Nice of you to say. Thanks!Originally Posted by NatroN
you're an awesome cartographer btw!
It all depends on how complicated you want to get with it. I find a single layer with a bevel layer style doesn't achieve what I want so I usually use multiple layers:
1) The base layer is the building shape layer. For Hania it was generated using RPG Citymap Generator, which basically spits out nice hard-edged building shapes. It's easy enough to do, however, with Photoshop's shape tool or marquee select (no antialias) and fill. However it happens, I'll create all of my buildings in a single layer (except maybe for walls, special buildings, etc.)
2) A bevel layer. I'll usually just create a new layer and select the contents of the base layer (ctrl-click the thumbnail in the layers palette) and fill that with white. Then I'll apply a bevel and get the settings where I want them. I'll usually set that layer to multiply (other blend modes can give different effects) so the layer just modifies what's underneath (letting you see color and texture).
2a) Photoshop's blend isn't perfect. If you want hard edges on your rooflines you'll also get an awful carved chunkiness wherever you've got lines that aren't horizontal or vertical. If I want hard edges I'll usually flatten the bevel layer (turn off blend and opacity before doing this) by creating a blank layer below it and merging down. Then I'll (painstakingly, by hand) go in and paint over that chunkiness to smooth out each side of the roof. Use layer and lasso select to only paint in the areas you want and use the eyedropper tool to choose the 'right' color for what you're painting depending on the angle to the light.
3) If I want texture I'll do that by placing a layer under the bevel layer and adding it there. If the texture is fine enough you can often get away with not having it aligned with the buildings (I took some shortcuts with Hania...it's only aligned on some of the buildings). You can do this in a lot of ways. Sometimes I'll fill a patch on a blank layer and then drag copies of that around and transform them and merge them into a single texture layer. If you don't care about alignment you can just apply a layer style of texture to the base layer. For my Haibianr maps I made the texture aligned to each facet of the roof. Just depends on how much 'accuracy' you want.
4) Shadows. I'll either add a dropshadow layer style to the base layer or, if I want to get more detailed, I'll duplicate that layer (filled with black) a number of times and shift each layer a little bit. When I'm done I'll merge those together and set a blend mode of multiply and turn down the opacity until I like it. I usually blur either the whole thing or, for more accuracy, blur each of the duplicate layers a little more the further they get from the building.
In Hania, I think I also ran an edge detect filter and created an outline for each of the buildings. That map's a little more impressionistic than I usually do so it works there. I do use edges/outlines in some of my more realistic maps but they're much more subtle.
Hope that helps. Will chime in if I think of anything else.
M
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