[Award Winner] Battlemaps in Photoshop

[madcowchef]

Your walls look great. I did use a layer mask on the damage layer so only part of the walls got the extra roughness, this implies that the others are relatively flat on top, if not in the best of shape (the rest of the texture to them comes from the texture effect we put on the bevel for the stone work layer). If that isn't how you picture the tops or your walls, then there is no need for the layer mask, you can put the damage over all visible surfaces (you could also do this by turning up the depth on the texture effect of your bevel). Here's where I applied the damage in false color to make it more obvious:

Its always better to play with settings and learn what they do, no two textures are the same so opacity effects and other factors always change appearance, I'm just hoping to get you familiar with some of what you can do to make your battle maps more fun.

What part was unfollowable? I am highly fallible in my writing and very interested in improving it so others can hope to follow my ramblings.

[ajb47]

It wasn't "unfollowable", it was more I didn't see the choice you suggested in the menu -- actually it was grayed out. It was these steps:

"-now put a layer mask on your “damage” layer and hide the whole thing.
-Select the layer mask for your damage layer
-make your selected color white
-Using your funky brush you can now draw in additional damage wherever you messed up the walls extra. its like magic or something!
-finally to help define the edges of the broken stone we’ll add a layer effect like so:
"

When I was on my damage layer, there was no option that flat out said "Add Layer Mask" -- my choices were Reveal All, Hide All, etc. I chose Hide All and it created a filled black layer mask, but when using my funky brush, it seemed to just draw a shadow under the walls rather than damage on the walls. Or maybe I just drew on the wrong layer or some other newbie mistake. I thought it looked OK without that extra step in this case, though, so I deleted the mask and went to the next step.

Now I want to try to adapt this to creating a beach scene since one of the games I am running by post has the players trapped on a deserted tropical island. I'm thinking a sand instead of dirt layer and a longer grass texture for the grass layer, and a more tropical looking tree texture for trees.

[madcowchef]

Hmm I usually do it with the button on the bottom of the layer tab, I see now that its greyed out if you do it from the top menu. Hide all does the same thing though. I shall go back and correct that to make it more clear. Thanks!

[Kennyt]

Great tutorial! Something that MANY could learn from! :-) I'd like to get around to making one as well - for the ghetto GIMP users out there :-D

[madcowchef]

Would be nicer to have a GIMP tutorial its free. I'm not sure I can afford the newest PS stuff myself. I'm sure at least half of what I did in this one is gimpable, I just don't know which half. I have one more on fancy lighting, but I need to get it worded as close to sensical as I can manage.

[Jacktannery]

I could probably translate this tutorial from photoshop to gimp for you relatively easily - it all looks doable on gimp to me. I'll take a look over weekend - if I forget bump this thread or PM me.

[Avengeil]

First of all thanks for the tutorial as it is very helpful.

Now two mini-requests. Can you explain the reasoning behind the funky brush and how it could possibly translate to gimp?

[Jacktannery]

First of all thanks for the tutorial as it is very helpful.

Now two mini-requests. Can you explain the reasoning behind the funky brush and how it could possibly translate to gimp?

In the GIMP tool options tab there are some tools that can do this easily. Just below the brush size and shape tools, you will see ASPECT RATIO. Set this to 0.20 or so for a slightly less rounded brush. Then go down and tick 'APPLY JITTER' and set the amount to between 1.00 and 2.00. This should have the same effect as MAdCow's photoshop brush.

[Meshon]

This is great, thank you very much. I gotta say, I'm a big fan of the attention you put into making a mess. I spent some time awhile back sorting out how to get moss growing between cobblestones and piling up debris along the edges of streets so that the locations look used. I was also struggling with how to make walls look crumbly and it looks like you've got a system that works really well. Now I just need someone to post a challenge to build a really messy battle-map to get me working again.

And the leaf scatter, top notch wdmartin!

cheers,
Meshon

[madcowchef]

Well I don't know gimp so I'm no use there I'm afraid. As far as the purpose goes its simply to make irregular edges in a controlled fashion. Any method of doing the equivalent would work just as well.