The second version looks better -- it's added smatterings of dirt at random spots. Yes, it does darken the map a bit; that's increased by the fact that you're layering your grunge onto a fairly dark texture to begin with. If you want it lighter, try adding an adjustment layer in between the tile layer and the grunge layer to bring up the lightness of the pattern before the grunge is layered onto it. Curves, Brightness/Contrast, or Hue/Saturation can all be made to work for this -- pick one and experiment.
Alternatively, try adding a layer mask to the grunge effect, then use a soft black brush on the mask to hide the grunge in areas that you want brighter. You can, for example, leave dark, heavy grunge around the edges of the room while erasing it from the middle. Or you can leave it in most places, but carve out "clean" paths where people actively walk.
It's a bit easier when you have grunge going onto a lighter background. Here's some sandy soil with some grunge:
Specifically, this is a 2000x2000 layer of Soil Sand 18 with Grunge Map 154 layered on top of it at 50% opacity. The grunge does two things:
1) It makes it much less obvious that this is a repeating, tiled pattern by breaking up repetitions.
2) The tonal variation suggests minor changes in height (darker = lower), or possibly in the soil's water content (darker = muddy).
I really like the grunge technique for soil, grass, and other organic things which are not supposed to have a repeating pattern to them. It's not quite as good for things like brick and tile which are supposed to have repeating patterns normally. In those cases I pick a dark grunge image, but turn the opacity down really low -- the idea being to get some subtle tonal variation without losing the basic pattern.
That grunge for soil and natural things beats the hell out of what i've been doing which was loading a tone of different patterns in and then randomly hiding parts. never gave me the height but did break up the pattern.
Never used adjustment layers, didn't even know they existed. so much easier to play with the color now.
This is where I ended up today.
Looking lots better! ^_^
Thanks, wouldn't look anything like this with your much appreciated pointers.
What do you think about the stone door arches? I'm kinda on the fence about them.
The shift in color from the stone of the walls to the stone of the arches is a bit abrupt. Try this:
1) open your stone arch in Photoshop.
2) make a new file - the size doesn't matter much. Flood fill the new document with your wall texture.
3) go back to your arches and use the Match Color tool, specifying the texture file as the thing to match. It's in Image > Adjustments > Match Color, near the bottom.
The match won't be perfect, but it'll be decent.
The other option is to retexture the arches using your wall texture, but that's rather more involved.
Last edited by wdmartin; 08-02-2016 at 10:35 PM.
Nice map, getting progressively better.
My Battlemaps Gallery http://www.cartographersguild.com/al...p?albumid=3407
Thanks Bogie.
I fixed up the archways per your suggestion wdmartin, they look much better now.
I think i'm just about done with the entrance level
I'll be starting level 2 after lunch.
And here's the start of level 2
Always nice that once you have all the settings ready to go from above you can just duplicate the layers
No Lighting right now but pretty much done with the rooms
The distorted arches around the edges of the circular room look wonky. Are those supposed to be hidden? If not, you could just use straight arches but set them back a bit from the curvy wall.
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