First Map in GIMP

[torstan]

Very nice! I'd suggest either going with a stronger grid than you have or removing it altogether. As it stands it's just a bit too faint to be useful. Also, I'd suggest that you don't have the walls casting a shadow onto the top of the doors - it makes it look like the doors are painted on to the floor rather than rising up from the floor. Note that most VTTs can lay down a grid so it is not really necessary to have a grid at all if this is meant for VTT play.

It might also be nice to have the water as a transparent fill, rather than the opaque fill you've got there. You'd need to extend the floor texture under the area the water covers (if you haven't already). Then see what it looks like if you switch the water layer mode to hard light or soft light. Try duplicating the water layer and having one as a hard or soft light layer, and the other as a normal layer with low opacity.

That's a very usable map, and a great first shot with Gimp. Is there anything you would like to do differently about this map?

[nolgroth]

The "grid" is actually a bevel added to the floor texture. After seeing it in action, I probably won't replicate that again. The true grid is a hidden layer in the XCF file at this point.

The water is a layer above the floor and I just couldn't find a satisfactory (to me) layer mode. I like the water as is, but I'll try the method you suggested.

The doors are the one thing I'd do differently. I was trying to find a method that works. Right now, the doors are made from filling a small pencil with texture and throwing a bevel on them. The only problem is that I wanted to make sure that they were straight, so I used a snap which places them under the walls. I am probably going to mess with that as well.

Thanks much for your input. After I play with the water a bit, I'll post another JPG file here for comparison.

-James

[RobA]

Looks Nice, James.

I've got a question for you, please check your pm's.

-Rob A>