[Award Winner] Battlemaps in Photoshop

[Pmumble]

Thank you for posting this, Madcow. It helped me so much. I just finished making my first map ever thanks to your tutorial.

The map that I'm making doesn't really match the tutorial so I removed it, but this is a great head start.

[madcowchef]

Great! I tend to follow the techniques suggested in tutorials without giving much mind to other suggests myself so I can relate.

[Pmumble]

It wasn't so much that as much as a dire urgency. I needed a campaign map ready for a game right away and I turned to your tutorial to learn how, even though it's a post-apocalyptic office building. Most of the techniques I've used I got from your tutorial and slightly modified (I turned your pebble brush into a blood drop brush and a broken glass brush). But then I started doing some things that weren't in the tutorial (vector shapes, blurred the bottom level) so I wasn't sure if I should post it and derail the thread.

.. and then my game was canceled so I still have a week to work on the maps so they're still in progress. There are 36 total floors to explore, but I'm only making 6 total. Such a long way to go, but so thankful for all the help here so I can slowly learn.

Here's level 8 of the left tower so far (exported at half the res). My lighting sucks, still trying to figure out how to do that well. I'm just a beginner at artistry and photoshop so it's slow going. I haven't found a ton of toppled office building tables/chairs so still pretty empty inside.

Eannatum's-Hold-Level-A8-100px.jpg

[madcowchef]

Excellent use of things! I don't think anything related to battlemaps or the tutorial can be off topic. I love the little tutorial wdmartin posted on page two and have adopted it to several other things since.

[woekan]

city wall.jpg

Hey Madcowchef! Here is my result using your tutorial! Any tips?

[madcowchef]

Looks great! A little darkening near the base of your cliffs wouldn't go astray. I think the blending you did with the rocks looks a really great on the right side and the left would look better with the same blending. triangular shadows next to the crenelations (on top of the wall) will help show their height over the wall, though the shadows on the sand already give that information. The more important part is that you did great digesting the techniques so you can use them for your own nefarious ends.

[woekan]

Thanks for the tips! Ah yea i missed the triangles at the sides of the wall thingies!

[captaindm]

Been a long-time user of Dundjinni and I was sick of not being able to do everything I wanted on my maps. Finally got Photoshop, and it's not super user-friendly, imo. This tutorial, though, is so awesome and I feel like I now have a lot of little techniques under my belt to help with map making. So, thanks so much for taking the time to put this together!

Here's what I was FINALLY able to finish.
battlemap tutorial.png

[madcowchef]

Nicely done! Photoshop was made by an alien race who studied human only from afar before making it. Hope the ability to produce your own encounter maps adds to your gaming fun.

[Falco4077]

Any chance you have a PDF version of the tutorial you made to start this thread? I just find it easier to use a PDF file then try to read it all on here. Just a thought.