and put the grid ONLY on the actual floor. This is where using layer masks(see my sig for a short tutorial in GIMP) comes in.
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Small detail I noticed is that since you're using the same texture for both the floor and walls they blend in together even though you have the perspective in place with the shadows. Basically just offset the layer for the walls, if you don't have one create one, this way it doesn't take away from the perspective setup by your drop shadow.
Cheers, Julien
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Layer ---> Transform ----> Offset. But you probably will need to fill a area even larger then the walls with the texture then using either masking or crop the specific area once you offset it because shifts everything on that layer.
Cheers, Julien
Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
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Okay... when I first found out what offset did I started laughing, quite a sly tool I thought.
Oh well it ended up that I had to offset also the shadow layers and the grid layer.The result though was nice but I'm too tired at the moment to do any normal work with map so it's going to have to wait up to tomorrow.
Also I tried loading the attachment above using Internet Explorer and the grid only showed normally when I had zoomed in. I really don't no why it's happening.
I adjusted the grid and offseted (is there such a word?) the wall,shadow and grid layers.I think the problem is partially solved.Sometime I'll try out using a small bevel.
Also I was experimenting with gradients and lighting effects for the stairs.I'm happy with the gradients but I might change the shadows for each different step.
Finally the map has gotten a few tones darker because the illumination is supposed to be darkness.Please tell me if it looks too dark and I found a collection of many statues so my life has gotten a lot better.
The only part that looks really odd on my monitor is where it looks like the grey of the floor is bleeding over into the color of the walls. This is most noticeable in the two east/west running walls that have flooring to their North (South side of upper right hallway and South side of lower left room). It almost looks like you painted the grey of the floor on a separate layer but didn't stay inside the lines or something. I had to look at the stairs for a moment to see that's what they were. I know Torstan had a great tutorial hosted on another site that showed how to make stairs. I just spent 10 minutes and failed to find it. Maybe I need to finish drinking my coffee first
It was some kind of Noobie guide that showed how he did his Dragon Cavern map. (Good grief but my memory fails me on this one!) If I have time later I'll dig it up. That or maybe someone will come along who remembers what I'm talking about. It is a great tutorial and it will help with doing these things.
I think the map is coming along nicely and the techniques you are hammering out right now will be helpful in everything else you do so it's worth it.
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I think the reason is because you didn't take advantage of the drop shadow filter that's built into GIMP. If you did use it, you can change the location or source of the light for the shadows and allow for a nice round edge. Unless you used the burn or dodge tool on a 50% transparent layer I dunno. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Cheers, Julien
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All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.