This gave me a really good belly laugh!!! Everytime I try and find a lazy way of making a city somehow, somewhere the bevel and emboss creeps into the equation and then I despise myself!And here it comes the dreaded and shameful "3d" effect bevel and emboss (Bad cartographer, BAD!). I think is not 100% bad to use it but it is if you abuse it like I did...
Last edited by ravells; 09-15-2011 at 12:44 AM.
Now that all outlines are done and the main areas colored, I start adding details a some tweaking to the layer effects to add depth and some sharpness to the mountains.
-I added some "random" green areas around to give it more of an "abandoned jungle city" feeling and added shades of green with a texturized brush. Some of the green areas got clearded to leave open spaces and give a feeling of importance to certain buildings.
-The water got the same texturized brush treatment and got burn/expose to enhance the deep effects.
-The sunken buildings are a whole different layer using under the water layer which has a multiply effect.
-I made the floor brighter to make it more "readable".
At this point everything is plain detailing, so its pretty much ground work...lots of it.
thats awesome, glad your indulging us with all this, its rather interesting!
My Finished Maps :: My Challenge Maps :: My Tutorials :: The World of Ashlon- My Obsidian Portal/World BuilderProjects
WIP :: Carian Round... Who knows...
Back Burner :: World Map
Software: 99% Adobe Photoshop (CS4), Geo Control 2, Wilbur Every so often I use another program!
I've moved this to the tutorial section. Please rate this tutorial so Hugo can get the tutorial award that this so richly deserves!
Oh, that would be most appreciated!Originally Posted by ravells
Glad this is beign interesting for you guys! There is not much "technique" here, just a little applied Photoshop and a step by step description, thou when I started doing illo work, I did find this process from other people very educative and I'm glad to share what little I know with whoever may be interested
Forgot to mention this!
The round buildings are made with vectores on CorelDraw and then exported to Photoshop. The easy way to keep a clean line while doing this is to export to EPS and then open it on Photoshop, this way you'll keep the transparent background.
I'm not a big fan of working lines in Photoshop, so when dealing with vector-like graphics, I always us this option because I work a lot faster in Corel, which compensates for the "trouble" of importing stuff into photoshop. Also working with vectors makes it super easy to leave separated elements to mix n' match and create custom buildings real fast simply by mixing and twaking a few new elements into it. Its also good to leave it blank or in grayscale and color it on Photoshop, this way you keep a more customizable building. Its also very useful to make these buildings into brushes so that you can have them handy (and light!) at all times.
I only did the round buildings with vectors because when I started the map, the whole intention was to do most of the buildings by hand, something that proved not to be very smart time-wise, and the square buildings are not too complicated to do in photoshop, but still a lot easier to do in vectors. I resorted to this tool when I saw time running short.
I should have added this step a few posts back... pardon my messy "how to"
Wow, I'm just now having a look at this thread again and so want to do a town map now. Thanks for sharing your tips and expertise Hugo, it is really appreciated. Repped and rated.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Just catching up again here myself...this is fabulous. I've got a lost city ruins map that's been brewing in my head for a while now but I have been afraid to take it on. Thanks for the workflow examples, it really helps motivate me to want to do mine as well now. Thank you!
“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden
* Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt
This is starting to look more like a serious "tutorial"
This is starting to look more like a serious "tutorial"
Yep!!! You might think about nixing this exact example(since I assume it's licensed/copyright material) and just do a proper tutorial with some original content....
On I noticed you said several times about erasing and wonder if I misunderstand or do you just not use layer masks?? and if so, why not?
My Finished Maps
Works in Progress(or abandoned tests)
My Tutorials:
Explanation of Layer Masks in GIMP
How to create ISO Mountains in GIMP/PS using the Smudge tool
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Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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