May Entry: The North East Towers of Jocelyn Castle

[Torq]

My plan is to create a battlemap depicting the topmost towers of an ancient castle to make for an interesting and potentially very dangerous fight. There will be three towers in total. I will do the ground and lower level structure last as I am panicking as to whether I will be able to pull off a height illusion.

Obviously this is very much a WIP with a few seam marks on the ground texture but I just wanted to get something up.

The statues are courtesy of the Dunjinni Forums.

Torq

## Latest WIP ##

[Gamerprinter]

I've often thought about how I'd best do a map showing depth. Especially your map, since the "grid area" is only at the tops of the tower, and not the ground at all.

I always wanted to try to blur the distant area - making it out of focus. Since the eye is focused on the useable area, the tops of the towers. Don't know if this would work, but its something I've thought about in the past. Probably use a filter to blur the trees and ground structure.

GP

[Torq]

Yes, I think blurring is the answer. I saw some very effective use of it on the Dundjinni forums. My worry is that its the kind of thing you really have to get right or ithe entire look of the map can be ruined. I'm going to use a blur, with some low level clouds to try and enhance the effect.

Torq

[RPMiller]

Torq, when you do this I would be interested in the map size before and after the blur is applied.

[Gamerprinter]

Another detail to improve the look of depth is to create a silohouette (however you spell that?) shadow, like I did for the Monastery way back in the October Challenge. Rather than a drop shadow, a defined shadow of the structure can hint at how tall it is - make it a long shadow.

The only thing is you'll have maintain the same shadow angle on your drop shadows for other stuff.

Combine this with the blur and it should really help.

[Chgowiz]

Scaling as well. You could maybe scale the items on the ground just noticeably less than the items on the tower top? Along with the shadowing, that would definitely give the impression of height.

Neurowiz