Map for Call of Cthulhu game
I saw a couple of floorplans in some older mission sourcebooks for Call of Cthulhu and wanted to emulate it as much as possible. I am doing a 1920's campaign so I wanted it to look a little old fashioned, hence the black and white. It is based on the lighted dungeon template so that the shadows fall the right direction and it gives the rooms a little more texture as there are small, subtle shadows towards the corners of the rooms. The one thing I wasn't as happy with was how the stairs look. With everything else looking fairly well textured the stairs seem flat to me. Any suggestions?
I used the Sepia setting under the RGB Matrix effect and it worked very nicely. Because I didn't want a background of solid black (never seems to print well) I put in a couple of light sources outside the walls to light things slightly and cast some shadows off the corners of the building. There was some odd effects with the light sources associated with doors and windows so I just made a new sheet called Window Block, made sure that things on it blocked the light sources and was below the Wall sheet so it would disappear, and drew a simple line across the openings. Took care of things nicely. The symbols are a mixture of DD3 symbols and SS3 Modern symbols. They all came out nice looking with the effects turned on.
Anyway, let me know what you all think! It was a fun learning experience but I hope my next map goes a little faster!
Nick
I used the Sepia setting under the RGB Matrix effect and it worked very nicely. Because I didn't want a background of solid black (never seems to print well) I put in a couple of light sources outside the walls to light things slightly and cast some shadows off the corners of the building. There was some odd effects with the light sources associated with doors and windows so I just made a new sheet called Window Block, made sure that things on it blocked the light sources and was below the Wall sheet so it would disappear, and drew a simple line across the openings. Took care of things nicely. The symbols are a mixture of DD3 symbols and SS3 Modern symbols. They all came out nice looking with the effects turned on.
Anyway, let me know what you all think! It was a fun learning experience but I hope my next map goes a little faster!
Nick
Comments
IMHO, the problem with the flat looking stairs derives at least partially from the symbol sitting directly on the background texture. There is no hint at a stairwell whatsoever. So drawing a round or rectangular hole in the floor might improve it.
There's also something off about the shadows in the room with the stairs: There is a shadow extending up from the corridor that comes in from the bottom, but there doesn't appear to be anything to cast that shadow line.
But I wouldn't have noticed any of this if you hadn't pointed out the stairs. It's a great map.
Steve
Gerard
Thanks for all the input everyone!