Hi from NZ

[Southern_land]

Hi guys, Shane here. I've been making maps for the close combat series of games for about 11 years now using photoshop. Someone pointed out this site a couple of days ago, I've joined up to see what I can learn or/and share

Attached is a 1/4scale map for the upcoming 1940 Muese mod, based one three google earth Pics, then compressed slightly north-south

[rapatuan]

Great map! Makes me want to try the game...

A couple of questions, if you don't mind:
- I really like the shadows that you applied, they contribute greatly to the realism of the map. Did you use any shortcuts to create them or were they made entirely by hand?
- To add relief to the scene, like on the river banks to the right or the hills up left, did you use any embossing or bumping techniques or just plain shadows?

[Clercon]

Hello and welcome to the guild. Close combat - it really brings back a lot of great memories

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[Southern_land]

Thanks for the welcomes

Great map! Makes me want to try the game...

A couple of questions, if you don't mind:
- I really like the shadows that you applied, they contribute greatly to the realism of the map. Did you use any shortcuts to create them or were they made entirely by hand?
- To add relief to the scene, like on the river banks to the right or the hills up left, did you use any embossing or bumping techniques or just plain shadows?

the shadows were applied three ways,
1. the buildings were done in photoshop by magic wanding the buildings and Ctrl down and Ctrl right x2 for each floor the building represents, then hand adding roof peaks, chinmeyes and the like.
2. the tree shadows (and trees) are applied by some fanware made for Close combat (5CC) during the coding phase
3. river and canal banks etc are a combination of hand drawn shadow and light (white set to about 40% opacity with an overlay blend) plus a 2-3 pixel bevel emboss on the grass layer to ad a "long grass" impression


I have used bump maps and lighting effects in photoshop in the past and I'm toying with them again now to add definition