Meyhovic House - Because Everyone Needs a Haunted House Now or Then

[Skaryn]

I'm only a day old here, honored to be welcomed into this great forum, and afraid of making a social gaff. Please give me some guidance.

I see many threads in which cartographers share their work as it develops, soliciting and receiving meaningful feedback along the way. In these threads, we all benefit from the chance to watch the creative process in action.

Would folks be interested in an after-the-fact version of this evolution? I could post images of the stages through which I developed the Mehovic House map. I saved dozens of these stages, from initial drawings to final polish. I think I can present a clear sequence revealing my objectives, successes, and failures at each stage, if such a presentation seems desirable. It would, however, lack the real-time feel that makes the other threads I'm reviewing so exciting.

What do you think?

Let me think about this... Heck yeah! I think the sharing of processes helps the community overall. As you mentioned, the individual styling , usage of tools, and final render are unique to the cartographer, so sharing the process would be slick . Maybe you could make it into a tutorial

[Ashenvale]

Okay, cool! Where's the right place to post it? In the Building/Structure forum? Is there a particular location or format for WIP threads?

[Alfar]

When posting, you can select an icon for your post. One of them is WIP. Building/Structure forum is the right place, I think.

Another thing you could consider is write a tutorial for (or guide to) your style of work - there's a Tutorials section for those.

[RobA]

Welcome Ashenvale!

I am happy you are willing to participate in the community, as your portfolio demonstrates a clean style and keen eye for detail.

I particularly like the way you are displaying your larger maps in sections on the web site. What software do you use to manage that?

-Rob A>

[Ashenvale]

Thanks, Rob!

I do all of my website building in Dreamweaver CS4 and Photoshop CS2. To build the zoom-in function into the main image, I splice up the image in Photoshop and then switch over to Image Ready (Photoshop's dual program) where I can save optimized for the web with slices intact. Then I open the html file the optimized save creates in Dreamweaver, copy out the table containing the slices, and drop it into a seperate Dreamweaver file in which I'm building the actual page for the website. Pretty simple once I figured it out.

I'm competent with Photoshop but something of a hack with Dreamweaver. I learn only what I need to know to make the pages I want. I just rebuilt my fine art website from scratch because my older version wasn't professional enough. I spent all of last month learning about Cascading Style Sheets, transparent PNG files, and all sorts of new Dreamweaver functions I didn't use building my fantasy/cartography site.

[Ashenvale]

I've gone halfway back through my files, flattening images and shrinking them to scale. I need to decide whether to explain things overall, in exacting detail, or somehwere in between. I hope to start posting images in a new historical WIP thread soon. Thanks everyone for the encouragement!

[Aegeri]

This is such a gorgeous map!

[cyderak]

Does anyone know if there is a high definition version of this map?

Here's my first map post as a new member. Please tell me what you love and hate!

I created this country manor ground-floor map in Photoshop for a one-session D&D adventure (with a strong Call of Cthulhu bent) that I wrote called "True Malice." It has almost seen publication twice. (I hate the word "almost".) As an RPG supplement, I designed each room after I'd written the encounter for each. Every room has one or more clues through which the players can unravel the arc of a horror mystery driving the adventure. With respect to the map's visual presentation, I focused on compelling light conditions. I wanted the map to remain dark overall, suggesting a house long abandoned by the living. Simultaneously, however, with isolated sparkles and pools of light, I hoped to present a full range of color that both suggests something terrible lingers here on the edge of life, and, from a purely artistic standpoint, supports the overall composition's rhythm and movement. I strove to make the image at once beautiful . . . and scary. I kept the word "haunting" at the front of my mind from the beginning to the end of the creation process.

The image I've posted here can't begin to reveal the details the original map contains. My website, however, has close-ups of all Meyhovic House rooms. Please, please, PLEASE check them out there! CLICK HERE to go to this map's webpage, and then click anywhere on the main map image. That will pull up a detail page showing the specific room on which you clicked. Then use the next and previous arrows at the top to scroll through the details, taking a tour of the ground floor of the manor. My hope is that you feel like you're inside each room -- and you're unsettled by the experience.

The big questions about the finished map (whose answers will greatly assist my second floor cartography project!): Do the walls confuse you? Are light conditions overdone? Is the excess of detail too distracting? Do you too wish your home looked like this? No . . . wait . . . that's a personal question for me and my therapist.

[Staticelf]

This is amazing. This is perfect for a Shadowrun tabletop mission much like the mansion in Shadowrun Dragonfall.

[Rhalar]

I am completely floored by this map. Truly amazing, I only regret that I cannot access the web page that I can only assume had the second floor and details. If anyone knows the OP I would really like to see the rest of the manor