Road Battlemap

[egdcltd]

Here's the part with the trees with them moved slightly, the drop shadow tweaked and the grid put below them.
shadowtest.jpg

[Mouse]

Wow - that's really made them pop

You must be getting fed up with people telling you to tweak this or that, but I really think you've made huge improvements with this map from the way it was when you started out.

I only have one nitpick (and it is only a tiny one). Maybe not quite so sharp on the shadows? But then, that is only a matter of taste. I think you are so close to perfect with them that now I'm just being overly fussy! LOL!

[egdcltd]

You must be getting fed up with people telling you to tweak this or that, but I really think you've made huge improvements with this map from the way it was when you started out. LOL!

Heck, no, I've posted wanting feedback. Here are the trees again; the one in the top right has a fuzzier shadow (5px compared to 0 on the rest).

shadowtest2.jpg

[Mouse]

That certainly looks more like the dappled shade you might get under a tree

But again - I stress that at this stage little tweaks like this really are a matter of personal taste in the end.

[egdcltd]

I have no real problem with tweaking. Stopping tweaking - now, that can be a problem! (After all, there are now mushrooms under the trees - because I found some images - and a couple of other tiny things on the map.)

[Mouse]

I hope the people who use your map appreciate all the very hard work you have put into it

Are you adding any more main elements?

[egdcltd]

Well, it's kind of fun and relaxes the mind a bit.

I'm thinking about maybe some more bushes on the right and maybe something in the bottom left. A rock, a stump, or something else. And possibly change the patchy grass at the side of the track.

[jfrazierjr]

Consider putting a bit of shadowing and highlights on the rocks..or technically on a layer above set to overlay...make those boulders really pop out as ed objects

[egdcltd]

Consider putting a bit of shadowing and highlights on the rocks..or technically on a layer above set to overlay...make those boulders really pop out as ed objects

I did actually have highlights and shadows on the rocks - looks like those layers got removed when I altered how the slope was shaded! I'll have to re-add them. Thanks for noticing - I thought they were still there!

@wdmartin - I did move the grid after you posted, and the trees so that they covered more of it, but yes, it's still not obvious. I had thought about increasing the size of the lines, but I have to say I think your way looks better than having thick black lines on the map. Thanks, I'll give it a try!

[wdmartin]

Now that I look closely, the grid is indeed under the trees, but it's a bit hard to tell. It's so sharp. May I suggest a slightly blurred grid? Here's an example. NOTE: all the following images are 500x500px. For best effect, click through to the full size version.

We start with a bit of grass with a grid on it.

sample-grid-01.jpg

The grid here is 100x100px to the five foot square, and the grid lines are 3px wide. They are much too dark, and much to sharply defined. They dominate the rest of the image.

Here's a version with the grid toned down:

sample-grid-02.jpg

I did this with the following steps:

1) Used Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur on the grid (3 px radius).
2) Changed the layer blend mode to Multiply.
3) Set the layer Fill to 75%.

That's a bit more subtle, but honestly, I don't much like a dark black grid on a bright background. Let's try it with a white grid instead:

sample-grid-03.jpg

I inverted the grid color, changed the blend mode to overlay, and punched the Fill back up to 100%. Better.

Buuut maybe a bit TOO subtle. Players need to be able to clearly differentiate between squares after all. This might not have quite the contrast we're looking for. Let's make a sharper line at the center of each grid line:

sample-grid-04.jpg

To do this, I added a second grid layer. This one was NOT blurred -- it has the same original 3px width, only it's white and I set the layer Opacity to 30% with a Normal blend mode. The added definition to the center of the line makes it a bit clearer.

Sadly, it also makes the edges of the map kind of glow in an odd-looking way. Here's a version with that corrected:

sample-grid-05.jpg

I added masks to the blurred grid and the regular grid layer, and just masked out the edges. It's not a super-careful masking job -- you can see some of the lines "spread" a bit as they hit the edge of the image -- but it gets the idea across.

Overall, this is a pretty strong grid. I might tone it back a bit, but a lot depends on how the grid's visual properties interact with the other things in the image. If we give the eye something besides the grid to focus on, it will seem to "fade" a bit even though the actual pixels haven't changed. Thus:

sample-grid-06.jpg

Ahhhh. All that's left is to take a nice long nap under that tree.

EDIT: Oh, and I suppose it's worth mentioning that you don't have to use solid black or solid white for your grid lines. For example, in a night scene it might make more sense to start with a dark blue. You can vary the color of the grid lines to suit the overall tonal balance of the rest of the image.