Shaded relief with 99.9% CC3

Hi folks,

After reading Patrice's excellent tutorial on his Valedale (www.patoumonde.com/Maps/Valedalewalkthrough.pdf) I came up with the following map.

The main tip I used from the tutorial is drawing rivers first, and the contour lines afterward.

Filling each contour line white and applying a drop shadow effect on each yielded a black and white picture with shadowed relief.

I used the Color to alpha function of the GIMP to get a mask where all the white was 100% transparent and the darker the grey level, the less transparent.

This picture was inserted on the CC3 map (alpha channel enabled) with an offset to follow the contours.

The map took me a full (to)day though using a tablet allowed me to draw the rivers and contours quickly with CC3's freehand function.

Hope you like it,

JdR

Comments

  • RalfRalf Administrator, ProFantasy 🖼️ 18 images Mapmaker
    Excellent work, Joachim, you've outdone yourself once more. :D
  • Simon RogersSimon Rogers Administrator, ProFantasy Traveler
  • I am not familiar with countour lines yet. You draw then by hand in CC3 or it have a tool to make it easier? Or you used another program?
  • Thanks for the very nice comments.

    @Mateus090985 : CC3 has a Freehand Sketch button (between the Line and Arc button) I used with the stylus of my Graphic Tablet. The Freehand Sketch resolution is highly dependent on the zoom level so I recommend always using the same zooming factor. When drawing gets incomfortable, it's time to split your contour, thus yielding mounts and passes. Each contour level is on it's own sheet.
  • I see. So you created a new sheet for each contour. In this way is a lot easier to erase/edit right? But drawing by hand is a dificult task for my humble artist "talent" =). Great work.
  • edited September 2011
    Posted By: Mateus090985In this way is a lot easier to erase/edit right?
    Yes it is, but the main reason was that each of those sheets has a Drop Shadow effect. All those 21 sheets/effects combine to yield the shadows.
    At that point the contours are all turned to white filled polygon (see result below).
    This is exported as a PNG that can be made partially transparent using GIMP's color->color to alpha tool. The result is than imported again in CC3, with the Alpha Channel option enabled.
    This step is essential for two reasons :
    - the Drop Shadow effect is not really a shading effect and is slightly off so you need to offset this mask.
    - a lot of effects heavily slow the rendering
    Posted By: Mateus090985drawing by hand is a dificult task for my humble artist "talent"
    Not really. You just have to follow the rivers as per Patrice Dumas's tutorial. Most of the credit must go to him. Thanks a lot, Patrice!
    If you don't own a Graphic Tablet, I think the Smooth Path tool could be used with a mouse. Don't forget the Node Edit button (under the dynamite Explode button).
    I really don't recommend fractals though, as you don't have enough control.

    Hope I'm clear enough...

    JdR
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