More Maps for Griffonlore Games

[arsheesh]

Hi everyone, here are a couple of other maps that I did last year for Griffonlore Games for their Curse of the Lost Memories module. I had meant to post them earlier and it slipped my mind. I've kept the resolution small, since these maps are being sold as part of a map-pack by the company, but I've also included a closeup to show what the full res looks like. Hope you like.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Bogie]

Very nice set of maps Arsheesh! Congrats on the commission.

[QED42]

Very nice maps!

[Kellerica]

Great pieces! The floor texture on the larger part of Temple of Dvalin is bit too strong to my eyes, but otherwise everything looks top-notch! The shadows came out really beautifully.

[Ilanthar]

A very fine set, indeed! You are very good with those building plans.

[Mouse]

I love the lighting in these maps

They are very eye-catching.

[arsheesh]

Very nice set of maps Arsheesh! Congrats on the commission.

Thank you very much Bogie!

Very nice maps!

Thank you QED42.

Great pieces! The floor texture on the larger part of Temple of Dvalin is bit too strong to my eyes, but otherwise everything looks top-notch! The shadows came out really beautifully.

Thank you, and looking at the Temple map again I have to agree with your assessment. Something to look out for in future maps.

A very fine set, indeed! You are very good with those building plans.

Thank you very much Ilanthar.

I love the lighting in these maps

They are very eye-catching.

Thank you very much Mouse. These battle maps were sort of a learning experience for me in terms of lighting. I learned a lot and think that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement with the lighting (for instance I completely neglected to add occlusion shadows).

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Mouse]

...These battle maps were sort of a learning experience for me in terms of lighting. I learned a lot and think that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement with the lighting (for instance I completely neglected to add occlusion shadows)...

Well, I don't know how everyone else does occlusion shadows, but I generally use a darkish shadow just inside the walls all the way around where the light is never as bright right in the corner. It seems to make the walls pop a lot more - but others may do it differently

That is not to say that anything looks 'wrong' here - it doesn't

[arsheesh]

Well, I don't know how everyone else does occlusion shadows, but I generally use a darkish shadow just inside the walls all the way around where the light is never as bright right in the corner. It seems to make the walls pop a lot more - but others may do it differently

That is not to say that anything looks 'wrong' here - it doesn't

Yes I think that is a fairly common technique and one that works relatively well for interiors with diffused lighting. However if one is attempting to render lighting from a direct source, as was the case in the above maps, things get a bit more complicated. One has to take into consideration not only the cast shadows, but the effects of bounced light and how that light will interact with the rest of the environment. Here occlusion shadows would occur in places with no illumination from either direct or bounced light. So you would have areas that might be in shadow (i.e. cast shdow) that still received a bit of bounced light and other areas of complete darkness. Another complicating feature is that the bounced light would tend to pick up hints of color from the objects that reflected it, so areas with cast shadows might have a different tint than other areas. Of course one doesn't necessarily need to include these lighting features into a tactical map in order to create a nice looking piece, but to the extent that one does the map will look more dynamic and natural.

[Mouse]

I agree

To work that out you might need to make a fully textured and realistically lit Blender model of the place, but I think that is probably going quite a bit too much further than is necessary. Most of us can't see any of those tiny nuances in tone and colour to be able to put a name on them, and what is more the human brain has a wonderful capacity to fill a lot of such detail automatically based on experience and what might be expected to be there - in real time.

An amazing thing, the brain