Werewolf Den

[KagBB]

Hello all,
Here's my first map I made.
It's a werewolf den in the Darkmoon vale (pathfinder)
Made for roll20 with dynamic lightning, so all the plain grey area's will be invisible to my players.
The setting is a foggy moonlit night and parts of the cave are lit with torches, in the north part with the glow moss a normal wolf pack lives.
In the werewolf part there is off course a secret exit, but this is a player map, so it is not shown, it will be located under the pile of rubbish.
Creature tokens will be added in roll20 along with maybe a prisoner/dinner guest.
Tips and comments are more then welcome

If you want to use it it is 50x50 pixels per 5f and 54x40 squares.

Cheers,

Kay

[Chick]

Wow, Kay, nice job for a first map!! It actually looks like a werewolf den

Have some rep

[wdmartin]

I agree. Nice job, especially for a first map.

One suggestion for future is that the rocks outside the cave don't integrate smoothly with the dirt around them. It's the drop shadows. Boulders like that usually either protrude up through the dirt, or else they sink down into it a bit over time. Either way, they're embedded in the landscape, so the drop shadow incorrectly suggests that they're hovering above the ground.

[KagBB]

thank you for the advice and kind words.
with the mossy boulders I was aiming for the Huge ones that lie around here and there, if I don't use a drop shadow, how do I show there size?
or do you mean the pillars in the entrance? if so, how do I show they are high as well as standing on the ground?

thank you ,

Kay

[Bogie]

Keep up the good work!

[wdmartin]

with the mossy boulders I was aiming for the Huge ones that lie around here and there, if I don't use a drop shadow, how do I show there size?

Drop shadows tend to work best on discrete objects resting on top of the surface beneath them. For example, furniture:



The drop shadow on this chair works just fine, because the chair is above the floor, and the drop shadow shows the drop. Viewers don't stop to wonder about what's supporting it, because chairs have legs. But if you do the same thing with a rock, it looks like the rock is hovering in midair just above the surface. You can compensate to a certain extent by painting the shadows manually, but it's still pretty easy to wind up with the "hovering in midair" problem.

What I generally do with large rocks is push the dirt and grass around them up over the edges of the boulder a bit, to show that they're protruding from the earth. Here are a couple of examples:





Their vertical height is conveyed using shadows painted manually over them. This is generally a layer set to blending mode "multiply" and opacity of about 33% or to taste, then paint the shadows in black with a soft brush. There are other approaches too, such as a fully opaque multiply layer but using many passes of a black brush with a very low flow, which takes longer but can yield some very nice results. You can also subtly tint the shadows -- I sometimes use a very dark blue for shadows of trees, because green is composed of blue and yellow, and the blue shadow blends a bit more smoothly with the green foliage.

Shadows are hard. I guess all I'm really trying to say is that drop shadows have their place, but you should also learn other techniques because they don't work equally well in all circumstances.

[KagBB]

thank you for your explanation, though the technique might be a bit advanced for me at the moment, I am going to try it anyway

//Kay

[wdmartin]

What software are you using for your map editing? If it's photoshop, I could upload a PSD with all the layers intact so you can poke around at it.

[KagBB]

I use CC3 and DD3 for building, but I can lay my hands on Photoshop as well, so yes please.

[wdmartin]

Okay, here's the PSD. I had to upload it to my own site -- too big for the forum settings.