Looking for tips to how to improve my map

[Leondias]

At the moment im doing a 4 player d&d campaign which have sent them deep into the underdark. through some really tough fights and searching for a particular object in the caverns in posession of the Drow they are soon entering what i would call the final segment of the adventure which will eventually culminate in a battle against a rather vicious opponent.

I have made the prototype of the map i want to use as an arena, and i would like some tips and suggestions in how i can improve my map.

This is the first map i have ever made so i hope i can get some good constructive criticism.

apart from changing the colors of the floor to something more fitting and putting in shadows i dont really know how i can properly expand on this map within what i can handle at the moment.

The floor tiles and altar i made myself and the pillars were supplied to me by my friend and i think they make it look quite good.

Looking forward to any help
-Leondias

[madcowchef]

As you mentioned already shadows are one of the best things to add to give a sense of depth. With your bevels consider using overlay for the highlight mode instead of screen, unless you wand the walls to look shiny. Making the walls look rougher to match the floor might help make the whole thing more cohesive, though I think the walls look fine as is really. Some grudge on the floors to make it look like the site of battles would be a quick fun way to dirty up the place as well. That advice aside I think its already looking good and going to add a lot to your gaming fun.

[jkat718]

Other than shadows and blur, which MCC already mentioned, I'd suggest making the altar slightly brighter. Right now, it's too dark to see any of the detail; it just looks like a black spot. If you were to use darker, but more saturated colors, it might evoke the "darkness" effect, while making the texture more visible.

[Leondias]

appreciate the responses. i am quite picky when it comes to how things look in my map. the walls does work though id prefer to have it a more brick wall texture, though i dont know exactly how i would go about doing that. shadows will be my biggest challenge i think as i havent really done anything like it (first time using photoshop 2 weeks ago so im still picking up the basics) the idea about getting rid of the shinyness is quite nice. generally i like dull surfaces with little shine.

The altar was originally planned to be a brazier of sorts with burning coals placed in the inner circle. i havent taken the opportunity to alter it to make it look better and i guess thats why it looks worse. originally i wanted a deeper and darker bowl for the coals to add to the burnt effect. though the changes you suggest jkat i will attempt, might look quite nice as a finished product.

My idea is that this is a temple. the top right room would be for them to store supplies for various rituals and similar things while the big room contains a shrine to a diety (in this case lolth) the altar serves as the site of sacrifice or rituals. generally i would also like it if you guys would know anything obvious that i have missed which would be in a main temple room.


All in all im quite satisfied with how it looks, some tweaking here and there. think with what you guys suggest this will serve as a pretty nice arena for their first major boss battle

[Chick]

I did some copyright-free firepits not too long ago. Go to my profile and look in my "Mapping Elements Free to Use" album, you might find one you like to fit right into your brazier.

[wdmartin]

That floor is rather clean for a hellacious den of evil with a massive sacrificial pit. I recommend dirtying it up. Something like this:

sacellum-lolth-dirty-floor.jpg

That was done in Photoshop, using the following procedure:

1) Opened the original map in Photoshop
2) Snagged a nice grunge map from cgtextures.com
3) Opened the grungemap
4) Used Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to make the grunge map black-and-white.
5) Pasted the grunge map on top of the original map as a new layer
6) Change the layer mode of the new layer to "multiply" and set its opacity to 67%
7) Added a layer mask and masked off the pillars, walls, and altar.

That adds a bit of variation across broader areas so that the floor tiles aren't always perfectly identical. In the original file you probably wouldn't even need to mask anything -- just put the grunge layer underneath the pillars etc.

[Leondias]

Thank you, very helpful. Im still learning photoshop so this is very useful it seems when dealing with any repeating texture to make it look less repedative. i guess it could do looking a bit more messy than the original. its only a prototype so it will still see some adjustments. will post the final version here when im able.

If anyone can think of any elements that should be in a place like this i would also like some tips on that. at the moment i have prepared some wall torches which i will place out in roll20 as i can assign a light setting to the torch itself.

[Midgardsormr]

Maybe spend some time thinking about the rituals that go on in this temple. Do all of the participants stand the entire time? If not, some benches or pews would be an appropriate addition. If there's some kind of burnt sacrifice going on, then you'll want some kind of preparation area and implements for it. If it's a live animal to be burnt, then there might be a cage. If it's customarily a humanoid captive, then there could be fetters attached to a wall. There will probably be a table.

Of course, since you've posted this in the VTT section, maybe you'll want many of those things to be tokens instead of being baked into the map.

You might also have some kind of religious symbol on the floor. It could be painted on or formed from differently-colored tiles.

[Leondias]

my original thoughts are that the temple itself is rather neat, primarily because Drow tend to be quite a tidy and neat race. adding a religious symbol to the floor is a good idea though, ill try to make something good looking.

Yeah generally i add various furniture, light fixtures and such afterwards as i can place them out much easier, also i can add a light value to all the light fixtures.