Village Map - A mix of Sketchup, Sai and Photoshop

[Lukc]

Larb, this is absolutely awesome! I've used Sketchup a bit, though in other ways, and I did consider doing something like this. Well, now you've blown me away! Well done!

Helaas, I can't give you rep, since you got some from me too recently!

[eViLe_eAgLe]

I think i'll have to try my hand on this, very nice. I grant you +6 rep.

[veracusse]

Totally awesome. Rep'ed. I think I will have to try out sketchup now. Thanks for showing this.

[Galendae]

I really like this. Would love to see a large town done like this. How long did it take to complete?

PS You need chimneys on the houses. People have no way to heat or cook.

[Larb]

It took me about 30 mins in sketchup and an hour or two to draw.

BTW, the residential buildings are Saxon inspired. They cook on hearths so the houses either get very smokey or it filters out through the thatch. No chimneys except for the blacksmith's forge.

[veracusse]

You said that you use SAI to draw the lines. I would like to try that software to do similar projects like this one. How would you recommend getting that software? But this map looks awesome, and the fact that it only took you 2 hours to draw it is amazing.

[Larb]

You can get SAI here. It's not free but it doesn't cost all that much really and it's definitely worth it. You can use it for 30 days before you need to get a license though so I'd try it out first before buying it.

[tilt]

GREAT idea Larb, hadn't thought of using sketchup for anything but the whole project - so have some rep for a great idea and a beautiful little town... looking forward to seeing it finished

[Lyandra]

That looks great! I have downloaded sketchup because of this map and plan to play with it when I have time. (Great idea that might actually solve my "perspective issues". ^^) I cannot wait for this little village to get finished. It already looks so amazing!

[Larb]

Sketchup is great for things like this. As a general non-cartography drawing aid it is incredibly useful. I've also been doing some other 3d modelling too. It has a really shallow learning curve so with a few (readily available) short video tutorials, you can be doing building/house designs really quickly. You can then export them as 2d images or texture them in the program.

For anyone who has found 3d stuff interesting but intimidating, I really recommend it. It's free and the tutorial and other resources out there are quite extensive are readily available.