Bevel and Photoshop
I would like to make some maps based on a pre-established style, like on this map (dark sun style) : http://darksun.dungeons.ru/files/ima...0Unlabeled.jpg.
I tried to duplicate this style with CC3, but it is not the right tool for it, so I shifted to Photoshop - I just acquired it, so I don't have much experience with it.
I face two problems : the separation between adjacent buildings on the same level - it seems to be done with the bevel and emboss tool, but I don't manage to do it - and the superposing shadows of higher buildings.
Any idea ?
I found part of the answer for the adjacent buildings thanks to the excellent tutorial of Ascension http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...1&d=1234356160.
I'll try to play with drop shadow and layers to get proper shading for the high and low buildings.
If you place your building on different layers in photoshop - you can assign different values to the effects on the building. So one layer may have a bigger value for drop shadow, translating to a higher building. If you wanna get a really nice result you can take a copy of the "high-building-layer" and make a shorter shadow for those building whose shadow hits lower buildings indstead of the street. Here using masks can be good to erase unwanted shadows on both layers.
regs tilt
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You need to be careful though, it's very easy for dropshadow effects to give your buildings the appearance that they are floating. And be doubly careful if the shadow falls across things that have different heights
My finished maps
"...sometimes the most efficient way to make something look drawn by hand is to simply draw it by hand..."
Concerning the shadows, has someone found a way to make real cast shadows with PS ? (without the need to copy-paste the drop shadows and to decale them pixel by pixel...)
I've tried everything with the lighting effects filter but can never get a shadow more than five pixels or so and that just does not work if you want buildings to be variable heights. So we have to do it the hard way.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
The problem with photoshop is that its not 3D, so everything is flat and casts the same shadows on all layers below. So my "trick" with extra layers with different shadow settings would be the not-very-easy way to do it
regs tilt
:: My DnD page Encounter Depot free stuff for your game :: My work page Catapult ::
:: Finished Maps :: Competion maps - The Island of Dr. Rorshach ::
:: FREE Tiles - Compasses :: Other Taking a commision - Copyright & Creative Commons ::
Works under CC licence unless mentioned otherwise
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