Round, varied height roofs - (Mapping my Temple/council building/grounds)

[Jalyha]

Now, boys, you're both pretty.

I think that the 3D rendering is a great tool, and I'll use it, eagerly, once I have enough *base skills* to do so. For now, I'm like a toddler, taking baby steps, and I think the shadow method here will work better for my first attempt... and if it's enough, I'll probably stick with it for this map.

But I can see how beneficial the 3D render would be for any project - especially tricky temples - and I'm really glad to hear both methods, because I will need them at some point.

[Gamerprinter]

The beauty of 3D is that it is only slightly more difficult to create this as opposed to a building - I've got about 2 hours in creating this angler deep sea fish. The right 3D program can be great for organic forms. Its properly aligning the texture or 'skin' on a 3D object that is a pain. Its fine if the object is a sphere, cylinder, box or flat surface, but when the object shape is complex texturing is a not easy to do. Lately, I've been creating 3D objects rendered gray, then apply the textures in Xara in 2D, but faking it to look right.

Note both the teeth and the fins have partial transparency applied.

angler.jpg

[Ilanthar]

Sorry, I realize that my last post was seriously lacking of good explanations ... guess I had not had my coffee yet.

I found the Xach effect in GIMP with "Filter" -> "Lights & Shadows" -> "Xach effect". It's a fu script apparently which manage both light & shadow effects in different layers. You only have to give some tests with the parameters.

[Gamerprinter]

The two bridges and the towers in this mining map I did in the Finished Maps forum used 3D to create the shadows. Linkee here - Dhur Naal Dwarven Mining Complex.

[Jalyha]

Oh I like that xach effect on top of the domes


@ GP - I'd love to be able to do that. Hopefully I'll be able to afford the software soon (or figure out the free version, lol)

[Jalyha]

Okay I'm having some issues with the smaller domes...

Before:

temple roof.jpg


And after adding the smaller dome-like things...

temple roof 2.jpg


I think it's a problem with the settings for my bump map, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to play around with them a bit

[Gamerprinter]

It doesn't appear as if you've used as much of a bevel on the smaller domes as you have done on your first ones. They look flat, rather than rounded.

[Jalyha]

Aye.. when I used any more/less they turned completely black (or flat) it was weird. Is it one of the shape settings, maybe?

[Cunning Cartographer]

You probably need to soften the shadow/line or something, but maybe take a screenshot of your emboss settings and copy them here. In Photoshop you are able to to copy a layer style then paste it onto another so it matches the settings, might be worth trying that out (not sure if GIMP has the same settings).

[Jalyha]

Hmmm maybe I should screenshot everything so people can tell me where I mess up

I think I shall...