Madness at Gardmore Abbey Encounter Maps

[Jacktannery]

I am still experimenting on these. My current approach is as follows:

1) download a photo of a masonry wall from here: www.mayang.com/textures. I get this sort of thing:



2) turn the photo into a texture tile. I do this (in the Gimp) by cropping a square section of the texture, and then if I'm lazy using the 'create seamless texture' filter on GIMP or else, in this case, doing it properly (offset image by 50% X and Y, then clone/heal along the seams, then adjust the colours if needed - usually not needed if you are going to recolour as I usually do). Now I have this sort of thing (I've had to save this as a jpg because it is too big to post here otherwise - my file is 7mb, but this should work just as well):



3) On my map, I make a layer with my wall texture (often I rescale it so the blocks are the size I want). Then I use a layer mask to block all parts of the layer except the wall. Then I go over each bit carefully with a HARD white or black brush respecting the stones (this bit takes long!).



3.5) Optional step. If you want to change the colour of the wall, desaturate completely and add a new layer on top filled with a block colour of your choice, then copy the same walls layer mask to it. Set this layer to burn and opacity at c. 50%

4) Make a new layer over that. Using the colour selection tool on the wall layer mask white bits, select your wall outline(s) then on your new layer fill this with black, then copy the same walls layer mask to it. Use a big soft brush and the smudge tool. Stroke away from the edges of the wall towards the centre roughly. This allows the walls to 'appear' - you can see the effects clearly on my Nightwyrm Fortress Maps.

5) Make a layer below and use a soft brush with black and smudge a lot to make under-wall shadows. This is crucial and makes the walls pop out - I no longer use drop shadows on my maps - I find they don't look good.

6) Cross your fingers and hope it works.

[Jacktannery]

Added some broken beds from the dundjinni forums



EDIT: And made the next map, which is the last one of the above-ground maps:

[Bogie]

That's a lot of work to make the walls, but they do look great!

[Jacktannery]

Well actually I think it looks pretty awful - I much prefer the walls in my map of the gatehouse (see post 8. This technique has worked well in my dungeon maps (for Nightwyrm Fortress) but does not work well for these half-outdoor maps in my opinion. As for it being a lot of work - well, the walls are the easy and quick bit! Don't get me started on the floors.

[jfrazierjr]

Well actually I think it looks pretty awful - I much prefer the walls in my map of the gatehouse (see post 8. This technique has worked well in my dungeon maps (for Nightwyrm Fortress) but does not work well for these half-outdoor maps in my opinion. As for it being a lot of work - well, the walls are the easy and quick bit! Don't get me started on the floors.

I think they look pretty darn good...now...stretch yourself and duplicate your stone texture, rotate 90 degrees and make the stones with correct orientation... You might need to make a few duplicates of that layer with diferent masked areas, but it will really look photo realistic...

[Jacktannery]

Why did I know you would eventually suggest that, jfrazier, Eh? I'll try it - fine - but I have a feeling this is going to be the most horrible time-sink ever.

[jfrazierjr]

Why did I know you would eventually suggest that, jfrazier, Eh? I'll try it - fine - but I have a feeling this is going to be the most horrible time-sink ever.

Well.. it's your fault... if you had not noted your process of manually masking of individual blocks, I would not have noted the pattern of all the blocks going left<->right... well.. I might have noticed it, but it would have just shrugged it off, but since you are doing that extra work, might as well go all out and make it "perfect"...

[Jacktannery]

jfrazer, I actually did this on one of the Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress maps (near the end)

I've decided to finish the maps - I started Encounter 23: Altar of Glory. Just trying out walls/floors for the 'Catacombs'.

[Jacktannery]

And now I have started Encounter 24 in the same style.

[jfrazierjr]

for comparison, could you put a side by side of the "original" texture vs the one where you did the rotate/mask approach? I would even suggest you do a tutorial if the effect can be clearly distinguished for those who may want to give it a try themselves, but have no idea how to do it.