Effective edges

[Askren]

Can anybody offer any advice on techniques or best practices for joining together terrain edges, where one type of terrain meets another?

I'm not sure I follow, and the arrows in your picture in the second post don't quite explain much. What edges are you talking about? The edges of the water and the walls?

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert on the subject, but if you're interested in seeing some of my methods for building a map and how I work with textures, I'll be happy to go over it live on Skype or something.

[Forkbeard]

I'm not sure I follow, and the arrows in your picture in the second post don't quite explain much. What edges are you talking about? The edges of the water and the walls?

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert on the subject, but if you're interested in seeing some of my methods for building a map and how I work with textures, I'll be happy to go over it live on Skype or something.

Yes, it's any edge between differing terrain, which usually means a difference in contrast.

The edge between water and the dirt floor being an example, another being the edge between the cave wall and the shadow of the steps.

Thanks for the Skype offer, what's a good day/time?

[Askren]

Yes, it's any edge between differing terrain, which usually means a difference in contrast.

The edge between water and the dirt floor being an example, another being the edge between the cave wall and the shadow of the steps.

Thanks for the Skype offer, what's a good day/time?

Ah. Well, that's a rather complicated question, and one that can only really be answered once I know how much work you're looking to put into your maps. Every type of terrain is different, and water is one of the most complicated things you'll come across in realistic mapmaking, because it's just such a nebulous surface. When making a pool of water, the look might change based on the depth, the ground under it, the type of water, etc.

It's much easier to answer on a case-by-case basis, as there really is no one single trick to making everything look good.

I've been told my Skype is fairly hard to find, so leave a name and I'll try and get in touch.

[Torgaard]

For what it's worth, my techniques involve a few key things:

• Eraser - As mentioned above, I work my edges with an eraser in Photoshop. Frankly, I think I do more work on edges with an eraser on my maps than anything else. Grass, stone walls, shadows, you name it. Eraser. It's maybe not the best way, but it's fast (I typically only spend 1-3 hours on a map). Opacity is key with the eraser. For something like the edges of water, I'll set it very very low. Around 10%. Typically the smooth round brush with soft edges. A largish size too. I just hit the edge of the water with the edge of my large brush, which can make for some very nice, very smooth transitions from what appears to be water that's only an inch deep to water that's basically just...water (ie too deep to see the bottom).
• Layers - Of course layers is always a big deal, but I do things with the opacity of certain layers to help pull off some effects with water. Starting from the bottom layer going up, (Layer 1) is my earth texture, (Layer 2) is my water, and (Layer 3) is probably my grass (though sometimes I crop some muddy/rocky textures along the edges of the grass and the water to make it look like a steep muddy bank). You can also throw another layer in there that's either (a) just pure black, or (b) a duplicate of the water layer but with the brightness turned way down to make it really dark, and play around with opacities on your layers (and some more eraser) to make like the middle of the pond look deep and dark.
• Opacity - Even though I've mentioned it above for the eraser and the layers, it bears mentioning again. I work the opacity on layers and brushes constantly. That was a key breakthrough for me: when I started creating multiple layers for my textures (the ground, the grass, etc) and then working the opacities of those layers. And then working with the eraser on those layers, and working the opacity on the eraser. It goes round n' round!

I dunno, maybe not real helpful and probably not a great way to do some of this stuff, but that's my toolset: eraser, layers, opacity, some brush work.

[Fenris4024]

Yeah, opacity is king, and a soft edged brush can be used, but like you I prefer opacity. I think I need a graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity More toys!

Tablets make it soooo much easier in my opinion, and more natural. You can do it all with a mouse, but the pressure sensitivity makes it a LOT easier. If you can get one, then by all means do so!

[Farland]

I use the clone stamp tool. I select a section with no line and stamp over the line.

[Jaxilon]

In addition to the ideas above you might check out layer masks. You can blur the edge of the mask which will chill out the hard edges. If you don't know about masks there is a good tutorial here.

I also will use a smudge tool with a grungie type brush to push the edge around but you have to determine what will work best depending in the situation.