A tactical map commission

[Gamerprinter]

Recall my Edara commission project?

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2251

Well this the first of a year's worth of tactical maps, 1 per week. A mountain hollow with an "enchanted" lake, surrounded by bushes of white berries and red flowers, an important harvested plant in this campaign world (?)

Anyway, thought I'd post it.

I am also currently working on a regional map - the south western portion of the Edara continent map (linked above) from the coast into the southern reaches of the mountain range there. This is lake is located someplace there.

I am also working on a continental map of the Underdark reaches of Edara.

(Oh, and I just picked up my first sci-fi map gig, different client)

GP

[Natzapo]

This looks nice I like the bushes, but was wondering, are the lighter ones towards the lake meant to be reflections, or is there fog or something? ^_^

[Ghostman]

Can't be reflections since they don't correspond to the size and placement of the darker ones. And there seems to be a greenish haze over the grass on the banks of the lake, so I guess it's indeed fog. What bothers me about this picture is the big rock (?) on the right-hand shore of the lake, it's oddly sticking out compared to the other, more natural looking rocks around.

I love the vegetation on the surrounding hillsides. It's very life-like and natural looking.

[Steel General]

Nice work GP!

I think the lighter colored bushes, may be partially underwater? Also, I agree with Ghostman that one rock does look 'out of place', almost like its floating above the terrain rather thazn a part of it.

I love your use of what appears to be 'photographic' elements for the trees and other terrain.

[Gamerprinter]

Sorry, forgot to mention, the client wanted me to put some effect to give the lake a "glow" as if by enchantment. I am not happy with the result but what makes some of the bushes look like reflections or being underwater is this "glow attempt."

The rock was an afterthought and not well developed, but I was kind of rushed on this particular map, while having a busy work week. I was crunched for time, but had to get that map done by yesterday.

GP

[Gamerprinter]

The client also needed some 75 pixel square goblins. Due to my great lack of time, I could only create two... here they are!

GP

[torstan]

I think the lake glows very nicely actually. I'd suggest shrinking the path texture a little as the cracks look a bit large for the map. Otherwise, nice map!

[A. Smith]

On question on the trees: How did you do the texture? Black-and-white Plasma and bump maps?

[Gamerprinter]

On question on the trees: How did you do the texture? Black-and-white Plasma and bump maps?

Essentially, that is exactly it. However, I use Xara Xtreme 4.0 rather than GIMP or Photoshop, which is a hybrid raster/vector application.

First I create a "mouse-drawn" forest shape and fill it with a properly scaled photo texture map of a real forest. Using the transparency tool, instead of a plasma, I use a Fractal Clouds filter, which very levels of transparency in a natural way to the forest shape. Using the transparency profile, I increase the contrast between transitions in transparency to help define the start and end of regions of forest. Finally I apply a heavy edge feather on the entire shape. All done in Xara Xtreme, though I'd say "texture and plasma filter" pretty much is the same thing you'd do in a raster app to get similar results.

I pretty much began experimenting with the transparency tool for this type of results only a few months ago. But I love it and use it extensively - I applied this technique to the mountains surrounding the forest as well.

GP