Some CC3 Experiments

[jaerdaph]

What confuses the eye (for me) is this: I assume that there is only one light source, and that it is at the bottom right hand side of the drawing. If that were the case, then that would be consistent with the convex shape. If you put the light source top left, then the walls would cast a shadow consistent with a concave shape, but - you just wouldn't see a light source work that way through solid rock which is why (my mind) 'prefers' to see it as standing proud with convex edges.

Try using a dark inner glow rather than a drop shadow so the shadow is all around the walls. That would make the eye think that the light source was inside the rooms which would make sense....I think!

That makes perfect sense. As it stands now, the shadow pattern is more like it's open to the air - that's the default shadow effect setting for overland/outside areas in CC3 - light source coming from the upper left corner. That can be changed with the Wall Shadow, Directional effect. There is also a Wall Shadow, Point Light for interiors, but for the life of me I can't get it to work or give me anything but a solid black map, and there's no documentation on it yet. I'll ask the Profantasy guys on the CC mailing list about that.

I think I'm going to give two things a try - first, change the light source direction to the bottom right and see how that looks, then I'm going to drop the wall shadow entirely and just tweak the Glow effect. I really wish Glow in CC3 had an opacity setting for more of a shadow look though. Will post results here later.


Edit: Here is what I came up with. What I did was add a *second* Shadow effect, this one with a light source at the opposite side of the first one:

[jaerdaph]

Okay, one last cavern sample, because this has morphed into WIP.

On this one, I added a second bevel effect to the one above, this one with the colors inverted and that makes the cavern walls all the same darker grey color:

[ravells]

It is just like the vase/two faces thing. I can see it both ways, but I have to work harder to see it as concave (could just be because my brain now has convex as the expectation). Are the lighter border areas meant to be cave walls?

I wonder if you could put in a pointer which will help the brain work to see it as concave, by having a sconce in the wall for example?

[jaerdaph]

Thanks again ravells for your help with this.

The lighted borders (from the bevel effect) are the cave walls. I added some torch sconces in one of the caverns to help with the visualization (I didn't use the symbols with lit torches because the addition of light would probably throw off the shadows etc.). They are aproximately in the middle of a cavern wall.



I decided to take some advice from writers and "kill my darlings". In this image, I've removed the bevel effect completely, and I think it makes things a lot more clear:

[RPMiller]

Actually, now I'm getting the convex/cave effect... I hadn't been earlier. Put something in the cave to indicate walls and maybe my eyes will see it correctly again.

[jaerdaph]

I think you're right - the map does need some more visual cues.

Does this help?

Bevel off:



Bevel on:



The bevel is actually a pain in the butt because you have to move the symbols so they look like they're on the wall the bevel is creating.

[RPMiller]

That is an improvement, but my eye still slips a bit on the non-beveled one, but I'm not real pleased with the beveled one. Yea, this is a really tough call. Maybe it is because the colors are all grays. What happens if the floor were brown or the walls were?