Aug/Sep Lite Entry - Well of the Golden Maiden

[Greason Wolfe]

Okay, so I'll try to answer everything in some sort of convoluted order

Achieving the Effect
Basically, all I did was set all the surface colors in Terragen to white, cleared the sky of all clouds, left the Terrain Casts Shadows box checked and let it go into render mode. To better define the shore line, I added a distribution mask for the shore line only and set the color to black. The short of it is, the dark areas are nothing more than the shadows created by ridges and valleys between elevation points. If I had rendered both the previous image and a colorized version of it from the same camera angle, the dark areas of the black and white version would correspond to the shading in the colorized version. Waldonrate would probably be better equipped to say whether or not the same effect could be achieved in Wilbur, but I would imagine it might be possible. It can certainly be done in FTPro to an extent by setting land and sea colors to white then playing with the Intensity settings for shading.

Camera Angle Issue
It is possible that the camera angle is an issue. It was set at an angle of about 4 degrees from top dead center which would, in fact, make areas further away from the target point appear more isometric. I didn't have time to run another render last night, but may try again today at an angle somewhere around 45 degrees off of top dead center and see what happens. Another possibility is that the area in question just doesn't have enough roughness (or variation) to create more significant shadowing.

Useful for Something
It is, however, unquestionably useful for something. I'll experiment a bit more, particularly where the mountains are concerned. Perhaps make a flat terrain, then build isolated mountains, erode them and then render from a distance that will allow me to cut them out and use them as tubes/brushes/tiles for my older version of PSP. One of the things I've always thought Terragen might be extremely useful for is creating textures, particularly since I can render them at fairly large sized and avoid tiling issues over in PSP or GIMP. Rather than having several rows/columns of "grass" or "forest" tiles, I can render them as one large tile and then mask it out as a single layer.

In the meantime, it's back to work on the map, and I'll continue this little experiment as a side project of sorts as I have time. Thanks for the feedback though, it was/is definitely helpful.

GW

[Ascension]

I'll have to dig out my old Terragen and give this a whirl, thanks man.

[Greason Wolfe]

Ah, well, if you're gonna give it a whirl, I suppose I should be a bit more precise about the technique, yes? With that in mind, I'll try my best to write up a quick tutorial and post it in the tutorials section, but it is likely to take me a day or two as I'm already tied up for the night, applying this technique again from a variety of angles to see what the differences are. Speaking of which, here is the first "new" render from an angle of 30 degrees, the target location being dead center of the terrain file (indicated by the red dot).

Edit : Okay, here is the second version. Target position is still the same and the camera is still at the same X and Y point, but the Z point has been raised to achieve a 45 degree angle. Of the two, I am leaning towards the 30 degree view as it seems to show the elevations a bit better. However, the 45 degree view seems to show more of the land, so I'm gonna try one more render at the mid-way point between the two and hope that it actually turns out as a happy medium.

GW

[Ascension]

Ooo, now overlay that on some parchment and it'll be way cool.

[Greason Wolfe]

Ooo, now overlay that on some parchment and it'll be way cool.

That has become my ultimate goal now. Once I've settled on the camera angle, I'll start re-working things to get the main focus of the map where I want it, which will call for some terrain shifting. And then it'll be a matter of laying in the extra features. I've got a pretty good idea how I'm gonna go about that. Basically I'll follow the same process I did with the shore and river definitions. Nice black outline for the forests with some mid-tone grey interiors to "add depth." Some grasslands, maybe a swamp or two and then some buildings (although I won't actually build those into the terrain file, I'll just mask them in the same way I'm gonna mask everything else in.). I'm even thinking of a way I might be able to really show off the sandy beaches since this is a relatively small area After that, a little post editing to place it on some parchment, place the parchment on a table and then add in the labels, the "gold" connection and a few other embellishments.

GW

P.S. And to think, I haven't pulled out much hair with this one, it's actually coming along well, IMHO.

[Greason Wolfe]

Alright, here's the third render between the two posted above. Taken at an angle of 37.5 degrees, I'm thinking that this is probably the route I'll go. It shows most of the land mass, but still offers enough of an isometric type of view as to see the elevations. I'll have to see if I can sharpen up the high points of the elevations and, as I mentioned, I'll likely be doing some land shifting so that I can center the key points of the map.

GW

### Latest WIP ###

[Coyotemax]

That is freaking gorgeous. I love the way it's coming along!!

[Greason Wolfe]

That is freaking gorgeous. I love the way it's coming along!!

Oh, I'm having a ball with this one. It has, by and far, been the least frustrating map I've worked on in a long time. The technique is almost falling into place without any forcing on my part. Just a few minor tweaks here and there for the most part. Of course, I haven't started placing any other major features yet, so there's still plenty of opportunity for a snag to rear it's ugly head. Just gonna keep my fingers crossed and keep chugging along.

GW

[Greason Wolfe]

Ugh! There are just to many shades of grey to get a good transparency out of this when trying to set it on parchment. And, unfortunately, I can't find a way to get Terragen to settle down in that department without going to an extreme lighting angle that pretty much ruins the effect I'm shooting for. To that end, I'm open to suggestions, though I'm thinking that there is going to be some major adjustment layer editing to get things working properly.

In any event, I did get the land form moved a bit to better centralize the important parts of the map. This created changes in the shoreline and forced me to run back through the Precipitation and Incise Flow cycles. I'm not sure that they turned out quite as good as they did with the first version. Fortunately, I still have that available if I have to go back to it.

The other big change was to change the camera angle, pushing it back up to 60 degrees. While it cuts back some on the apparent elevations, it shows so much more land mass and, in the long run, will allow other features to show up better in the final version of the map.

GW

### Latest WIP ###

[Ascension]

I'd go ahead and make your parchment layer and then set this on top then change the blend mode to multiply. In theory, multiply only works with darker colors so the lighter ones will show the parchment with no problems.