Red Larch- Princes of the Apocalypse

[Sereptus]

Coming to the end of my first try at a city map, thought I could use some critique. This is my rendering for the town of Red Larch for use in Maptools or any other VTT. This work was copied in part by the excellent artist known as Mike Schley. If being used in Maptools the pixil per square should be set to around 15. I'm not quite finished but I thought perhaps some others could point some stuff out before I get too far!!

EDIT: Added shadows and more buildings. Pretty much done.

Is there any way to know if anyone downloads this? :/

[Larb]

The buildings could use some shadows to give them more definition and make them feel "part" of the terrain.

[Threedub]

Running PotA virtual and I like your map better than the original for game use.

Thanks!

[Sereptus]

Thanks Threedub! I'm currently working on The Feathergale Spire. Will post sometime next week. I will be doing all of them for PotA but will take a bit!

and Thanks Larb for pointing out about the shadows, sometimes a person get soo involved he cant see whats missing!!

[zeichen]

I really like the contour of the land. I do think that the grass is too uniform though. None of your properties have any borders, or variation in land. Not all houses will have grass around them. Nor do they have space for their possessions. The farms have no shacks or places for the farmers to stay or rest.

When layering your textures make sure the percentage is low enough. The top grass layer has blades of grass that are as large as a person with the scale that you have everything else.

I would also add a few different layers of earth.

I typically have 3 grass layers, 3 dirt layers, a debris layer and also have a brush for adding stones and other things.

I also find that technique of making forests from a cgi texture to look very strange. I personally, use individual trees with a transparent background and combine them that way. The scale, tone, shadows are easier to adjust.

Now take this with a grain of salt but my 5 year old said "papa, that farm is gorgeous but the shadows are weird and the roads look hard to walk on.

[Sereptus]

Awesome feedback! Looks like I have some work to do, will post when finished.

[Sereptus]

I still haven't found out how to know if someone has downloaded this.

[Mouse]

Whenever either of your maps are clicked the person's browser automatically downloads a temporary copy of the image to their PC, so you could say that they have been downloaded just as many times as they have been viewed, and you can see that number just by hovering over the image.

Is it that you really want to know if anyone is using them, which is a different question altogether.

If you do a Google image search you can upload your image and google will go away and come back with a list of any sites that have a copy of your image. You will probably find that Pinterest is top of that list - it always is with mine when I decide to check up now and then, but most of the images will either be only thumbnails (Pinterest stores thumbnails or reduced images when things are pinned on users boards) or just similar artworks/photos.

[Sereptus]

Thanks Mouse! Although I thought there was a different way to do it like with bitly, I have bitly but haven't figured out how to use it properly.

[Farland]

Let me give you some advice I learned the hard way. Like me you are using free models you downloaded, probably from rpgmapshare. Cool. But they come pre-shadowed. Take pains to decide which direction your light is coming from (make it match your dropshadow direction) and orient the buildings so the roof shadows are all in the same direction.