Stern's Bridge

[torstan]

That's looking great. The river looks very cool, and I can see the texture in there.

The forest texture could to with being a little more subdued - it's very large for the map right now.

As for the buildings, you probably want to do the following. Create a selection of all of the buildings. Now create a new layer. Go to the gradient tool. Make sure your colours are black and white and change the Shape to Shaped(angular). Now click and drag (it doesn't matter how much) within one of the selected areas. This should give you nice sharp gradients from white to black on all of the buildings. You want the peaks to be white and the lower areas to be black. If this hasn't worked, switch the colours and do it again. Now create a new layer and fill it with 50% grey. Now Go to Filters->Map->Bump Map. In this window you need to select layer with the gradient filled buildings in the top right drop down menu. Now fiddle with the different settings until the preview window shows you an image you like. Note that you can specify the angle of the lighting here.

Once your bump mapping has been done, switch this grey layer's mode to overlay and you should have some nice shaped roofs. Sorry for the slightly rushed walkthrough, the mosaic town tutorial in my sig has a slightly longer description of this process in one of the later steps. Shout if you get stuck doing it, and I'll put together a slightly more structured tute.

[philipstephen]

Hi. () Sorry to keep everyone (or anyone?) in suspense. I wish I could say that the time I've spent since posting last was clearly evident in this post. Obviously, I cannot. I can say that I'm learning a great deal, but even that is a long slow road (lots of trial and error).

I wanted to throw my map's current state up to see what everyone has to say or suggest. There is still a long list of points that I am not quite happy with. Even so, I think it's progressing towards a state that I will be happy with (I hope).

P.S. The roads and buildings are not in a finished state, I keep the roads up as guides until I figure out what I'm going to do with them. Speaking of buildings, the bevel function generates a dark side on the SE. The only way I've thought of to fix it is to rotate the entire picture 180, bevel, and rotate back. Anyone have anything better?

Hello Feral Spirit

I really love the energy of your map, and I liked the direction it was going when you started to add background textures...

So I started to tinker with it in Photoshop - just putting in some layers of texture and using the paint bucket to fill in some colours... i thickened some lines to make it easier to do colour fills and like how it looks...

I hope that is cool... I see you are going another direction with this... but I would say that I liked your old hand sketched trees and map a lot and did not see that it needed a lot of improvement...

even so, I am eager to see what your new efforts produce...

is it okay if I use this map in a D&D game I am running? I am not sure where I might use it yet, but like I said, I love the flow of it -- the streets and everything...

Phil

[Feralspirit]

Well, I was hoping to have an updated map to offer with this post. However, due to the previous post, circumstances warrant a timely response, and, as I have really only dropped in a handful of houses...

Phil, very considerate of you to track me back down and ask permission. Others may have simply absconded it and never mentioned it again. Since you have asked let me say a few words.

You will note at the bottom of jfrazier's posts (and others) a link to Creative Commons liscence. I have not figured out how to make that link a part of my signiture yet, nor did I think (having only my first map posted) it was necessary at this point. I think it's pretty basic, and since you've asked me I ask only that you respect the basic guidelines of it (the creative commons liscense), namely that the map you are using is for personal, non-commercial use, and, if asked, you agree to credit me where it is due (although at this point you could claim that the map you are using was a collaborative effort).

Ok, on a more personal note, your map is lovely. I am flattered that you wanted to make use of it, considering the wealth of fine maps available here and my status as a mere apprentice (I guess there is no accounting for taste ). I am also depressed, as you have gotten a completed map and I continue to plug away at mine . I am only slightly disappointed that you did not choose to use the map with the key (post #13 in this thread), but I suppose I can hardly blame you you for not muddling your way through this entire thread (which is extra long and murky), and you may have chosen not to use the posted key as a DM desiring to create one yourself. For your reference, the scale bar at top left was 200'. Cheers!

[philipstephen]

Phil, very considerate of you to track me back down and ask permission. Others may have simply absconded it and never mentioned it again. Since you have asked let me say a few words.

Ok, on a more personal note, your map is lovely. I am flattered that you wanted to make use of it, considering the wealth of fine maps available here and my status as a mere apprentice (I guess there is no accounting for taste ). I am also depressed, as you have gotten a completed map and I continue to plug away at mine . I am only slightly disappointed that you did not choose to use the map with the key (post #13 in this thread), but I suppose I can hardly blame you you for not muddling your way through this entire thread (which is extra long and murky), and you may have chosen not to use the posted key as a DM desiring to create one yourself. For your reference, the scale bar at top left was 200'. Cheers!

I am glad you liked what I did with your work. I had found the key, but was working with one of your larger files to have a good resolution to work with... here is in updated version with your key included in it.

In regards to the key, I was thinking of retyping the text with a glowing outline.

And I hope you are not too depressed about the work I did... I myself have no talent for visioning a working, creative, and believable layout for a city. I could get down on myself for not having those skills - but there seems to be many talented folks here (like yourself) who do have those skills.

I have been playing around with photoshop for a few years and reading online tutorials on how to work with layers and textures and I do not think it is a reflection on you and your talent that your efforts were slower... it is just a matter of familiarity and practice.

I see this is being your baby and creation - and I did not much more than add some colour and texture. Without the underlying structure of the town - it would not matter how nice the colours looked.

And I think it is important to get feedback from others too - the digital rendering you are doing may have more appeal to a wider crowd. I myself liked the hand drawn touch of your original map, and when I saw you were going for the digital route, decided I would like to see how it may look with a bit more flat but textured colour fills.

[philipstephen]

Oh yah... and i looked at your key and saw the dotted lines on your original sketch and guessed that the graveyard and horse stables and larger boxes in the northern part of your map are fenced or walled in fields - rather than solid buildings like I had coloured in for the first version i posted.

this latest version put different shades of green to represent what i hope are training grounds for horses and fields for farming.

Are the circular buildings wells?

[Gandwarf]

Wow, the latest version is looking very sweet!
I repped you both... Feralspirit for creating a very beautiful city with a great layout. And Philipstephen for adding such wonderful colors.

[ravells]

What a great double act! Rep to both of you!! Great work!

[philipstephen]

...unless Feral Spirit asks me to add any other bits...

but this is the copy with the letters and text retyped to give them a bit of a glow to separate them from the background and make them stand out a bit.

i am happy to change the font or text or textures if you would like FeralSpirit... or if you want me to add any more labels to this version...

i am also hoping you have fun with the other version you are creating and look forward to seeing it develop...

be well,

Phil

[Feralspirit]

Can anyone tell me where to find CSUAC? The last time I walked through jfrazierjr's tut on layer masks it was at his first reference to this material that I stopped to go hunting for it. I failed to find it. Now that I've been referred back to the tut I want to find it again.

Sorry, no update. I'll try to get one up tonight.

[jfrazierjr]

Can anyone tell me where to find CSUAC? The last time I walked through jfrazierjr's tut on layer masks it was at his first reference to this material that I stopped to go hunting for it. I failed to find it. Now that I've been referred back to the tut I want to find it again.

Sorry, no update. I'll try to get one up tonight.

http://gmsapprentice.com/

You can of course use any textures you can find that match what your trying to accomplish, I just happened to use those to make the "creek" since a few days(weeks?) before hand I was doodling and made a creek while playing with layer masks. The first attempts were rather atrocious, but by the end, I got it looking fairly ok.