Lovecraftian Adventure - Farrow Mansion

[Hermit]

So I decided to go with the 75% opacity on the outside shadow layer. After messing with a few other options and testing out percentages between 50% and 75%, I liked that one the best. It is a *little* dark, but it shows some of the shadow variation I added to the ground and the border around the house without being too dark.

After that decision was made I started to shade the decks and stairs on the outside of the house. I had originally planned to use the flat-topped posts on the deck railing as full-height (going to the roof over the covered deck) and not shade them the same, or at all, compared to the rest of the railing. But when I did that, it stuck out so much that it took away from the look I wanted and distracted from the shading, so I ended up shading over the whole railing and the whole deck in the same tone. I think I've achieved the "dark and moody" feel that I was going for on the outside, but still have some details and variation to add. Any comments or critiques of the shadows/shading on the outside is welcome!

Then, with the outside *relatively* finished, I started to work on the shadows indoors. Since the outside became much darker I had to start over on the indoor shadows and darken them quite a bit. I am planning on adding a few more light sources in most of the rooms so that it is not entirely shadowed, but I am still going for a "gloomy" look on the interior. The shadow on the inside is the tone/level of darkness I think I want to start with and then add darker shadows around objects and light areas around candles and lanterns and such and I still need to figure out how to add the second floor balcony shadow around the front room.

As of right now, I do not plan on shading or adding shadow to the walls or the doors. Any opinions on that would be appreciated since I don't know if having those pieces at full brightness takes away from the darkness in the rest of the house.

[Hermit]

After starting on the 2nd floor I went back to look at the 1st for some dimensions and realized I had made a pretty significant error. I have an entire set of rooms on the 2nd floor being supported by nothing but an inaccessible, walled-in space on the 1st floor. So, I went back to the 1st floor and added a stable/carriage house with a small fungal farm to support the 2nd floor rooms (thanks to Neyjour for all of the rad fungi images ). I ended up shading this area pretty darkly since it is outside, not lit, and is also an interior space. Let me know what you think on the new part and if it comes across as a stable/carriage house at all lol.

Minor update to the design of the map. Because I had to build this new section, I noticed that the plain black lines demarcating what areas where inaccessible on the first floor looked very much out of place against the rest of the fairly realistic design. I used the same walls from the fireplace and some curved stone walls (both from Sockydm on Deviantart) to close off those areas. I darkened the stone walls quite a bit because I didn't want them to distract from the rest of the floor-plan, but still give a hard line of where the "outside" and "inside" began. Since these areas are inaccessible I figured the darkness helped to blend the walls in with the surrounding areas and separate them from the main structure.

I am now done with the 1st floor, except for indoor shading (which I may not do if I import this map into Roll20...still not sure).

Thanks for looking and any comments or critiques are welcome.

*Current List of Attributions*

- Bogie: all items not specified as contributed by others (includes: chairs, tables, couches, benches, plates, utensils, stove, hand baskets, crates, barrels, jars, jugs, teapots, chests, cups, trays, plates, coins, rugs, doors, the foot-boards below the doors, books, bookshelves, lanterns, statues, stage, preset workshop table), the carpet pattern and the cool grey & black diamond tiles

- Neyjour: all of the vases (except the one to the direct north of the double door), the mushrooms and fungi (from Deep Woods and Fantasy Fungi), the awesome grey tiles (a mod on Bogie's tiles) in the kitchen/storage area, trinkets and powder containers, and the shovels

- Tiana: woven baskets

- Lokistics: "tavern wall" set for stable/carriage house walls

- Sockydm: the stone texture/wall pieces used for the fireplace, tower, and cellar walls

- Ftourini: the blank paper texture/sheet of paper image (used for the background texture and separately throughout the house), the wood texture for the front deck steps

- DM142 (Devianart): a few bookshelves

- Borysses: wood patterns

- Ransie: wood patterns

- J Owen: wood pattern

- PB/Probono: candles, scrolls, and books

- Dundjinni Forums / Bogie's Cartographer's Guild thread for Mapping Elements: cabinets and a few bookshelves

- Edwin Pijpe (on FreeImages.com): some old book stock photos that were turned into png format

- Smithsonian Open Access Images: old newspaper images turned into png format

- RPG Mapshare: the rug on the top of the staircase, a few of the tables, the waste baskets, the couch/sofa in the dining room, a few of the books, the blank scrolls, the golden goblets, the wall tapestries, the glass and gold container in the lab, the potions, and whoever made this (https://rpgmapshare.com/piwigo/galle...28/category/38) which served as a starting point for the wooden walls which were based on a set of free "Tavern" walls from Lokistics over on deviantart.

[Tiana]

Nice, I'd been wondering if you had snuck any of my assets in there. You should still do the indoor shading, but keep it light, since you'll probably be using dynamics.

[Hermit]

There will probably be a few more of your assets in there, your comment made me remember you made some tools! (which I needed for the carriage house). I was waffling on whether or not to do the indoor shading because I am indeed planning on using dynamics. Although I am woefully inexperienced in how their system works, so I still need to play around with it to see exactly what it will do to my map. I'll see what kind of shading I can do that fits and try to keep it light, no promises

[Hermit]

Alrighty, enough of that dark, full of stuff 1st floor. The empty second floor approaches!

I am pretty happy with how the outside turned out and I think it is sufficiently dark to push it further away and give the indication that it is the 2nd floor. Oddly, my 1st and 2nd floor images are slightly different sizes so I had to mess with the copied layers quite a bit to make them fit. Opinions on the roofing/shadows would be greatly appreciated as this is my first attempt to do it in this way. I opted for non-directional/top-down lighting because I didn't know what I was doing, but if you think directional lighting would be better please let me know. I'm willing to put in the new shadows and go back to the 1st floor to add the shadows there as well.

The 2nd floor is much more fun, in my opinion, because there are a few hidden rooms, a secret passage, and lots of books!!! I will update again once I have the balcony railing and flooring in place.

*Attributions for New Stuff*

Vintyri Project - roofing tiles

Bogie - chimney

[Tiana]

There will probably be a few more of your assets in there, your comment made me remember you made some tools! (which I needed for the carriage house). I was waffling on whether or not to do the indoor shading because I am indeed planning on using dynamics. Although I am woefully inexperienced in how their system works

Yeah I don't know how it works either. Be sure to check the thread, I added some more toolsy things for you. Well, and other people, but I figured a couple of those assets I just posted might be useful to you in a carriage house so I made sure to post them.

[Hermit]

Thank you for posting the new assets! These are great and I already know where I can place some of them

[Hermit]

I am relatively happy with how the flooring looks, although it always looks better with furniture and rugs on top. I am interested in anyone's opinion on the "carpet" textures used in some of the rooms. I think that they come across as carpet, but I'm not sure if that's because I've been staring at it for so long.

I still need to place shadow on the staircase to push the lower steps to the 1st floor and add the doors/thresholds to finish up my "base layer" to then place the furniture. I am aware some of the rooms are blocked off by walls, these are "secret" or "hidden" rooms and will have a way to access them through levers, the ol' book trick, and some "painting doors."


I am also including an updated 1st floor image with some of the assets that Tiana posted (thank you!).

**Full list of Attributions for both 1st and 2nd floor**

- Neyjour: all of the vases (except the one to the direct north of the double door), the mushrooms and fungi (from Deep Woods and Fantasy Fungi), and the awesome grey tiles (a mod on Bogie's tiles) in the kitchen/storage area, trinkets and poweder containers, shovels

- Bogie: all items not specified as contributed by others (includes: chairs, tables, couches, benches, plates, utensils, stove, hand baskets, crates, barrels, jars, jugs, teapots, chests, cups, trays, plates, coins, rugs, doors, the foot-boards below the doors, books, bookshelves, lanterns, statues, stage, preset workshop table, chimney on the second floor, stairs on the second floor other than double staircase), the carpet pattern on the 1st floor and the cool grey & black diamond tiles

- Tiana: woven baskets, wood working tools, axe, wagon wheel, hammer, leather gloves, metal buckets, bristle brush, axe in stump, percolator/coffee pot, leather stool

- Greytale: green, Victorian-style sofa

- Lokistics: "tavern wall" set for stable/carriage house walls

- Sockydm: the stone texture/wall pieces used for the fireplace and towers

- Ftourini: the blank paper texture/sheet of paper image, the wood texture for the front deck steps

- DM142 (Devianart): a few bookshelves

- Vintyri Project: roofing tiles

- Borysses: wood patterns

- Ransie: wood patterns

- J Owen: wood pattern

- Waldkunst (Pixabay): tile pattern, modified to be seamless

- Birmingham Museum Trust: carpet pattern

- Engin Akyurt (Pixabay): carpet pattern

- PB/Probono: candles, scrolls, and books

- Dundjinni Forums / Bogie's Cartographer's Guild thread for Mapping Elements: cabinets and a few bookshelves

- Edwin Pijpe (on FreeImages.com): some old book stock photos that were turned into png format

- Smithsonian Open Access Images: old newspaper images

- RPG Mapshare: the rug on the top of the staircase / on the balcony, a few of the tables, the waste baskets, the couch/sofa in the dining room, a few of the books, the blank scrolls, the golden goblets, the wall tapestries, the glass and gold container in the lab, the potions, and whoever made this (https://rpgmapshare.com/piwigo/galle...28/category/38) which served as a starting point for the wooden walls which were based on a set of free "Tavern" walls from Lokistics over on deviantart.

[Bogie]

The map of the mansion is coming along great. Excellent choices of mapping elements. The second floor is shaping up well and will look even better when the furniture & stuff get added.

Interesting insider info on making elements.
Regarding: "Greytale: green, Victorian-style sofa" That sofa originally was a chair that I took a picture of in an antique store.
Greytale worked some photoshop magic by cutting and pasting bits of it back together to turn it into this cool sofa.
Original Chair = Chair-Arms5_bg.png Turned into a sofa = Sofa-Arms7_bg_gt.png

[Tiana]

Oh... good idea with the copy pasta on the chair.

The carpet looks like carpet to me. You haven't been overstraining, it registers as gaudy old carpet and not texture.

It's like one of those i spy games.