creating a map with caves and outer terrain

Hi,

so I'm totally lost here and couldn't find an adequate tutorial.
I want to create a dungeon map with inner and outer terrain. The map is located at the edge of a mountain, so it includes partial grass that passed over to a mountain. In that mountain I want to have a natural cave with a little pond and an entrance to man-built floors and rooms.

I only found tutorials for complete outer dungeon maps with houses and tutorials for complete inner dungeons.

I am using the basic cc3+, so also the basics of the dungeon designer.

Maybe someone here knows a good tutorial for my case

Comments

  • seycyrusseycyrus Traveler
    I have seen (and worked) on some maps that are similar to what you describe, but I don't think there is a separate tutorial out there.

    What about this situation makes it different enough that a specific tutorial video would be more beneficial than the other videos available?

    What special problems are you having, or do you anticipate?
  • Make a map of the outside, with a grass or green color.

    On one side of that, draw a mountain area using a brown color or bitmap fill.

    Then use the dungeon tools to draw the dungeon.

    Sheets are important here.

    top of the sheet list
    Background sheet could have the grass/green color.
    Mountain sheet has the brown color/bitmap fill
    Dungeon sheet has the corridors and rooms.
    Symbol sheet has any symbols you are using.
    Text sheet has information and room numbers.

    bottom of sheet list.
  • DaltonSpenceDaltonSpence Mapmaker
    edited May 2020
    Posted By: sickfriedI want to create a dungeon map with inner and outer terrain. The map is located at the edge of a mountain, so it includes partial grass that passed over to a mountain. In that mountain I want to have a natural cave with a little pond and an entrance to man-built floors and rooms.
    By “inner and outer terrain” do you mean you want two types of maps, one showing the surface features and another showing the ones underground? Will there be outside structures near the mountain's edge that have "dungeons" connected to the "caves" in it? If so you should use a different map for each cave/dungeon level and one for the surface. This is where the last dialog of the new map wizard comes into play. (Trying to put it all on one map may not be the best idea.) The MOUNTAIN sheet should be copied onto every map and have a grey/stone bitmap fill and while BACKGROUND sheet of the surface maps can have green/grass fills the levels underground should have a brown/dirt one.
  • the outer terrain shall only consist of some trees.

    Basically I want to make something like this: https://www.profantasy.com/products/ss4/ss4_slide1.jpg
    I tried to draw a cave and then cut the floors, rooms and natural caves out with multipoly, but that didn't work really well, even when using the trace tool.

    My biggest problems is to create the entrance of the cave, but by now I'm not sure if I have the right approach, maybe ich should just create the interior of the mountain and afterwards draw the mountain around it.

    @DaltonSpence: Later on I will need more than one level, the cave interior as at the same level as the outer terrain at the beginning.

    Oh and btw, I don't have a MOUNTAIN-Sheet by default, should it exist by default or do I create it?
  • DaltonSpenceDaltonSpence Mapmaker
    edited June 2020
    It’s ironic you used this illustration as an example because Symbol Set 4 - Dungeons of Schley (SS4) has an excellent “Mapping Guide” that steps you through the whole process of creating exactly that kind of map. Since I don’t want to get ProFantasy mad at me I won’t quote it but I do suggest getting that add-on because it is well worth the price (and no, I don’t work for the company, I just like it ;) ).
  • haha okay :D
    well then I might just buy it if my bank account says yes
    will I need the DD3 for that?
  • DaltonSpenceDaltonSpence Mapmaker
    edited June 2020
    According to the “Mapping Guide” and the features page no but it will definitely help.
  • so I now got the map nearly as I want it to look like
    You can see my biggest problem in the attached picture: most of my dark grey mountain (on the MOUNTAIN sheet) has some sort of black pixels all over it while some part doesn't have it.
    By testing, I found out that the black pixels are everywhere where under the mountain I have a slighty lighter grey terrain that lies on the OUTSIDE sheet.
    The OUTSIDE sheet is beneath the MOUNTAINS sheet, so normally it shouldn't affect it, but when I turn it off (the whole sheet, not the sheet effect), I don't have any black pixels on the mountain anymore.
    When I activate the bevel effect on my MOUNTAINS sheet, it only appears where the black pixels are.
    Any ideas?
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    This is due to how effects processing works. To find the edges of the entities on the sheet, it compares the pixels of the rendered image for all sheets up to and including this one, with the rendered image for all sheets up to and including the below one. If pixels are different, it assumes this is a new contribution, but if the pixels are the same, it assume that this sheet didn't contribute anything. And where these two cases meet, you have an edge. The downside of this method is that there can be false positives where the colors of the pixles match up exactly. The best way to deal with this is to sandwich a sheet in between with an entity using a solid color guaranteed to not be in either of the two sheets, like pink. Generally, just create a copy of the entities from the topmost sheet, and apply the same effects to it.
  • wow that was incredibly easy, thanks a lot! :)
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