Agreed. Drop shadows = Bad in my book. Since you never really know which direction the light source will come from or what other objects you'll be using. The nice subtle outer glow that I mentioned to Gamerprinter for his trees he posted is a great way to get a nice blend and have the object pop.Originally Posted by Midgardsormr
Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.
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OK guys, I will see what I can do about those shadows. Unfortunately, many of the shadows I have are hand drawn so removing them might be a bit difficult. Can't recall if I the buildings were hand drawn though.
In any event, here is the first bluff. This shadow for certain is hand drawn so one side will be darker than another - no rotation for you
I guess that means I make more bluffs even after the contest!
Enjoy!
I think you're bluffing!
I think perhaps I found a use for negative rep.
Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.
Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.
Shadows are a bit of a pain generally and I try to avoid them. But without doubt stuff looks better with them and although its easy to have a little generic drop shadow using bold shadows set at an angle causes a lot of problems if your in 2D. There are some objects which positively need shadows or some lighting in order to see them at all. Hills and ditches are probably the purest but I have been caught with mixed direction lighting on my roof tops in the last few weeks. Roofs just don't look right without a little lighting to show the angular direction of them. The worst is a hemisphere where no shadows and its really hard to make out what shape it is at all.
So your almost hemisphere bluff needs some lighting and this is always going to be a pain to sort out or reuse the items. If you had a 3D representation of it you could generate that shadow dynamically but thats yet more complexity to add to a program which ought to be simple to set up - might as well go full 3D and be done with it by that point - which is a direction I would resist.
I try to keep any strong shadows on a different image layer than the main item color so you might be able to offset that shadow depending on which direction you need it but it often breaks down if the shape is not simple.
I am prepared to live with a slight bit of multi-directional shadow but I am interested to hear any other opinions on the matter.
One thing I want to mention here guys is that when I sit down and make object art, I do not add shadows. I too dislike them.
But that is not the case here. This case with the bluffs, I have a completely different scenario - I didn't make this artwork for distribution. I made a map and now I am simply dismantling the map and supplying pieces so that a very similar map can be made in a VT but much larger. The key phase being "very similar map".
If the community is not interested in these shadowed pieces to reproduce a similar but edgeless (and much larger) bluff map, let me know and I will won't bother going through all the work.
Last edited by dorpond; 05-22-2008 at 02:49 PM.
For myself, I'd love to see any information on how and what tools you used to create such wonderful effects (that you have the time and the desire to share).
Now that my friend, I will be happy to do. Give me a few days and I will supply the PSD file (Photoshop) and I will be glad to explain the tricks I used to make many of the objects. Sound good?
Sounds fabulous and sounds like someone may just get a Tutorial Author award.
Bill Stickers is innocent! It isn't Bill's fault that he was hanging out in the wrong place.
Please make an effort to tag all threads. This will greatly enhance the usability of the forums.
Sweet!!!
What version of PS do you use? I might have to upgrade from 7 for this unless there is a way around that.
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