[CC3/DD3] Making Dungeon Maps in the Style of Ruins of Undermountain I and II

[jaerdaph]

I usually make a copy of all the walls to my Grid layer/Sheet. Change their thickness to 0, eliminate all extraneous extras, and then make it one big polygon with the grid fill style.

Thanks! I'm doing something very similar. Basically, I create a color floor from paths, arcs and fractal paths on the Floor sheet/Background (Floor 1) layer, make a copy of the fractal paths on another layer (SECRET) which I then freeze and hide, multipoly the paths/arcs/fractal paths to a single solid poly, copy that to the grid sheet and layer, and change the color and the fill style (to a square grid) of the copy. For the walls, I draw those over those over the floor layer on the Walls sheet and layer as width 0 black paths and arcs and move the copy of the hidden fractal paths there as well. I explode all those items to lines, convert all the lines to paths, then do a combine paths to get seamless walls when I change the line width something thicker.

But based on your suggestion, I may just copy all the original floor paths, arcs and fractal paths to the layer I hide and freeze before the multipoly for use with the walls later to save a few drawing steps.

That was probably really confusing to anyone who hasn't played with CC3 under the hood too much, so I'll write up a better step by step for this process later when I get there.

[jaerdaph]

CHOOSING COLORS

For now I will be using CC3's default 256 color palette. The color scheme I have chosen is a close aproximation of the colors on a UM1 map. Later on I hope to get a really good scan of one of my UM1 maps and extract the exact colors from it, then create a custom palette in CC3 with this info.

Here are the colors I am using followed by the CC3 palette number and any notes as to what they will be used for:

Black 0 (walls, symbols)
White 15 (symbols)
Red 2 (directional arrows up & down)
Pale Yellow 140 (dungeon floor)
Pale Orange 152 (core room)
Yellow 4 (area of interest)
Green 1 (teleport area)
Medium Blue 74 (water)
Gray 18 (elevated area, Skullport style building)
Dark Gray 14 (square grid lines)

[ravells]

I really like the way that you're approaching this project. A lesson to us all on organised planning!

(A quality I'm sadly lacking in!)

Ravs

[jaerdaph]

I really like the way that you're approaching this project. A lesson to us all on organised planning!

(A quality I'm sadly lacking in!)

Ravs

LOL - I have to admit it's a new thing for me, trying to get into good habits .

[jaerdaph]

STARTING MY MAP PART II

Before I start drawing my map, I need to prep my CC3 canvas by changing a few settings around.

Grid
This map will have a 1 square = 10' scale, so I've right clicked on the Grid button and selected the 10' Grid, 2 Snap grid system. This is the grid tool for being able to snap to exact points when drawing within CC3 when Snap is selected, not the actual gray square grid overlay I will create later as part of the actual map.

Sheets
I need to change the order of some of the sheets, specifically the GRID sheet. I clicked on the Sheet selector to get the Drawing Sheets dialog box, selected the GRID sheet, and clicked Move Up until GRID was sitting right below the FLOORS sheet on the list. I've done this because I want the grid when it is drawn (on the GRID sheet) to sit on top of the colored floors of the dungeon (on the FLOORS sheet), but have symbols and walls to sit on top of the grid (on the SYMBOLS and WALLS sheets) and essentially not have the square grid obscure them. Here's an abreviated sheet list to show what's happening:

The original sheet list order...

BACKGROUND (the "bottom" layer listed on top because it is drawn by CC3 first)
FLOORS
SYMBOLS
WALLS
TEXT
GRID
MAP BORDER (the "top" layer listed on the bottom because it is drawn by CC3 last)

becomes...

BACKGROUND
FLOORS
GRID
SYMBOLS
WALLS
TEXT
MAP BORDER

As you see I had to Move Up the GRID sheet on the list so that the map grid drawn on it would be drawn earlier than anything sitting on the SYMBOLS, WALLS AND TEXT sheets and thus any symbols, walls and text would appear to sit on top of the map grid (the grid isn't drawn over those things and doesn't obstruct them from view).

I'm hoping this WIP is morphing into something that is part tutorial as well.

NEXT UP: The Dungeon Floor

[thebax2k]

*casts resurrect on the thread*

Jaerdaph, I don't know if this project has fallen by the wayside or if you are still working on it, but you may want to swap mapping tips and notes with Halaster Blackcloak of the Back in Print Project. He's been working on completing Undermountain with maps of level 7-9 (which TSR never released). He's been at it for awhile, but he recently put up pictures of level 7. Take a look at the results at http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/vi...r=asc&start=30 (Scroll down the page for the photos.)

Incredible, the map for level 7 looks like it was a printed product straight out of TSR itself! (Its amazing what Photoshop can do). He says that the maps for levels 8 and 9 are going to be double sized, meaning they will be twice as big as a normal, regular Undermountain level!

[Doirche]

*casts resurrect on the thread*

Jaerdaph, I don't know if this project has fallen by the wayside or if you are still working on it, but you may want to swap mapping tips and notes with Halaster Blackcloak of the Back in Print Project. He's been working on completing Undermountain with maps of level 7-9 (which TSR never released). He's been at it for awhile, but he recently put up pictures of level 7. Take a look at the results at http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/vi...r=asc&start=30 (Scroll down the page for the photos.)

Incredible, the map for level 7 looks like it was a printed product straight out of TSR itself! (Its amazing what Photoshop can do). He says that the maps for levels 8 and 9 are going to be double sized, meaning they will be twice as big as a normal, regular Undermountain level!

Actually the map was created in Illustrator

I just joined the CG and will post the map here as well. Now I need to go and introduce myself.....

[jaerdaph]

I *shall* return to this thread, if my job will let me have a personal life again...