My first battlemap, a post-apocalyptic office building

[Pmumble]

Hi all,

This is my first set of maps. I’m creating them for a home-brew campaign I am running in Monte Cook Game’s "The Strange” RPG using Roll20.

If anyone has any feedback, tips, or things of that nature feel free to comment. I’m a beginner with photoshop and I don’t know how to draw (yet). I am rushing to get these maps done by Saturday before our game, but I might have more time to tidy them up after. Also, I haven’t really tacked objects yet. I don’t really have the time before the game, but I’m interested in revisiting it afterwards. There’s also the debate about that for VTT.

It’s an odd and wonderful setting. My players are in a post-apocalyptic horror recursion (virtual dimension, mcWoD specifically). There is a very bad supernatural man at the top of an old twin towered bank building and he has a whole host of thugs guarding the way. The PCs need to find him.

Basically, it’s a modern themed dungeon. The building itself has a total of 36 floors, but I figured I really only needed a few that I can reuse. I’m sweating, as I have bitten off a lot to chew. It’s really just a house game, but I’m a perfectionist and it’s really hard not to get tangental with details. I also decided not to sweat the odd shape of the buildings and just make them rectangular as it's my first map.

The building itself is modeled after a real building in downtown Minneapolis. Here is the Apple Maps 3D view that I used to present the building to the players during our game. An important note: The tall dark building is ruined, and the structures around are in some form of ruin or worse shape than they appear here. I just used it as a general guide.
Eannatums_Hold_Google_Front.jpgEannatums_Hold_Google_Back.jpg

The building has a ground floor and a second floor which has skyway access to nearby buildings. This is for some kind of downtown mall-like environment, probably because it’s cold out there. The two towers I will label A and B. B is the taller tower, and A has a parking garage behind it.

Both the towers extend up off of the 2nd floor. I described the towers as skeletal, especially tower B, which is technically taller, but the top levels are ruined. This of course is so I can bring the Z-axis into play for the boss fight and make it more interesting. There is also a wily mage amongst the enemy forces, and his powers call for me to make some kind of transparent overlay for an illusory pit. I hope I can manage to squeeze that in.

The PCs ended last session by grappling up to the 6th floor from a parking garage next to tower A. So they start here, in A6. They were planning on attempting to grapple over to tower B from tower A.
Eannatum's-Hold-Level-A6-100px.jpg

A6 is a shape that can be reused for any other floor if I need on the A side, and I know the PCs are aware the bad guy is in B, so I moved on.

I’ve also designed A2 and B2, which connect to each other and provide a main passage. I figured maybe it was a cafeteria or something. I forgot some bathrooms, oops. :/ I’m sure there are more things I forgot. I am struggling with not piling on details as they always lead to more like a domino effect and I have work to do.
Eannatum's-Hold-Level-A2-100px.jpgEannatum's-Hold-Level-B2-100px.jpg

The rest of the floors are in the B tower, which is still in heavy development. I'll post more pictures soon as I complete their first pass. Floors 17, 18, 19, and 20 are all one map, with the boss being on 20 and the PCs entering on 18.

I’m a month new to Photoshop, but I am an obsessive crash course learner with a lot of spare time on my hands right now. I took an online course, read a book, and have been blessed by having access to all the wonderful tutorials on this site. Thank you!

All the textures used were from CGTextures with the exception of the elevator shafts, which I plan on replacing when I have time to make my own with vectors or something. I just found it on google images.

If anyone finds these maps helpful please use them. I’ll update them as I work on them. The next area I plan on designing is a wizard’s tower out on a crag suspended in “The Strange”. Think space. Can’t wait to start that one.

[madcowchef]

Those are looking sharp, you're a quick learner! As far as getting caught up on the details remember that even a battlemap is a map and not an illustration. Maps are made to give the information those using them want to convey, as such they don't need to give absolutely all the information about a scene. All your information seems immediately readable and clear and the maps fun to look at to boot. If you have time in the future and plan on doing a lot of broken glass the tutorial wdmartin did here could be used with the right texture to make broken glass (or scattered papers in an office) to augment the effect you already have. If you want to show your players the picture of the buildings but don't have a ruined version, just throw a grudge filter over the image and give it a boarder like an old Polaroid to make it look like a photo from when the city was intact, instant GM cheat!

[Pmumble]

Thanks Madcowchef. I think the "map not an illustration" bit is really tricking me up, especially using all these realistic textures. I'm getting stuck on little tangental bits far too often. I wrote down what you said there. I'll repeatedly ask myself if what I'm adding is necessary to convey information. Much of what I've done is justified and has story elements for my game (the dirt paths leading to one stair more than the other, lots of blood around the 2nd floor windows for the watchmen, etc), but I do wind up wasting a lot of time on things that aren't.

You know I have wdmartin's leaf tutorial saved on my drive, but I didn't think of trying it for glass! That makes a lot of sense. I will give that a shot, thanks (and thank you wdmartin!)

That's a great idea for the grungy photo too. I was sharing my desktop using the Maps app during the game so I could pan around and show them views of the streets. If only I could throw a filter over that whole thing! Maybe I'll do one and throw it in the pack when I finish it.

One thing I forgot to mention that I could use some feedback on:
Almost everything I'm doing is from your tutorials or a few others, but there is one major difference - I chose to use vector masks and shapes for the walls and most of the infrastructure so I could easily align everything and move it around.

It seemed like a good idea when I started, but the more I work the more I'm wondering if I should stop working this way as it seems difficult to apply things like grungy brushes on walls etc. It's like two worlds. The vector shapes let me easily do things like odd little orthogonal corners, the windows etc by copy/pasting a subtraction shape layer around and aligning to my guides, but then they are more complicated to apply bitmap mask techniques to. (this is why the edges of my ruined stone look odd, they're freeform pen vector subtractions) I'm wondering if I'm creating more work for myself or this is just growing pains until I learn to mesh bitmap and vector techniques together. When I made the decision I was an utter nooblet and didn't even know there was a grid function in PS. I also have umpteen guides all over my screen like a matrix to align vector points to. I tried using the grid but shift-dragging guides seems so much more flexible.
guides_example.jpg

Are vector shapes something that people are using in battlemaps, or should I leave that for the design folks?

Should I ditch the guides and move to grid?

Thanks!

[madcowchef]

I think vector vs. bitmap is a matter of personal taste. If you are more comfortable with vectors you should check out some of Gameprinter's work he's all about the vectors.

[Pmumble]

It's funny you mention him! Gamerprinter was my original inspiration to get into this whole business. I found his 25/25 map tutorial kickstarter last month (i missed it but gathered up some tuts from G+) before I found CG and that's what got me started in the first place. I will have to go searching the archives for mention of vector work. I know he mainly uses Xara though.

If you're listening, thanks Michael. Also a huge shout out to Fantastic Maps guy. You three are really who got me off the ground.

[Gamerprinter]

Glad to inspire. Another option to consider is using both vector and bitmap. Both have options that the other doesn't, and have options that they share - though how each are achieved can be different. There are many image-editing only cartographers using Photoshop or GIMP, yet still use vector to create roads, rivers (linework), and labeling which tends to be easier and faster in vector than doing so in image editors.

[Pmumble]

Thanks GP.

It sounds like I might just be going through some growing pains of learning the medium. I'll keep playing with both until things fall into place.

[Pmumble]

A couple more WIPs. Floor B3 and B15 are coming together. I'm having a lot of trouble with the girders for B15, and will need a lot more for B18. Too many similar colors and textures, it's like camouflage. I wish I had time before the game tomorrow for objects, but that will have to wait.

These files are so huge, even using linked smart objects. I'm sitting at 2GB-3GB for floors that have been split out into linked smart objects, and B15 is sitting at like 7GB right now since I haven't split it all out yet. Sure is a pain. Does anyone else struggle with file sizes?

Eannatum's-Hold-Level-B3-100px.jpg

Eannatum's-Hold-Level-B15-100px.jpg

[madcowchef]

For the girders I suggest doing the horizontal and vertical as separate layers, a little bevel, and some drop shadow or outer glow set to multiply and black to make the edges on them distinct. For upright ones you could make an "I" shaped brush just like an upright girder to make placement go quickly (just use the rotation under your brush settings to turn them 90degrees when needed.

Girders.jpg