Beneath the Tower

[Jaxilon]

I was messing around with the very slick Dungeon Map Maker add on for Gimp posted on this site.

I have a live gaming session coming up and needed something so here it is. We haven't played in a long time so we will be rusty plus we have a new guy so...

Backstory: The players were given this keep some time back for services rendered. They do not know much about the place, and this lower level will be news to them. Last time we played nobody stayed home to watch the place. I plan to have it ransacked and taken over. In the retaking of the keep they will find a drain cover pried open and that should drop them into the dungeon cell area. I'm going pretty free form based on how smoothly things go so this will either be loaded with enemies or pretty sparse. I think you can see some of the ideas I have in store for them based on the stuff in the map.

Oh, and all the tables and stuff I just drew in Gimp using the free form selection tool, filling, filtering, and drawing with my mouse, so nothin special.

[Gandwarf]

That certainly looks nice. So who/what has taken over the place, spiders?

[Jaxilon]

Well in this case it was taken over by what amounts to orcs. My gameworld is home brewed so I'll use terms that everyone can relate to.

I plan for the PC's to arrive while the looting is going on so there will be these guys all over the place and yet, there will be some spiders in their nice little nest to add a little spice. Perhaps I can get a three way battle going on which would be just lovely, muahahaha!

[Gandwarf]

Haha... and for the next time, maybe this dungeon is built on an ancient burial ground. So when the PC's return yet again it could be crawling with undead

[Jaxilon]

Well I'm planning to have some secret doorway in here that will go into a massive set of caverns beneath the mountains.

Btw, this is beneath the "Holmkeep" on my regional map I've been working on so there should be a set of caverns that runs all the way through the Stormy Mountain range. (I haven't mapped that yet, obviously )

Eventually I want to try one of the VTTs and be able to make my own maps etc, but so far I'm making a mess of RPTools and don't have a good idea yet of how to use it.

A lot of what I'm doing right now is just proving to myself that I can use the pc tools to put together something useful.

[MadCartographer]

Well I'm planning to have some secret doorway in here that will go into a massive set of caverns beneath the mountains.

Btw, this is beneath the "Holmkeep" on my regional map I've been working on so there should be a set of caverns that runs all the way through the Stormy Mountain range. (I haven't mapped that yet, obviously )

Eventually I want to try one of the VTTs and be able to make my own maps etc, but so far I'm making a mess of RPTools and don't have a good idea yet of how to use it.

A lot of what I'm doing right now is just proving to myself that I can use the pc tools to put together something useful.

Jaxilon,
for the VTT, may I suggest ScreenMonkey by NBOS:
http://www.nbos.com/products/screenm...reenmonkey.htm

I use it for my Online D&D game (set in the Forgotten Realms setting).
Only the GM needs to purchase anything (cost is 34.95), all the players connect via a Browser. (IE Strongly suggested).

I make my maps in CC3 by ProFantasy:
http://www.profantasy.com/

Save As: JPG and then put it in my ScreenMonkey folder and wahalla!
Enjoy!

[Steel General]

Neat little map...

[RobA]

I was messing around with the very slick Dungeon Map Maker add on for Gimp posted on this site.

Glad you like! Nice map layout, too!

-Rob A>

[Jaxilon]

Thanks RobA, I couldn't remember who made it and hadn't gone back to look, thanks again for sharing it, you can whip out a map quick with it.

I added torchlight effects per jfrazierjr's post in another thread just to see what it would look like. I suspect if you were going to pull your map into a VTT you might not bother because at least in maptools you can set that up there.

Still it makes for a nice look I think....be nice if the walls didn't get overshadowed....hmm, I guess I could unselect that portion and make sure the glow doesn't bleed over.

Oh well, here it is with torches for now.

[jfrazierjr]

Still it makes for a nice look I think....be nice if the walls didn't get overshadowed....hmm, I guess I could unselect that portion and make sure the glow doesn't bleed over.

Oh well, here it is with torches for now.

No, you just mask that back off. Go to the original layer mask for the shape generated by the script and Mask to Selection from the layer tab(right click). Then invert the selection. Now click back on the layer mask for the lights and fill with black. Since the selection is slightly smaller than what the layer mask is, it should effectivly get rid of (assuming I wrote that correctly!!!) the lights which are on a higher layer from bleeding into the wall..

Of course.... the easier solution is to fully utilize the GIMP's layers and put the layer with the torchlight under the walls layer, but ABOVE the floor layer. Technically, since i use the script quite a bit, you should be placing your lights layer right below the floor texture layer(the one set to rendered clouds and overlay mode) so that the light does not vary. Doing by layers will help in that if you go back and adjust later (see below comment), you will not have to redo any additional work.

Personally, I would increase the range of the lights glow by making the selection larger on the layer mask and blurring more(again, reducing the opacity to around 50ish on the layer OR perhaps playing with various layer modes such as overlay, multiply, etc. ) I would at least get the range out around 15 feet or more and then blur it a ton (50 px might be good or perhaps more or less)... Another option might be to duplicate the layer with a DIFFERENT layer mask size and blur size and perhaps messing with alternate blending modes on the secondary layer as well.