[CD3] How do I... make things look... more like Jungle!

[Lord_Infinitus]

Hello, I do not bother with introducing myself in the introduction section, I am not really into that stuff, so right on to questions!


Actually two questions at the moment:

1. How do I give my map a more jungle-like appearance?
I thought of using different colors, but it still looks like CD3, middle europe.

2. Hills... Hills... Hills... I tried many many things and effects, they always look artificial, man-made. Well they are (by me), but they should not look like that. Any advice? I am using the lighter grass bitmap for fill currently.

Thanks in advance.

edit:
If art was a main subject in elementary school I'd never passed it, only that you know what you are getting into if you are answering.

[Redrobes]

Can you post a current map pic ?

[Lord_Infinitus]

Well, here is one for the hills, multi-bevel type.

The "heads" are not round enough of the ones without plateaus. they do seem artificial.

for the jungle thing, well I make another testing map. First thing learned: keep your maps you use for tests.

[NeonKnight]

Are you trying to make a 'Photo Realistic' map? If so, the CD3 is not the tool for you. To make hills, you best bet is to 'fake em out'

The following quick map was done by making a sheet for the Hills with the following effects:

BEVEL: Length 100, Strength 30, Fade 5

I also applied the EDGE FADE INNER Effect with an edge of 50 to fade the hills into the background.

The Hills Color was one off of the background.

Play around with those effects to get something along the lines of what you are looking for.

For forest/Jungles I usually go with a Dark Green, and apply a darker green inner glow.

[waldronate]

I would use Bevel, Lighted rather than Bevel. I vaguely recall that there are a couple of things built into the lighted bevel piece of code that were intended to make hill-type shading easier. I'm not at my home computer right now so I can't tell you what they are, unfortunately. I will try to remember to take a look to see if those features amde the final cut or if I'm remembering something else entirely.

[waldronate]

I looked at it and Bevel, Lighted advertises an internal Edge Fade option that should do the fade thing. Unfortunately it appears that it's not actually doing anything, so adjusting the value won't help any. I should probably look into fixing that some day or at least remove it from the UI.

[Lord_Infinitus]

the bevel, lighted creates a nice wave pattern. It lacks randomness, on larger hills, it is contra-productive :-(

I am not aiming for a foto-like image, I think. I am just aiming that the hills look natural. Well it works if you are adjusting for every hill the bevel manually, but I don't want to do it.

the first image was, bevel 40,10,0,0; blur 10 x4, edge fade inner 5,100,0

this one has edge fade inner 20,100,0 and a bevel lighted... which is kinda...

I think hills is then a bad topic in CD3.

For the jungle one, I try out the glow stuff, that seems like a good idea.

okay, maybe it is time to call the tech support, bevel is now always a bevel lighted; I will never use bevel, lighted again
the if you don't believe me... well see the attachment, the test..JPG comes out if I render test.jpg (the other one was printed via pdfcreator)

edit: probably it is better for you, if you don't use the zip file, because you might get hit by the same problem.

[NeonKnight]

What you re experiencing is an issue with CC3 when the same fill style is used one layer above the other. If you change the fill style to something else, it will not have the effect you see in you example.

[Lord_Infinitus]

Well, okay.

edit:
thanks, until someone finds a better way, I think I stick to a multi-bevel.

for the jungle look, well I found that I have a big tree and plant collection on my hd (hundreds of MBs) probably grab some jungle plant-pngs, to add them there, adding them with a greenish glow.

thanks.