Mountaintop Battlemap

[Gamerprinter]

OK, nothing artistic here, just an experiment using Xara Xtreme 4.0 - two photos from cgtextures.com (rocky cliff-face and snowy ground) one on top of the other. A vector mask following contours in the rock to define areas of rock and snowfield. Then I added rounded vector shapes with a feathered edge, black solid fill and a linear transparency applied to simulate shadows.

Notice the implied gentle slope of snow from the lower area to upper. This helps create the illusion of higher elevation to the north.

This map is campaign setting agnostic other than being a snowy mountain top - could be used as a Colorado mountain pass at the wrong time of year for a western RPG, or an encounter area with a Frost Giant, or a crash location for a starship on an isolated moon!

This map is intended for VT use - 100 ppi, 2000 x 2000 pixel, 2.2 MB JPG

It took me about 20 minutes to create.

Like I said, nothing like my hand-drawn work, but for functional and photo realistic, it does the trick.

[Torq]

For functional and photorealistic it definately does the trick. Great for a VTT. I have already snagged it. Now its just a question of how to get my PCs off Torstan's wrecked boat and onto a snowy mountain in one session.

Looks very cool GP.

Torq

[Badger]

For functional and photorealistic it definately does the trick. Great for a VTT. I have already snagged it. Now its just a question of how to get my PCs off Torstan's wrecked boat and onto a snowy mountain in one session.

Looks very cool GP.

Torq

Evil Teleportation spell?

[Arkkeeper]

For functional and photorealistic it definately does the trick. Great for a VTT. I have already snagged it. Now its just a question of how to get my PCs off Torstan's wrecked boat and onto a snowy mountain in one session.

Looks very cool GP.

Torq

the wrecked ship is part of a ship graveyard outside of a craggly snowy Island in the arctic

[Gamerprinter]

OK, if that worked for you, how about a glacial crevasse (I'm stuck on this snow and ice thing, until I get a few more out...) - I might create a narrow mountain ledge near the ridgeline, and perhaps an ice cavern.

Next map for you...

[RPMiller]

I like these. There just isn't enough snow related maps out there. These would be really useful in an Exalted game that finds the players venturing in the northern areas. Do you have anything with scattering of trees as well?

[Redrobes]

I like these a lot.

A lot of my maps are basically masked CGTextures pics. It seems to be a quick way to get some realistic stuff.

[Gamerprinter]

Sure thing, RP - I was just creating a few "above the treeline" battlemaps, since I see so few of them available. I use my 3D conifer, duplicate a vector copy in white above it, put in some bevels, and see if it works as snow covered fir tree.

Maybe I should make a frozen creek map crossing as well.

[Gamerprinter]

How's this one, RP? Frozen creek along a small cliffside, surrounded by winter trees in snow.

WIP...

[RPMiller]

Not bad, three items to consider:

• The tree in the top right corner seems to be missing the layer effect of the snow.
• The beveling on the snow is a bit to hard especially for the trees where the wind effect would shake the snow down and smooth it out more.
• Your elevation layers aren't as connected to each other like I've seen in your previous maps.

That said, this really has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to seeing it get massaged a bit.

For the snow, I think a feathered edge is a must and I would use a softer bevel followed by a blur or two to soften it a bit more and attach it to what it is laying on.